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Miscellaneous warnings: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- == The copyright year in the IETF Trust and authors Copyright Line does not match the current year -- The document date (November 13, 2009) is 4571 days in the past. Is this intentional? Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 821 (Obsoleted by RFC 2821) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 1869 (Obsoleted by RFC 2821) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 2821 (Obsoleted by RFC 5321) Summary: 1 error (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 4 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 YAM Working Group J. Klensin 3 Internet-Draft 4 Intended status: Informational B. Leiba 5 Expires: May 17, 2010 Huawei Technologies 6 November 13, 2009 8 Preliminary Evaluation of RFC5321, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), 9 for advancement from Draft Standard to Full Standard by the YAM Working 10 Group 11 draft-ietf-yam-5321bis-smtp-pre-evaluation-01.txt 13 Abstract 15 This memo is a preliminary evaluation of RFC 5321, Simple Mail 16 Transfer Protocol for advancement from Draft to Full Standard. It 17 has been prepared by the The Yet Another Mail Working Group. 19 THIS INTERNET DRAFT IS NOT MEANT TO BE PUBLISHED AS AN RFC, BUT IS 20 WRITTEN TO FACILITATE DISCUSSION WITH THE IESG. 22 Status of this Memo 24 This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the 25 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 27 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 28 Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that 29 other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- 30 Drafts. 32 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 33 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 34 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 35 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 37 The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 38 http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. 40 The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 41 http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 43 This Internet-Draft will expire on May 17, 2010. 45 Copyright Notice 47 Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 48 document authors. All rights reserved. 50 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 51 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 52 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 53 publication of this document. Please review these documents 54 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 55 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 56 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 57 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 58 described in the BSD License. 60 Table of Contents 62 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 63 1.1. Note to RFC Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 64 2. Preliminary Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 65 2.1. Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 66 2.2. Time in Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 67 2.3. Implementation and Operational Experience . . . . . . . . . 3 68 2.4. Proposed Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 69 2.5. Non-Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 70 2.6. Downward references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 71 2.7. IESG Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 72 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 73 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 74 5. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 75 6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 76 6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 77 6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 78 Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 79 A.1. Changes from version -00 to -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 80 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 82 1. Introduction 84 A preliminary evaluation has been made of Simple Mail Tranfer 85 Protocol [RFC5321] by the Yet Another Mail (YAM) Working Group for 86 advancing it from Draft to Full Standard. The YAM WG requests 87 feedback from the IESG on this decision. 89 1.1. Note to RFC Editor 91 This Internet-Draft is not meant to be published as an RFC. It is 92 written to facilitate processing within the IESG. 94 2. Preliminary Evaluation 96 2.1. Document 98 Title: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol 100 Link: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5321 102 2.2. Time in Place 104 RFC2026: _"A specification shall remain at the Draft Standard level 105 for at least four (4) months, or until at least one IETF meeting 106 has occurred."_ 108 Published: October 2008 110 2.3. Implementation and Operational Experience 112 RFC2026: _"significant implementation and successful operational 113 experience ... characterized by a high degree of technical 114 maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified 115 protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet 116 community."_ 118 Confidence level: Very high. 120 Electronic mail (historically known as "netmail" before "email" came 121 into common use) has been in active use in the Internet community 122 since the early 1970s. Although many small adjustments and 123 clarifications have been made, the basic transport protocol that is 124 now used has been changed in only two important ways since the 125 publication of RFC 821 in August 1982. One of those changes was the 126 introduction of DNS-based mail routing with the MX record with RFC 127 974 in January 1986 (with some small clarifications in RFC 1123 in 128 October 1979). The second was the introduction of a model for 129 negotiating optional services with RFC 1425 in February 1993. 