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- From: tim@pipex.net (Tim Goodwin)
- Newsgroups: comp.mail.mime,comp.answers,news.answers
- Subject: comp.mail.mime frequently asked questions list (FAQ)
- Supersedes: <mime-faq_744653614@pipex.net>
- Followup-To: comp.mail.mime
- Date: 26 Aug 1993 19:06:06 +0100
- Organization: Pipex Ltd., 216 Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4WA, England
- Lines: 1717
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- Expires: 19 Oct 1993 18:05:58 GMT
- Message-ID: <mime-faq_746388358@pipex.net>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: tank.pipex.net
- Summary: This posting contains answers to some of the Frequently Asked
- Questions about MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions).
- Please read it before posting a question to comp.mail.mime.
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.mail.mime:1583 comp.answers:1758 news.answers:11823
-
- Archive-Name: mail/mime-faq
- Last-modified: 1993/08/26
- Version: 2.8
-
-
- comp.mail.mime frequently asked questions list (FAQ)
-
-
- 0.1 Introduction
-
- This is a Frequently Asked Questions document about MIME, the
- multipurpose and multi-media standard for Internet mail.
-
- Changes since the last version are marked by "!" in the index. I also
- post a separate article containing diffs to comp.mail.mime.
-
- This FAQ was begun by, and is largely the work of, Ed Vielmetti. It
- is now maintained by me, Tim Goodwin.
-
-
- 0.2 Conventions
-
- I have used some typographical conventions. Eventually I hope to
- format this as simplemail, but in the meantime...
-
- Direct quotations begin with an attribution in a standard format, and
- are indented by four spaces.
-
- FTPable goodies appear in a standard (obvious, I hope) format,
- indented by eight spaces. Note that I usually list only the
- distribution site -- please try your nearest FTP archive first.
-
- You'll occasionally see text in braces, like this.
-
- { Here is some example meta-text. }
-
- Generally, these indicate places where information is missing, I'm
- unsure of my ground, or I plan major changes in the near future.
-
- You can ignore these if you're just looking for information. But if
- you can help fill in the gaps, and you want to achieve fame, fortune,
- and your name at the bottom of this FAQ, please mail me.
-
-
- 1 INDEX TO THE FAQ
-
- 2 What is MIME?
- 2.1 Introduction
- 2.2 MIME features that may or may not be present
- 2.3 Further information
- 2.4 MIME glossary
- ! 2.5 MIME-relevant RFCs and other standards
- ! 2.6 List of registered MIME types
- 2.7 Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working groups
- ! 2.8 Newsgroups and mailing lists
-
- 3 Freely available MIME software packages
- 3.1 metamail -- UNIX, Amiga, DOS MUA
- 3.2 MIXMH -- UNIX/X MUA
- 3.3 MH 6.8 -- UNIX MUA
- 3.4 Pine -- UNIX MUA
- 3.5 c-client
- 3.6 Andrew
- 3.7 elm -- UNIX MUA
- 3.8 MIME tools for NeXT
- 3.9 HUyMail -- VMS MTA/MUA
- 3.10 MIME for VM/CMS
- 3.11 Iride -- Macintosh MUA
- 3.12 Eudora -- Macintosh MUA
- ! 3.13 MIME tools for GNU Emacs
- ! 3.14 Miscellaneous other tools
- 3.15 Conversions from other mail systems
- 3.15.1 uuencode to MIME
- 3.15.2 Sun OpenWindows mail to MIME
- 3.15.3 NeXTmail to MIME
-
- 4 Commercial MIME software packages
- 4.1 IBM multimedia mail for OS/2
- 4.2 PMDF -- VMS ?
- 4.3 Control Data Systems Mail*Hub package
- 4.4 cc:MAIL support for MIME
- 4.5 Z-Mail -- UNIX MUA
- 4.6 STI Document Browser
- 4.7 Frontier Technologies Super-TCP mail system
- 4.8 PP -- UNIX MTA
- 4.9 HP's MPOWER
- 4.10 Eudora -- Macintosh MUA
- ! 4.11 Mail-it -- MS Windows MUA
- ! 4.12 ECSMail -- MUA/MTA for most OSs
-
- 5 Miscellaneous questions
- 5.1 What can I use to display MIME messages?
- 5.2 What's "text/enriched"? "text/simplemail"?
- 5.3 What about security issues?
- 5.4 So, does MIME introduce any new security problems?
- 5.5 What about a group 3 facsimile encoding?
- 5.6 Should I always use external body parts to save space?
- 5.7 What mail servers can I reference?
- 5.8 How can I register a new MIME type?
- 5.9 What's ESMTP, and how does it affect MIME?
- 5.10 Where can I get some sample MIME messages?
- ! 5.11 Wouldn't MIME be better if it did <foo>?
- ! 5.12 So what about multilevel encodings?
- ! 5.13 Why doesn't MIME include a mechanism for compression?
- ! 5.14 Can I interwork between MIME and X.400?
-
- 6 MIME information available from the Internet
- 6.1 Anonymous FTP
- 6.2 Mail based archive servers
- 6.2.1 Eitech "ServiceMail"
- 6.2.2 Metamail "mailserver"
- 6.3 Gopher
- 6.4 World Wide Web
-
- 7 Published books and articles
-
- 8 MIME based relays for commercial mail services
- 8.1 Large national or international providers
- 8.1.1 ATTMAIL
- 8.1.2 Radiomail
- 8.2 Local and regional providers
-
- 9 MIME and Usenet news
- 9.1 Introduction
- ! 9.2 nn
- ! 9.3 GNUS
- 9.4 trn
- ! 9.5 INN
- ! 9.6 MH
-
- ! 10 Acknowledgements
-
-
- 2 What is MIME?
-
- 2.1 Introduction
-
- MIME, the Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions, is a freely available
- specification that offers a way to interchange text in languages with
- different character sets, and multi-media email among many different
- computer systems that use Internet mail standards.
