home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
-
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies
-
- Thu Jun 25 19:32:19 1992
-
-
- Harald Tveit Alvestrand
- SINTEF DELAB
- Harald.Alvestrand@delab.sintef.no
-
-
- Steve Hardcastle-Kille
- ISODE Consortium
- S.Kille@isode.com
-
-
- Robert S. Miles
- Soft*Switch, Inc.
- rsm@spyder.ssw.com
-
-
- Marshall T. Rose
- Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
- mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us
-
-
- Steven J. Thompson
- Soft*Switch, Inc.
- sjt@gateway.ssw.com
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Status of this Memo
-
- This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are
- working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force
- (IETF), its Areas, and its Working Groups. Note that other
- groups may also distribute working documents as Internet
- Drafts.
-
- Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
- months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted
- by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 1]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other
- than as a "working draft" or "work in progress."
-
- Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in each
- Internet Draft directory to learn the current status of this
- or any other Internet Draft.
-
- If consensus is reached in the IETF MIME-MHS Interworking
- Working Group, it will be submitted to the IESG asking that it
- be recommended to the IAB as a Proposed Standard protocol
- specification.
-
- Please send comments to the MIME-MHS mailing list:
- <mime-mhs@surfnet.nl>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 2]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 1. Introduction
-
- The Internet community is a large collection of networks under
- autonomous administration, but sharing a core set of
- protocols. These are known as the Internet suite of protocols
- (or simply "TCP/IP").
-
- Use of electronic-mail in the Internet is defined primarily by
- one document, RFC-822[1], which defines the standard format
- for the exchange of messages. RFC-822 has proven immensely
- popular; in fact, the 822-connected Internet, is larger than
- the scope of the IP-connected Internet.
-
- The framework provided by RFC-822 allows for memo-based
- textual messages. Each message consists of two parts: the
- headers and the body. The headers are analogous to the
- structured fields found in an inter-office memo, whilst the
- body is free-form. Both parts are encoded using ASCII.
-
- Recently, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has
- developed an document called
-
- Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
-
- or MIME RFC-1341. The title is actually misleading. MIME
- defines structure for Internet message bodies. It is not an
- extension to RFC-822.
-
- Independently of this, the International standards community
- developed a different framework in 1984 (some say that's the
- problem). This framework is known as the OSI Message Handling
- System (MHS) or sometimes X.400.
-
- Since the introduction of X.400(84), there has been work
- ongoing for defining mappings between MHS and RFC-822. The
- most recent work in this area is RFC-1327[3], which focuses
- primarily on translation of envelope and headers. This
- document is complimentary to RFC-1327 as it focuses on
- translation of the message body. The mappings defined are
- largely symmetrical with respect to MIME and MHS structuring
- semantics, although the MIME semantics are somewhat richer.
- In order to provide for reversible transformations, MHS
- heading extensions are used to carry the additional MIME
- semantics.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 3]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 2. Approach
-
- The mappings have been specifically designed to provide
- optimal behavior for three different scenarios:
-
- (1) Allow a MIME user and an MHS user to exchange an
- arbitrary binary content;
-
- (2) Allow MIME content-types to "tunnel" through an MHS relay
- (that is, two MIME users can exchange content-types
- without loss through an MHS relay); and,
-
- (3) Allow MHS body parts to "tunnel" through a MIME relay
- (that is, two MHS users can exchange body parts without
- loss through a MIME relay).
-
- Other, related, scenarios can also be easily accommodated.
-
- To facilitate the mapping process, the Internet Assigned
- Numbers Authority (IANA) maintains a table termed the "IANA
- MHS/MIME Equivalence Table". Once an enterprise has
- registered an OID to describe an MHS body part, it should
- complete a corresponding registry with the IANA for a MIME
- content-type/subtype. In practice, the corresponding
- content-type will be "application", with an appropriate choice
- of sub-type and possible parameters. If a new MIME content-
- type/subtype is registered with the IANA without a
- corresponding entry in the Equivalence Table, the IANA will
- assign it an OID, from the arc defined in this memo. See [4],
- section 5 for details.