131 While many mail systems over the years have relied more on the 132 robustness of receiving systems in the face of deviations (or 133 creative interpretations of RFC 821 language in spite of changes and 134 clarifications over the last 27 years), the DRUMS WG work that 135 produced RFC 2821 [RFC2821] in April 2001 was largely an update to 136 clarify various provisions. With the exception of a very few edge- 137 case clarifications and changes in requirements levels, systems that 138 conform to the combination of RFC 821 [RFC0821] and RFC 1869 139 [RFC1869] (both Full Standards) conform to RFC 5321. Those 140 differences represented existing practice when RFC 5321 was written 141 and have been well-tested and widely deployed. 143 2.4. Proposed Changes 145 The YAM WG proposes making the following changes in a revision: 147 Terminology: There has been ongoing controversy about the 148 terminology in RFC 5321 and especially changes made between 821 149 and 2821 or between 2821 and 5321. While we assume that 5321 is 150 adequate, the WG will review terminology as appropriate and may 151 make some adjustments. 153 Metalanguage: During and after IETF Last Call on 5321, some 154 suggestions were made about how to make metalanguage productions 155 easier to find and connect. A complete rewrite or restructuring 156 of the metalanguage should be avoided on the grounds that it would 157 carry a very high risk of introducing errors. Instead, resources 158 and tools permitting (significant manual work is now required), 159 the revised document will contain an index to productions and 160 where they are defined. 162 Normative References: RFC 5321 is worded in a way that makes some 163 references normative that are not strictly required to be. The WG 164 will consider whether those rewordings are appropriate. 166 2.5. Non-Changes 168 The YAM WG discussed and chose not to make the following changes: 170 1. Complete revision, rearrangement, or reformatting of metalanguage 171 (see #2 above). 173 2. Any extensions that would violate the rules for Full Standard or 174 otherwise require revisiting the approved interoperability report 175 for RFC 5321. 177 3. A number of extensions and changes that would have imposed 178 significant new requirements on SMTP, or that would have implied 179 incompatible changes, were proposed during both the DRUMS WG 180 period and during the discussions that led to RFC 5321. In each 181 case, the authors were advised to prepare a specific Internet- 182 Draft describing the change, convince the community to progress 183 it to Proposed Standard, and then implement and deploy the change 184 quickly enough to "catch up" with the progress that started with 185 RFC 2821. The notion was that those changes could then be 186 integrated with the progression at the same maturity level. It 187 is important to note that, independent of any constraints imposed 188 by the YAM charter design, none of those proposals have appeared 189 and been progressed even to IETF Last Call. 191 4. The Security Considerations section was extensively reviewed last 192 year (during the review and approval of RFC 5321). No evidence 193 has appeared since then that would require further review or 194 additional changes. 196 2.6. Downward references 198 At Full Standard, the following references would be downward 199 references: 201 RFC 5322 if 5322bis is not progressed simultaneously with 5321bis. 202 (This is not expected to happen.) 204 RFC 4291, IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture. 206 RFC 3848, ESMTP and LMTP Transmission Types Registration. Note 207 that it is possible to rephrase RFC 5321bis to avoid this 208 normative reference and the WG will consider doing that. 210 2.7. IESG Feedback 212 The YAM WG requests feedback from the IESG on this decision. In 213 particular: 215 o Does the IESG believe the proposed changes are suitable during a 216 move from Draft to Full Standard? 218 o Excluding the previous proposed changes and expected IESG support 219 for technically substantive IETF last call feedback, does the IESG 220 believe any additional changes are critical to advance this 221 document from draft to full standard? If so, please provide 222 sufficient information so the WG can address these issues prior to 223 IETF last call or determine that the document is inappropriate for 224 the YAM WG to process at this time. 226 o Does the IESG consider the downward references acceptable for a 227 full standard? If not, please cite which specific downward 228 reference or references are problematic and why so the WG can 229 address these issues prior to IETF last call or determine the 230 document is inappropriate for the YAM WG to process at this time. 232 3. IANA Considerations 234 This document contains no IANA actions. 236 4. Security Considerations 238 This document requests IESG feedback. There are no security 239 considerations. 241 5. Acknowledgments 243 This document was prepared from a template supplied by Subramanian 244 Moonesamy. 246 Some of the information provided in this document, but not provided 247 in the RFC 1652 evaluation (http://www.ietf.org/id/ 248 draft-ietf-yam-rfc1652bis-pre-evaluation-00.txt), was inspired by 249 brief discussions with Pasi Eronen and Subramanian Moonesamy during 250 IETF 76. 252 6. References 254 6.1. Normative References 256 [RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321, 257 October 2008. 259 6.2. Informative References 261 [RFC0821] Postel, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", STD 10, 262 RFC 821, August 1982. 264 [RFC1869] Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., Stefferud, E., and D. 265 Crocker, "SMTP Service Extensions", STD 10, RFC 1869, 266 November 1995. 268 [RFC2821] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 2821, 269 April 2001. 271 Appendix A. Change Log 273 A.1. Changes from version -00 to -01 275 o Added Security Considerations to the "no change" list in 276 Section 2.5. 278 Authors' Addresses 280 John C Klensin 281 1770 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 322 282 Cambridge, MA 02140 283 USA 285 Phone: +1 617 245 1457 286 Email: john+ietf@jck.com 288 Barry Leiba 289 Huawei Technologies 291 Phone: +1 646 827 0648 292 Email: barryleiba@computer.org 293 URI: http://internetmessagingtechnology.org/