-
- If you were bored with plain text email messages, thanks to MIME you
- now can create and read email messages containing these things:
-
- - character sets other than ASCII
- - enriched text
- - images
- - sounds
- - other messages (reliably encapsulated)
- - tar files
- - PostScript
- - FTPable file pointers
- - other stuff
-
- MIME supports not only several pre-defined types of non-textual
- message contents, such as 8-bit 8000Hz-sampled mu-LAW audio, GIF image
- files, and PostScript programs, but also permits you to define your
- own types of message parts.
-
- The ability to create email messages with audio and other non-textual
- contents has been around for a while, but almost always as part of a
- vendor-specific ``solution.'' This means that you can't create a
- message on a NeXT system containing PostScript information and ``Lip
- Service'' (NeXT's audio email tool) and easily handle the same
- message on an HP 9000/710, a Sun SPARCstation IPC, and a Silicon
- Graphics Iris. That's a problem that MIME helps to solve.
-
- One of the best things about MIME is that it's a "four-wheel drive
- protocol", to borrow a description of PhoneNet from Einar Stefferud.
- MIME was carefully designed to survive many of the most bizarre
- variations of SMTP, UUCP, and Procrustean mail transport protocols,
- such as BITNET and MMDF, that like to slice, dice, and stretch the
- headers and bodies of email messages.
-
- Here are a couple of examples of how MIME is being used in the real
- world, now.
-
- 1) Dr Marshall T. Rose mails out his SNMP-related newsletter, ``The
- Simple Times'' as multi-media email messages in several forms:
-
- - in a PostScript form, with beautiful typesetting and a
- two-column page layout, suitable for printing on a laser
- printer;
-
- - in a ``text/enriched'' form (explained in question 5.2), suitable
- for display on a mildly intelligent ASCII terminal; and
-
- - in a plain text, ordinary message form.
-
- (SNMP is the Simple Network Management Protocol, a low-level network
- management facility.)
-
- 2) IETF document announcements (RFCs, Internet Drafts, etc.) are
- structured as multipart MIME messages. The first part contains the
- document abstract. The second part is itself a multipart message,
- containing external references to the document itself (one via a
- mail-server, one via anonymous FTP). Thus, with a suitable UA, you
- can read the abstract, and then have the complete document retrieved
- for you (by the most appropriate method) at the press of a button.
-
-
- 2.2 MIME features that may or may not be present
-
- Implementations of multi-media email need not support the full spec;
- it's possible to have a useful product that does not explore all of
- the nooks and crannies of the standard.
-
- Furthermore, MIME permits a message to contain alternative parts for
- consumption by sites that can't necessarily display or listen to all
- the good stuff.
-
- Here is a list of features that someone with a good, functional
- mail user agent might include for MIME support.
-
- - Displays GIF, JPEG, and PBM encoded images, using e.g. 'xv' in the X
- Window System, or (name of windows program here) in Microsoft Windows.
-
- - Displays PostScript parts, using e.g. something that prints to a
- PostScript printer, or that invokes GhostScript on an X Window System
- display, or that uses Display PostScript.
-
- - Obtains external body parts via Internet FTP or via mail server.
-
- - Plays audio parts on workstations that support digital audio.
-
- On the other hand, the minimal requirements for a MIME-conformant MUA
- are almost trivial, yet still provide increased funtionality. (The
- minimal requirements are mainly concerned with ensuring that users are
- not shown raw data from a MIME message inappropriately.)
-
-
- 2.3 Further information
-
- adad.premenos.sf.ca.us:pub/mime.ps
- adad.premenos.sf.ca.us:pub/mime.txt
-
- This is a nice overview of the MIME specification.
-
- { Any other documents that should be referenced? }
-
-
- 2.4 MIME glossary
-
- Every subculture needs its list of buzzwords, here's a start at a
- collection for MIME.
-
- body the part of a message after the header (the "meat")
- ESMTP Extended SMTP - RFC 1425
- external part a "pointer" to a part available via FTP or other means.
- GIF graphical interchange format for images
- header the To, From, Subject, etc. at the start of a message
- JPEG an image compression standard for still images
- mail transport the "post office", e.g. sendmail, smail, MMDF, etc.
- MIME Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - RFC 1341
- MPEG an image compression standard for moving pictures
- MTA Mail Transport Agent, see "mail transport"
- MUA Mail User Agent, see "user agent"
- multi-media nebulous marketroid term meaning audio and visual stuff
- part a piece of a MIME message containing some data type
- PBM an image format
- PEM Privacy Enhanced Mail
- PostScript a popular page description language
- RFC request for comments; proposed or standard Internet protocols
- SMTP Simple Mail Transport Protocol - RFC 821
- text/enriched simple text markup language for MIME
- text/simplemail another (even simpler?) text markup language
- user agent the end user's mail program, e.g. MH, ELM, /bin/mail, etc.
-
-
- 2.5 MIME-relevant RFCs and other standards
-
- The RFCs mentioned here are mainly relevant to people building MIME
- software. As an end user, if your mail system is nice to you, you
- won't really have to know very much about these things.
-
- RFC and Internet-Drafts are available by anonymous FTP from any decent
- archive site.
-
- MIME is defined in RFC 1341 (MIME Mechanisms for Specifying and
- Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies) and RFC 1342
- (Representation of Non-ASCII Text in Internet Message Headers).
-
- These are Internet standards-track protocols. For the full
- implications of this, see RFC 1410 (IAB Official Protocol Standards).
- Here is their current status.
-
- 1341: Proposed Elective Standard
- Latest draft: draft-ietf-822ext-mime2-04.txt, .ps
-
- 1342: Proposed Elective Standard
- Latest draft: draft-ietf-822ext-mime-part2-01.txt
-
- These two RFCs do not fully define MIME. For one thing, they are
- based on RFC 822 (Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text
- messages), as revised by RFC 1123 (Requirements for Internet hosts -
- application and support) and must be read in conjunction with these.