-
- The companion document, "Equivalences between 1988 X.400 and
- RFC-822 Message Bodies"[4], defines the initial configuration
- of this table. The mappings described in both this document
- and the companion document use the notational conventions of
- RFC-1327.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 4]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 3. Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies
-
- MHS messages comprise of a heading and a body. The body is a
- sequence of body parts. A body part may be a nested message.
-
- A MIME message consists of headers and a content. For the
- purpose of discussion, the content may be structured
- (multipart or message), or atomic (otherwise). An element of
- a structured content may be a message or a content. Both
- message and structured content have subtypes which do not have
- direct analogies in MHS.
-
- The mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 message bodies which
- this document defines is symmetrical for the following cases:
-
- (1) any atomic body part
-
- (2) multipart: digest and mixed subtypes
-
- (3) message/rfc822
-
- RFC-1327 specifies the mappings for headers. Section 5
- describes how those mappings are modified by this document.
- When mapping between an MHS body and a MIME content, the
- following algorithm is used:
-
-
- 3.1. Mapping from X.400 to RFC-822
-
- This section replaces the text in RFC-1327 starting at the
- bottom of page 84,
-
- The IPMS.Body is mapped into the RFC-822 message body.
- Each IPMS.BodyPart is converted to ASCII as follows:
-
- and continuing up to and including page 86 of Section 5.3.4 of
- RFC-1327.
-
- If the IPMS.Body
-
- Body ::=
- SEQUENCE OF
- BodyPart
-
- consists of a single body part, then the RFC-822 message body
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 5]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- is constructed as the MIME content corresponding to that body
- part.
-
- If the body part is a forwarded IPMessage, the mapping is
- applied recursively. Otherwise, to map a specific MHS body
- part to a MIME content-type, the IANA MHS/MIME Equivalence
- table is consulted. If the MHS body part is not identified in
- this table, then the body-part is mapped onto an
- "application/x400-bp" content, as specified in [4].
-
- If the IPMS.Body consists of more than one body part, then the
- RFC-822 message body is constructed as a
-
- multipart/mixed
-
- content-type, unless all of the body parts are messages, in
- which case it is mapped to a
-
- multipart/digest
-
- content-type. Each component of the multipart content-type
- corresponds to a IPMS.BodyPart, preserving the ordering of the
- body parts in the IPMS.Body.
-
- There is one case which gets special treatement. If the
- IPMS.Body consists solely of a single IA5Text body part, then
- the RFC822 message body is NOT marked as a MIME content. This
- prevents RFC822 mailers from invoking MIME function
- unnecessarily.
-
-
- 3.2. Mapping from RFC-822 to X.400
-
- First, replace the first paragraph of Section 5.1.3 on page 72
- of RFC-1327 to read as:
-
- The IPM (IPMS Service Request) is generated according to
- the rules of this section. The IPMS.body usually
- consists of one IPMS.BodyPart of type
-
- IPMS.IA5TextBodyPart
-
- with
-
- IPMS.IA5TextBodyPart.parameters.repertoire
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 6]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- set to the default (ia5), which contains the body of the
- RFC-822 message. However, if the 822.MIME-Version header
- field is present, a special algorithm is used to generate
- the IPMS.body.
-
-
- Second, replace the "Comments:" paragraph on page 74 to reads
- as:
-
- Comments:
-
- If an 822.MIME-Version header field is not present,
- generate an IPMS.Bodypart of type
-
- IPMS.IA5TextBodyPart
-
- with
-
- IPMS.IA5TextBodyPart.parameters.repertoire
-
- set to the default (ia5), containing the value of
- the fields, preceded by the string "Comments: ".
- This body part shall preceed the other one.
-
- Third, add the remainder of this section to the end of Section
- 5.1.3 of RFC-1327.