-
- For another, they are extensible. See 2.6 for a complete list of
- registered subtypes.
-
- There are a whole lot of other RFCs that deal with email, including
- these.
-
- 1502 X.400 Use of Extended Character Sets
- 1496 Rules for Downgrading Messages from X.400(88) to X.400(84)
- when MIME Content-Types are Present in the Messages
- 1495 Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies
- 1494 Equivalences between 1988 X.400 and RFC-922 Message Bodies
- 1489 Registration of a Cyrillic Character Set.
- 1468 Japanese Character Encoding for Internet Messages.
- 1428 Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8bit-SMTP/MIME.
- 1427 SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration.
- 1426 SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport.
- 1425 SMTP Service Extensions.
- 1424 Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part IV.
- 1423 Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part III.
- 1422 Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part II.
- 1421 Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part I.
- 1357 Format for emailing bibliographic records.
- 1345 Character Mnemonics & Character Sets.
- 1344 Implications of MIME for Internet mail gateways.
- 1343 User agent configuration mechanism for multimedia mail format
- information.
- 1339 Remote mail checking protocol.
- 1327 Mapping between X.400(1988)/ISO 10021 and RFC 822.
- 1321 MD5 Message-Digest algorithm.
- 1314 File format for the exchange of images in the Internet.
- 1225 Post Office Protocol: Version 3.
- 1211 Problems with the maintenance of large mailing lists.
- 1176 Interactive Mail Access Protocol: Version 2.
- 1153 Digest message format.
- 1036 Standard for interchange of USENET messages.
-
- Older pre-MIME efforts at Internet multimedia email (largely of
- historical interest).
-
- 1197 Using ODA for translating multimedia information.
- 1154 Encoding header field for internet messages.
- 1049 Content-type header field for Internet messages.
- 934 Proposed standard for message encapsulation.
- 807 Multimedia mail meeting notes.
-
-
- 2.6 List of registered MIME types
-
- A list of registered MIME types is available from
-
- isi.edu:in-notes/mime/mime-types
-
- This is the latest version.
-
- Type Subtype Description Reference
- ---- ------- ----------- ---------
- text plain [169,NSB]
- richtext [169,NSB]
- tab-separated-values [Paul Lindner]
-
- multipart mixed [169,NSB]
- alternative [169,NSB]
- digest [169,NSB]
- parallel [169,NSB]
- appledouble [MacMime,Patrik Faltstrom]
-
- message rfc822 [169,NSB]
- partial [169,NSB]
- external-body [169,NSB]
- news [RFC 1036, Henry Spencer]
-
- application octet-stream [169,NSB]
- postscript [169,NSB]
- oda [169,NSB]
- atomicmail [atomicmail,NSB]
- andrew-inset [andrew-inset,NSB]
- slate [slate,terry crowley]
- wita [Wang Info Transfer,Larry Campbell]
- dec-dx [Digital Doc Trans, Larry Campbell]
- dca-rft [IBM Doc Content Arch, Larry Campbell]
- activemessage [Ehud Shapiro]
- rtf [Paul Lindner]
- applefile [MacMime,Patrik Faltstrom]
- mac-binhex40 [MacMime,Patrik Faltstrom]
- news-message-id [RFC 1036, Henry Spencer]
- news-transmission [RFC 1036, Henry Spencer]
- wordperfect5.1 [Paul Lindner]
- pdf [Paul Lindner]
- zip [Paul Lindner]
- macwriteii [Paul Lindner]
- msword [Paul Lindner]
- remote-printing [RFC1486,MTR]
-
- image jpeg [169,NSB]
- gif [169,NSB]
- ief Image Exchange Format [RFC-1314]
- tiff Tag Image File Format [MTR]
-
- audio basic [169,NSB]
-
- video mpeg [169,NSB]
- quicktime [Paul Lindner]
-
- Each <type> has a directory
-
- isi.edu:in-notes/mime/<type>
-
- containing the definitions of its subtypes.
-
-
- 2.7 Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working groups
-
- [ Ran Atkinson <atkinson@tengwar.itd.nrl.navy.mil> 2-Jan-1993 ]
-
- The IETF working group (ietf-smtp) on extensions to SMTP, which has
- essentially completed its work, has defined SMTP extensions
- including a safe and interoperable means for sending 8-bit wide
- data between two enhanced-SMTP systems (see 5.9).
-
- The IETF working group on Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) is developing
- extensions that permit confidentiality, authentication, and
- integrity to be provided in a manner backwards compatible with
- RFC-821 and RFC-822 (see 5.3).
-
- The IETF MIME working group is not actively considering significant
- changes to the specifications. However the WG still exists as a
- forum for MIME developers, as a home for interpretation questions,
- and to handle any problems or ambiguities that might arise in MIME.
-
-
- 2.8 Newsgroups and mailing lists
-
- You're probably reading comp.mail.mime at the moment. There is a
- mailing list which is gatewayed with comp.mail.mime. If you are
- unable or unwilling to read Usenet news, send subscription requests to:
-
- info-mime-request@thumper.bellcore.com
-
- There is a UK exploder for info-mime, contact:
-
- info-mime-uk-request@mailbase.ac.uk
-
- The Mailbase software archives all contributions, which are then
- accessible via FTP and gopher (mailbase.ac.uk), and mailserver
- (mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk, with message body containing, e.g. "send
- info-mime-uk 08-1993"
-
- There is also a [comp.mail.multi-media] newsgroup, which contains
- general discussions of multi-media email, not necessarily MIME.
-
- There are various mailing lists specific to particular implementations
- of MIME. If I know of such a list, it is mentioned in the section on
- that implementation.
-
-
- 3 Freely available MIME software packages
-
- 3.1 metamail -- UNIX, Amiga, DOS MUA
-
- thumper.bellcore.com:pub/nsb/mm.2.6.tar.Z
- The metamail distribution that Nathaniel Borenstein supports.
-
- thumper.bellcore.com:pub/nsb/contrib2.6.tar.Z
- Contributed sources.
-
- thumper.bellcore.com:pub/nsb/amiga2.5.tar
- Amiga binaries and utilities
-
- thumper.bellcore.com:pub/nsb/dos2.5.tar.Z
- DOS binaries
-
- [ Paul Eggert <eggert@bi.twinsun.com> ]
-
- Metamail is a software implementation of MIME, designed for easy
- integration with traditional mail-reading interfaces -- typically,
- users do not invoke metamail directly. Ideally, extending the
- local email or news system to handle a new media format is a
- simple matter of adding a line to a mailcap file. Mailcap files
- are described in RFC 1343.
-
-
- 3.2 MIXMH -- UNIX/X MUA
-
- [ Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald.Alvestrand@delab.sintef.no> 10-Dec-1992 ]
-
- aun.uninett.no:pub/unix/mixmh-0.2.tar.Z
-
- This version is based on XMH version 1.6 from SEI, Carnegie Mellon.
- It supports sending MIME with extended character sets in the headers
- (per RFC-1342) and the body (per RFC-1341 text/plain). It has
- limited support for multipart messages.
-
- The source is freely redistributable and modifiable.
-
- As you can see from the version number, it is still not considered
- fully stable. Bugs may be reported to mixmh-bugs@uninett.no
- Information and discussion will take place on mixmh-info@uninett.no;
- mail to mixmh-info-request@uninett.no to join.
-
-
- 3.3 MH 6.8 -- UNIX MUA
-
- ftp.ics.uci.edu:pub/mh/mh-6.8.tar.Z
- louie.udel.edu:portal/mh-6.8.tar.Z
-
- MIME support is available for the MH message handling system; the
- primary reader and generator is the program mhn(1) although other MH
- programs are also changed. The current release of MH is 6.8, the first
- to include MIME support when appropriately installed. Note that mhn is
- not compliant with RFC 1343.
-
- A tutorial for mhn is available:
-
- ftp.ics.uci.edu:mh/contrib/multimedia/mhn-tutorial.tex, .sty, .ps
-
- See the newsgroup comp.mail.mh for further information.
-
-
- 3.4 Pine -- UNIX MUA
-
- Pine: Authors Laurence Lundblade, Michael Seibel, and Mark Crispin
- <pine@cac.washington.edu>
-
- [ comp.mail.misc FAQ ]
-
- Pine is a mail user agent developed by the University of
- Washington Office of Computing and Communications. It has been
- designed for ease-of-use and with the novice computer user in
- mind. It is based on Internet mail protocols (e.g. RFC-822, SMTP,
- IMAP, and MIME) and currently runs on a variety of UNIX platforms
- and MS-DOS.
-
- The guiding principles for achieving ease-of-use in Pine were:
- careful limitation of features, one-character mnemonic commands,
- always-present command menus, immediate user feedback, and high
- tolerance for user mistakes. It is intended that Pine can be
- learned by exploration rather than reading manuals.
-
- A stand-alone version of Pico, Pine's message composition editor,
- is also available. It is a very simple and easy to use text
- editor with text justification and a spelling checker.
-
- Features:
- - Mail index showing a message summary which includes the
- status, sender, size, date and subject of messages.
-
- - View and process mail with the following commands: forward,
- reply, save, export, print, delete, capture address and
- search.
-
- - Address book for saving long complex addresses and personal
- distribution lists under a nickname.
-
- - Multiple folders and folder management screen for filing
- messages.
-
- - Message composer with easy-to-use editor and spelling checker.
- The message composer also assists entering and formatting
- addresses and provides direct access to the address book.
-
- - Online help specific to each screen and context.
-
- - Supports access to remote mail repositories via the IMAP2
- protocol defined in RFC-1176.
-
- - Supports multi-part mail conforming to MIME allowing sending
- of sounds, graphics such as GIF and TIFF files, and binary
- files such as spreadsheets.
-
- Pine, including source code, is freely available via anonymous FTP
- from ftp.cac.washington.edu on the Internet. Other provisions for
- distribution have not yet been made. From the Internet, you may
- try out Pine and leave comments by telneting to
- demo.cac.washington.edu and logging in as "pinedemo". To join the
- Pine mailing list for announcements send a request to
- "pine-info-request@cac.washington.edu".
-
- Pine is very portable and runs on a variety of UNIX machines
- including DECstations, NeXTs, VAX's and Suns. Pine was originally
- based on Elm, but it has evolved much since, ("Pine Is No-longer
- Elm"). Pine uses the c-client library discussed below.
-
- For further information send email to pine@cac.washington.edu.
- Pine is the work of Mike Siebel, Mark Crispin, and Laurence
- Lundblade at the University of Washington.
-
-
- 3.5 c-client
-
- [ comp.mail.misc FAQ ]
-
- Software writers only:
-
- c-client is a general library useful for creating MUA's. It
- provides a Application Program Interface for retrieving and
- manipulating mail messages. It supports the latest draft of
- MIME. It is driver based, and easily ported to new platforms and
- MTAs. The currently supported platforms include various versions
- of BSD and SysV Unix, DOS, Macintosh and even TOPS-20(!). It
- supports mailboxes in /usr/spool/mail, mbox, mail.txt, mh, carmel
- format, as well as remote mailbox access via the IMAP2 protocol
- described in RFC-1176 and extended by the IMAP2bis extensions.
-
- c-client does not contain any user interface. Rather, it contains
- everything else that goes into an MUA. c-client is called with
- such functions as mail_open(), mail_fetchheader(), mail_setflag(),
- etc.
-
- Just the thing if you want to write a new MUA.