-
- If the 822.MIME-Version header field is present, the following
- mapping rules are used to generate the IPMS.body.
-
- If the MIME content-type is one of:
-
- (1) any atomic body part
-
- (2) multipart: digest and mixed subtypes
-
- (3) message/rfc822
-
- then the symmetric mapping applies as described in Section
- 4.1.
-
- Otherwise, three cases remain, which are discussed in turn.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 7]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 3.2.1. Mappings from the Message Content Type
-
-
- 3.2.1.1. Message/External-Body
-
- This is mapped into a mime-body-part, as specified in [4].
-
-
- 3.2.1.2. Message/Partial
-
- This is mapped onto a message, and the following heading
- extension is used. The extension is derived from the
- message/partial parameters:
-
- partial-message HEADING-EXTENSION
- VALUE PartialMessage
- ::= id-hex-partial-message
-
- PartialMessage ::=
- SEQUENCE {
- number INTEGER,
- total INTEGER,
- id IA5String
- }
-
- If this heading is present when mapping from MHS to MIME, then
- a message/partial should be generated.
-
-
- 3.2.2. Mappings from the Multipart Content-type
-
- In MIME, a multipart content, refers to a set of content-
- types, not a message with a set of content-types. However,
- the multipart content will always be mapped to an MHS message.
- The only mandatory field in the heading is the IPM.this-IPM,
- which must always be generated (by the gateway). A
- IPM.subject field should also be generated where there is no
- "real" heading. This will present useful information to the
- non-MIME capable X.400(88) and to all X.400(84) UAs.
-
- The following heading extension should be generated, with the
- enumerated value set according to the subtype:
-
- multipart-message HEADING-EXTENSION
- VALUE MultipartType
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 8]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- ::= id-hex-multipart-message
-
- MultipartType ::=
- ENUMERATED {
- mixed(1),
- alternative(2),
- digest(3),
- parallel(4)
- }
-
-
- The IPM.subject fields for the various types are:
-
- mixed: "Multipart Message"
- alternative: "Alternate Body Parts containing the same information"
- digest: "Message Digest"
- parallel: "Body Parts to be interpreted in parallel"
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 9]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 4. Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Headers
-
- Replace the first paragraph of Section 3.3.4 on page 26 of
- RFC-1327 to read as:
- In cases where T.61 strings are used only for conveying
- human-interpreted information, the aim of this mapping is
- to render the characters appropriately in the remote
- character set, rather than to maximize reversibility.
- For these cases, the following steps are followed to find
- an appropriate encoding:
-
- 1) If all the characters in the string are contained
- within the ASCII repertoire, the string is simply copied.
-
- 2) If all the characters in the string are from an IANA-
- registered character set, then the appropriate encoded-
- word(s) according to [5] are generated instead.
-
- 3) If the characters in the string are from a character
- set which is not registered with the IANA, then the
- mappings to IA5 defined in CCITT Recommendation X.408
- (1988) shall be used [CCITT/ISO88a]. These will then be
- encoded in ASCII.
-
- This approach will only be used for human-readable
- information (Subject and FreeForm Name).
-
- When mapping from an RFC-822 header, when an encoded-word
- (as defined in [5]) is encountered:
-
- 1) If all the characters contained therein are mappable
- to T.61, the string content shall be converted into T.61.
-
- 2) Otherwise, the encoded-word shall be copied directly
- into the T.61 string.
-
- Modify procedure "2a" on page 56 of RFC-1327 to read as:
- If the IPMS.ORDescriptor.free-form-name is present,
- convert it to ASCII or T.61 (Section 3.3.4), and use this
- as the 822.phrase component of the 822.mailbox construct.
-
- Modify the final paragraph of procedure "2" on page 55 of
- RFC-1327 to read as:
- The string is then encoded into T.61 or ASCII using a
- human-oriented mapping (as described in Section 3.3.4).
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 10]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- If the string is not null, it is assigned to
- IPMS.ORDescriptor.free-form.name.
-
- Modify the second paragraph of procedure "3" on page 55 of
- RFC-1327 to read as:
- If the 822.group construct is present, any included
- 822.mailbox is encoded as above to generate a separate
- IPMS.ORDescriptor. The 822.group is mapped to T.61 or
- ASCII (as described in Section 3.3.4), and an
- IPMS.ORDescriptor with only an free-form-name component
- is built from it.
-
- Modify procedure "822.Subject" on page 62 of RFC-1327 to read
- as:
- Mapped to IMPS.Heading.subject. The field-body uses the
- human-oriented mapping referenceed in Section 3.3.4.
-
- Modify procedure "IPMS.Heading.subject" on page 71 of RFC-1327
- to read as:
- Mapped to "Subject:". The contents are converted to
- ASCII or T.61 (Section 3.3.4). Any CRLF are not mapped,
- but are used as points at which the subject field must be
- folded.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 11]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 5. OID Assignments
-
- MIME-MHS DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN
-
- EXPORTS -- everything --;
-
- IMPORTS
- experimental
- FROM RFC1155-SMI;
-
- -- this assignment will change if this document --
- -- is issued as a standards-track RFC --
- mime-mhs OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { experimental 34 }
-
-
- mime-mhs-headings OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { mime-mhs 1 }
-
- id-hex-partial-message OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
- { mime-mhs-headings 1 }
- id-hex-multipart-message OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
- { mime-mhs-headings 2 }
-
-
- mime-mhs-bodies OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { mime-mhs 2 }
-
-
- END
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 12]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 6. Security Considerations
-
-
- There are no explicit security provisions in this document.
- However, a warning is in order. This document maps two
- mechanisms between RFC822 and X.400 that could cause problems.
- The first is the transfer of binary files. The inherent risks
- are well known and won't be reiterated here. The second is
- the propagation of strong content typing. The typing can be
- used to automatically "launch" or initiate applications
- against those contents. Any such launching leaves the invoker
- vulnerable to application-specific viruses; for example, a
- spreadsheet macro or Postscript command that deletes files.
- See [2], Section 7.4.2 for a Postscript-specific discussion of
- this issue.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 13]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- 7. References
-
- [1] D.H. Crocker, Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet
- Text Messages. Request for Comments 822, (August, 1982).
-
- [2] N. Borenstein, N. Freed, MIME: Mechanisms for Specifying
- and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies.
- Request for Comments 1341, (June, 1992).
-
- [3] S.E. Hardcastle-Kille, Mapping between X.400(1988) / ISO
- 10021 and RFC-822. Request for Comments 1327, (May,
- 1992).
-
- [4] H.T. Alvestrand, S.J. Thompson, Equivalences between 1988
- X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies. Internet-Draft, (June,
- 1992).
-
- [5] K. Moore. Representation of Non-ASCII Text in Interenet
- Message Headers. Message Bodies. Request for Comments
- 1342, (June, 1992).
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 14]
-
-
-
-
- draft MHS/RFC-822 Message Body Mapping Jun 92
-
-
- Table of Contents
-
-
- Status of this Memo .................................... 1
- 1 Introduction .......................................... 3
- 2 Approach .............................................. 4
- 3 Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies ...... 5
- 3.1 Mapping from X.400 to RFC-822 ....................... 5
- 3.2 Mapping from RFC-822 to X.400 ....................... 6
- 3.2.1 Mappings from the Message Content Type ............ 8
- 3.2.1.1 Message/External-Body ........................... 8
- 3.2.1.2 Message/Partial ................................. 8
- 3.2.2 Mappings from the Multipart Content-type .......... 8
- 4 Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Headers ..... 10
- 5 OID Assignments ....................................... 12
- 6 Security Considerations ............................... 13
- 7 References ............................................ 14
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Alvestrand, Kille, Miles, Rose, Thompson Exp Dec 92 [Page 15]
-
-