-
- Contact the author (Mark Crispin <mrc@panda.com>) for more details.
-
-
- 3.6 Andrew
-
- [ Susan Straub <susan+@andrew.cmu.edu> 11-Jan-1993 ]
-
- Andrew is a very large and ambitious software system developed at
- Carnegie Mellon University. It is installed at hundreds of sites
- throughout the world, and includes a multimedia document editor,
- help system, and various other utilities. In particular, it
- includes a feature-rich program, "messages", which can read and
- send mail and news articles in MIME format, including images,
- audio, richtext, and more. Andrew is available in binary release
- for several UNIX system architectures, and also in source form.
- Be warned that the source distribution is itself about 50
- megabytes, but you really are getting a LOT of stuff. For
- information on how to obtain a copy of Andrew, send mail to
- info-andrew-request@andrew.cmu.edu.
-
-
- 3.7 elm -- UNIX MUA
-
- [ Syd Weinstein <syd@dsinc.dsi.com> 21-Dec-1992 ]
-
- Elm support for MIME:
- 2.3 - uses metamail supplied patch from Nathaniel Borenstein.
-
- 2.4:
- reading: detects MIME headers and calls metamail automatically
- if the message cannot be displayed on the current screen using
- the native capabilities of the display (recognizes some char
- sets as native)
-
- sending: detects [include ] markers and makes them MIME attachments.
- Still very 'crude', but its all we had time for, as to the
- release deadline of 'Elm' and MIME.
-
- 3.x:
- reading: probably no change from 2.x, but will understand
- some 'file storage' types and allow for splitting off attachments
- on their own.
-
- sending: will allow defining attachments to be added and auto build
- the MIME stuff, in addition to the [include ] syntax.
-
- release status:
- 2.3: obsolete
- 2.4: Current PL is 17.
- 3.x: not planned until some time in 1994.
-
-
- 3.8 MIME tools for NeXT
-
- [ Dave Lacey <dave@blackbox.isca.uiowa.edu> ]
-
- I'd like to keep you apprised of some MIME work I'm doing. I'm
- interested in using MIME as a transport medium for multi-media
- gopher documents. My particular use is for Radiology info, but it
- would work for just about anything.
-
- I've got a NeXT Gopher client almost working and I also have a
- NeXT based MIME file editor that reads/creates MIME documents.
- Both work, but need a bit more extension. I will likely
- distribute the source to this, so the MIME reader (which is
- essentially an object) can be re-used in other apps.
-
-
- 3.9 HUyMail -- VMS MTA/MUA
-
- [ Yehavi Bourvine <YEHAVI@vms.huji.ac.il> 22-Jul-1993 ]
-
- vms.huji.ac.il:local/huymail*.bck
-
- HUyMailer is a store and forward mailer for VAX/VMS and AXP/VMS
- systems which supports as transports: DECnet, Multinet/TcpIp,
- HUJI-NJE and PMDF. The software is available freely for
- non-commercial use as a C source code.
-
- The mailer supports two users' interfaces: VMS/MAIL (to which the
- connection is done via MAIL11 DECnet connection) or a locally
- written interface called BMAIL. BMAIL is a menu oriented interface
- which supports MIME and Hebrew.
-
-
- 3.10 MIME for VM/CMS
-
- [ Rick Troth <TROTH@ricevm1.rice.edu> 21-Jul-1993 ]
-
- This MIME decoder is available via Gopher from ricevm1.rice.edu
- under "Other freely distributable CMS software", which is under
- "CMS Gopher Software".
-
- It correctly reads:
-
- o text/plain,
- o text/richtext, and
- o image/gif.
-
- GIFs require the VMGIF package from Belgium. I need filters for
- PBM and PGM and then they'd work too. Sounds are not useful on
- the standard 3270 terminal (dumb terminals just don't play sounds).
-
- It splits out multipart/[anything] into separate files. CMS has a
- standard directory "browser" (FILELIST) that lets you view a bunch
- ofrelated files and decide what, if anything, you want to do with
- them.
-
- Message/external-body doesn't work well, but probably will given
- more development time. I could use some samples to help with the
- debugging of that part.
-
- It does NOT do applications, except for the one, octet-stream.
- (which is treated as a kind-of "sendfile" utility) There *is* a
- PostScript interpreter for CMS, but it is reported to be a dog (we
- don't have it). But I do hope to put the extraction code in for
- these eventually.
-
- If a given content-type isn't understood, you just view the item
- as-is.
-
- For composition, there's no CHARSET= parameter on the
- Content-Type: text/plain line. It's EBCDIC until it gets into
- SMTP, then it's ASCII, then it might be anything, so I've left off
- the CHARSET= parameter.
-
- An "attach" command is added to RiceMAIL when you run this, which
- would then change the message from text/plain to multipart/mixed
- and append the attachment after a boundary. Attachments don't
- "close" properly; that is, the final boundary isn't correct, but is
- correctly processed by all of the MIME compliant readers I've
- checked. (there's some feature of RiceMAIL that causes this)
-
- This thing is based on CMS Pipelines, so adding features is easy
- since we now have the base for MIME processing.
-
-
- 3.11 Iride -- Macintosh MUA
-
- gnbts.univ.trieste.it:mime/Iride.sea.hqx
-
- [ From the README ]
-
- Iride is (or will be -- it's currently in beta test) an
- implementation of a MIME user agent on the Apple Macintosh
- computer. It was developed as part of a project of the GNBTS -
- Gruppo Nazionale Bioingegneria sezione di Trieste, for the
- integration of multimedia mail with hospital data storing
- facilities, in particular for the transfer of bioimages.
-
- This is a far from a complete MIME implementation, but I think
- it is quite usable.
-
- To use it you need:
- o Macintosh with MacTCP 1.1 or better installed
- o 32 bit ColorQuickDraw if you want to use images
- o audio input device if you want to create audio messages
- o connection to a SMTP mail relay
- o connection to a POP3 server
-
- MIME types supported:
-
- text/plain charset=US-ASCII only
- text/richtext (no tool for composing richtext yet)
-
- audio/basic
- audio/X-macaudio generated when a NOT sampled audio pasted in
-
- image/GIF
- image/X-macPICT generated when color QuickDraw is missing only
-
- multipart/mixed each part is shown in a different window
- MUST change this
- multipart/parallel
- multipart/alternative handled as multipart/mixed
- MUST change this
-
-
- 3.12 Eudora -- Macintosh MUA
-
- [ Ian Hoyle <ianh@resmel.bhp.com.au> 29-Jun-1993 ]
-
- The next version (now in beta) will support MIME. Eudora is
- POP3-based. A commercial version with more bells and whistles is
- also available.
-
- Contact Steve Dorner <sdorner@qualcomm.com> for details.
-
-
- 3.13 MIME tools for GNU Emacs
-
- [ Masanobu UMEDA <umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp> 07-Aug-1993 ]
-
- wnoc-fuk.wide.ad.jp:pub/GNU/etc/emacs-mime-tools.shar
-
- MIME tools that consist of "mime.el", "rmailmime.el" and
- "metamail.el" are tools for reading and composition of MIME
- messages for GNU Emacs and its variants. "mime.el" is a simple
- MIME message composer that works with mail mode, news mode, and
- mhe letter mode. Messages of plain and richtext text, audio, and
- image, and multipart messages of them can be composed by using
- "mime.el". "rmailmime.el" is for reading MIME messages within
- Rmail. "metamail.el" is an interface to metamail. The metamail
- package is required by these tools.
-
-
- 3.14 Miscellaneous other tools
-
- ftp.efd.lth.se:pub/mail/encdec.c.gz
-
- is a simple standalone encoder/decoder for base64 and quoted printable
- written in ISO C by Joergen Haegg <jh@efd.lth.se>.
-
-
- 3.15 Conversions from other mail systems
-
- A number of older email systems have defined ad hoc ways of dealing
- with binary file enclosures and multipart messages. This section is a
- pointer to some tools that would aid in transition efforts to the
- standard MIME approach.
-
-
- 3.15.1 uuencode to MIME
-
- [ Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu> 30-Dec-1992 ]
-
- cs.utk.edu:pub/MIME/uu-to-mime.perl
-
- A perl script that translates an RFC 822 message containing a single
- uuencoded file to a MIME message containing a base64-encoded file.
-
-
- 3.15.2 Sun OpenWindows mail to MIME
-
- [ Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu> 27-Dec-1992 ]
-
- cs.utk.edu:pub/MIME/sun-to-mime.perl
- cs.utk.edu:pub/MIME/sun-to-mime.c
-
- A perl script (and conversion to C of same) that converts
- OpenWindows mail to MIME. Body parts currently supported are:
- text, gif, Sun rasterfile (converted to image/gif), postscript,
- and audio. Other types default to application/octet-stream. It's
- easy to extend the set of types supported and to add conversions,
- if necessary.
-
- The script requires uuencode, uudecode, zcat (aka uncompress), and
- the "convert" program from ImageMagick. If you don't have
- ImageMagick you can probably substitute the pbm stuff with little
- fuss.
-
-
- 3.15.3 NeXTmail to MIME
-
- { Are these two talking about the same thing? }
-
- [ Dave Curry <davy@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu> 26-Dec-1992 ]
-
- An external program to convert it to MIME is easy... I did one for
- NeXT-to-MIME (n2m), and that's a fairly hard transformation.
-
- I wonder if I should post it... (I wonder if I did post it (:-()
-
- [ Dave Collier-Brown <davecb@ccs.yorku.ca> 04-Jan-1993 ]
-
- nexus.yorku.ca:pub/n2m.shar
-
- Nn2m is a program that converts a file containing a NeXT-format
- multimedia message into a file containing a MIME-format multimedia
- message.
-
- It is usable on Berkeley-derived systems, or ones otherwise using
- /usr/lib/sendmail as a mail transfer agent. It is in use on SunOS
- 4.1.1 and Ultrix 4.2, tested briefly on Aix 3.2 and NeXT.
-
- Description: it is used with non-NeXT mail user agents to convert
- NeXT mail to MIME, which is intelligible to more than just the
- NeXT mail program. The resulting file will usually be more
- intelligible to non-multimedia mail user agents.
-
- The textual part of the mail is converted into text, as well as
- Microsoft RTF, and the attachments follow, as text/plain wherever
- possible, as base64 encoded binaries otherwise. This suffices for
- messages with ASCII files pasted into them.
-
- Caveat: This is a converter, not a translator: the conversion of
- sound and of the initial ``index.rft'' file is not correctness-
- preserving.
-
-
- 4 Commercial MIME software packages
-
- 4.1 IBM multimedia mail for OS/2
-
- [ Larry Salomon Jr <os2man@panix.com> 10-Dec-1992 ]
-
- I'm not going to follow this group, but I wanted to state that IBM
- - at the T.J. Watson Research Center - is developing a multimedia
- mail application for OS/2 which is based on the Mime spec. They
- demoed it at Interop.
-
- For more information, including (probably) how to become a test
- site (I haven't confirmed whether they're actually going to do
- this, but they've done it before), contact the department manager,
- Jerry Cuomo, at gcuomo@watson.ibm.com
-
-
- 4.2 PMDF -- VMS ?
-
- The VMSNET newsgroup 'vmsnet.mail.pmdf' is available for discussion.
-
- [ Ned Freed <ned@innosoft.com> ]
-
- Send technical inquiries to service@innosoft.com. Product
- information, pricing, and literature can be obtained from
- sales@innosoft.com. The phone number is (909) 624-7907; FAX is
- (909) 621-5319. Street address is:
-
- Innosoft International, Inc.
- 250 W. First St., Suite 240
- Claremont, CA 91711
-
-
- 4.3 Control Data Systems Mail*Hub package
-
- [ <rrr@duck.svl.cdc.com> 23-Dec-1992 ]
-
- Mail*Hub includes support for X.400, X.500, SMTP, and creating,
- viewing, and sending MIME enclosures in mail. In addition, the Fax
- Gateway portion of Mail*Hub supports sending mail with MIME
- enclosures to a Fax machine. Graphical MIME components
- (Postscript, GIF, TIFF,...) are automatically recognized and
- imaged at the receiving Fax machine.
-
- The product is shipping now and is currently available on Control
- Data 4000 Series Mips-based Unix systems. For more information
- contact rrr@svl.cdc.com
-
-
- 4.4 cc:MAIL support for MIME
-
- SMTPLINK 2.1 will support MIME.
-
- [ <support@ccmail.com> 16-Dec-1992 ]
-
- Because this version (2.1) is a 2-3 QTR-93 release you should be
- talking to your sales rep about the tentative features of this
- product. They can be reached at 800-448-2500.
-
-
- 4.5 Z-Mail -- UNIX MUA
-
- [ Carlyn M. Lowery <lowery@zen.z-code.com> 29-May-1993 ]
-
- Z-Mail, a UNIX World Magazine "Product of the Year" winner for
- 1991, is a complete electronic mail system for workstations.
- Z-Mail provides Motif and Open Look graphical user interfaces, as
- well as two character modes. The software has been ported to
- nearly every system that runs UNIX, and it works with all standard
- UNIX mail transport agents including sendmail, binmail, smail,
- MMDF and X.400 gateways. Z-Mail can replace or coexist with
- standard mail user agents on the system, including BSD Mail, AT&T
- mailx, Sun Mail Tool, Elm, or Mush. Most anyone can use Z-Mail
- "off the shelf" and immediately benefit from its simple interface
- and advanced features.
-
- Z-Mail also includes Z-Script, a powerful scripting language that
- enables users to customize and extend Z-Mail's capabilities.
- Z-Mail's multi-media capabilities allow easy integration with
- best-of-class products including spreadsheets, desk-top
- publishing, graphics, fax, voice, and video. For example, when
- users receive a spreadsheet file, Z-Mail can be configured to
- automatically launch the associated application and load the the
- attachment automatically and transparently to the user. Z-Mail
- understands MIME-format documents and is also compatible with
- Sun's multimedia Mailtool.
-
- Mac, DOS, and Windows versions, as well as native MIME support, are
- planned for this summer.
-
- For more information on Z-Mail, contact:
- Z-Code Software Corp.
- 4340 Redwood Hwy., Suite B-50
- San Rafael, CA 94903
- tel: (415) 499-8649
- fax: (415) 479-0448
- e-mail: info@z-code.com
-
- Also, you can anonymous-ftp a demo copy of Z-Mail from "ora.com" in
- the directory pub/z-code/zmail/2.1. (The file you want is named
- zm.XXX.tar.Z, where XXX is your type of machine.) You'll need to
- call us after you do so we can send you an activation key.
-
-
- 4.6 STI Document Browser
-
- [ Ed Anselmo <anselmo@nic.near.net> 31-Dec-1992 ]
-
- Product name: STI Document Browser
- Platforms: Windows 3.1 (shipping), NeXTstep/X11/VMS (in the
- pipeline)
- How and where to get:
- Stream Technologies Inc.
- Valkjarventie 2
- SF-02130 Espoo
- FINLAND
- Tel: +358 0 43577340
- Fax: +358 0 43577348
- Email: info@sti.fi
-
-
- 4.7 Frontier Technologies Super-TCP mail system
-
- [ Ray C Langford <ray@isi.frontiertech.com> 28-Apr-1993 ]
-
- Frontier Technologies' Super-TCP for Windows includes MIME support
- in their Email mail system that is a part of the Super-TCP for
- Windows package.
-
- Super-TCP for Windows is a Windows Sockets compliant, 100% DLL
- implementation that can also operate in a TSR mode. Applications
- include: Network News Reader, Telnet, FTP Client/Server, NFS
- Client/Server, SMTP/POP2&3 MIME Email, Telnet Redirector,
- Interactive Talk, and more. Options are also available for PPP,
- X.25, and OSI.
-
- With the MIME support in Email, any type of binary file may be
- attached to your message, including Postscript files, spreadsheet
- files, database files, word processor files, graphic files, audio
- files, and digital video files.
-
- The packages in the Super-TCP product line that include the
- Email (SMTP/POP2&3) with MIME support are:
- - Super-TCP for Windows Version 3.0
- (Complete TCP/IP package)
- - Super-TCP/NFS for Windows Version 3.0
- (Complete TCP/IP package with NFS client/server)
- - Super-TCP Applications for Windows Version 3.0
- (Windows Sockets applications only)
-
- For further information, email TCP@FrontierTech.COM or call
- +1 414 241-4555.
-
-
- 4.8 PP -- UNIX MTA
-
- PP is a Mail Transport Agent (MTA), kindof son-of-MMDF-plus-X.400. It
- is built on ISODE.
-
- [ Harald Alvestrand <Harald.Alvestrand@delab.sintef.no> 18-Dec-1992 ]
-
- The ISODE Consortium release of PP will in the near future support
- gatewaying between MIME and X.400 according to the MIME-MHS
- Internet-Drafts.
-
- It will also support ESMTP.
-
-
- 4.9 HP's MPOWER
-
- [ Harald Alvestrand <Harald.Alvestrand@delab.sintef.no> 22-Jan-1993 ]
-
- If anyone is interested, the new multimedia product from HP called
- MPOWER supports MIME format mail.
-
- You can drag and drop a picture onto the mail icon, and it will be
- sent as a MIME message.
-
- (Unfortunately, they forgot to quote the delimiter that had a dot
- in it, and PINE failed to parse that......well, it's a betatest.)
-
-
- 4.10 Eudora -- Macintosh MUA
-
- A commercial version with more features than the freely available
- one. Contact Steve Dorner <sdorner@qualcomm.com> for details.
-
-
- 4.11 Mail-it -- MS Windows MUA
-
- [ Tom Kermeen <tomk@unipalm.co.uk> 11-Aug-1993 ]
-
- Mail-it is a mail user agent for Windows 3.1. Implemented using
- the Microsoft Extended MAPI architecture and with MIME
- functionality added in, Mail-it v2.0 has a wide range of features
- including:
- full drag and drop;
- hierarchical foldering;
- interaction with mail-aware and mail-enabled applications (MAPI);
- full MIME support;
- local address book;
- access to MAPI-enabled directory services;
- support for SMTP, POP2, POP3, and UUCP;
-
- Currently in beta, Mail-it v2.0 will ship in Q4 93. For further
- information email mail-it@unipalm.co.uk.
-
-
- 4.12 ECSMail -- MUA/MTA for most OSs
-
- [ Steve Hole <steve@edm.isac.ca> 24-Aug-1993 ]
-
- ECSMail is an electronic mail product for building enterprise mail
- systems. It is designed from start to finish as a system for
- establishing mail services throughout an organization, with external
- organizations and the world information system in general. It
- does this by using a completely standards based architecture.
-
- ECSMail is comprised of the following system components:
-
- ECSMail MUA Set - a set of Mail User Agents (MUA)
- ECSMail MTA Set - a set of Message Transport Agents (MTA)
- ECSMail MS Set - a set of Message Services (MS)
-
- All components support both MIME/822 and X.400, and run under
- Unix, Microsoft NT, OS/2, OpenVMS. Additionally, the MUA Set runs
- under DOS, Microsoft Windows, and Mac System 7.
-
- Pricing for the ECS products and ISA business information can be
- obtained by contacting:
-
- ECS Sales
- 835 10040 - 104 Street
- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- T5J 0Z2
-
- Phone: 403-420-8081
- Fax: 403-420-8037
-
- or by sending a request through electronic mail to the address:
-
- ECS Sales <ecs-sales@edm.isac.ca>
-
-
- 5 Miscellaneous questions
-
- 5.1 What can I use to display MIME messages?
-
- You need something that understands MIME-structured messages and also
- understands how to display the different kinds of body parts.
-
- Details of many freely available and commercial packages to do just
- that can be found in sections 3 and 4 of this FAQ.
-
-
- 5.2 What's "text/enriched"? "text/simplemail"?
-
- These two subtypes of the "text" type have a similar aim: to offer
- simple text markup, without making the text unreadable to someone
- without the software to interpret it.
-
- The text/enriched scheme uses markup commands enclosed in angle
- brackets. For example, here is how you would <bold>embolden</bold> a
- single word.
-
- Simplemail is more like a standardisation of certain existing
- practices in mail and news articles. For example, here is how you
- would *emphasize* a single word.
-
- The text/enriched type supersedes "text/richtext" that was defined in
- RFC 1341. The latter is now obsolete. The text/enriched type is
- defined in an Internet Draft, the latest version of which is
-
- draft-ietf-822ext-text-enriched-02.ps, .txt
-
- { Is simplemail an Internet Draft yet? }
-
-
- 5.3 What about security issues?
-
- Both users and administrators should be aware that ordinary Internet
- and UUCP email is not secure. No authentication, confidentiality, or
- data integrity properties are provided in SMTP, RFC-822, or MIME.
- People desiring any or all of those security properties in their email
- should look into the use of Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM). At least one
- no-cost implementation of PEM is available in the US and Canada.
- There are also a number of implementations being developed in Europe
- (hopefully these will not suffer the same restrictions on export).
-
- PEM will (eventually) be integrated with MIME. See
-
- draft-ietf-pem-mime-02.txt
-
- for the latest work on this.
-
- A system providing similar functionality to PEM implementations is
- PGP. PGP is an implementation, not a specification, and it does not
- carry the blessing of the IETF, or any other body. It is, however,
- available at no cost throughout the world (although its status with
- respect to certain US patents is dubious). Caveat emptor.
-
-
- 5.4 So, does MIME introduce any new security problems?
-
- Yes. MIME user agents can do previously unheard of things with mail
- messages, notably giving them as input to other programs.
-
- PostScript is probably the biggest potential security hole. One
- famous example is the "melting screen" PostScript program, which
- destroys screens maintained by Display PostScript implementations.
- For another example, PostScript can be used to change the password on
- some PostScript printers with previously undefined passwords, which
- denies the use of the printer until the printer's password can
- (somehow) be changed back. Yet other Display PostScript
- implementations may allow file operations. (NeXTstep wisely disables
- file operations. With GhostScript, they can be disabled by the
- "-dSAFER" command line option. Use of this option (in mailcap, etc.)
- is highly recommended.)
-
- The enumeration of these security holes is not to be interpreted as
- encouragement to exploit the holes. They are mentioned only because
- they are well known. Refer to books such as "Practical UNIX Security"
- and to news groups such as comp.security.misc for general information
- about system security.
-
-
- 5.5 What about a group 3 facsimile encoding?
-
- { This section needs some work - any volunteers? }
-
- It is rumored that there was an attempt to include G3 FAX in the
- current MIME standard, but that it was impossible for the authors of
- the MIME specification to gain a consensus on how to encode the data.
- So G3 FAX has been left for a future MIME implementation. But you can
- always define your own body part.
-
- Here are some snippets relevant to MIME and FAX.
-
- The MIME-MHS documents define a G3Fax body part that is conformant with
- the X.400 G3Fax definition.
-
- [ Stuart Lynne <sl@wimsey.com> 30-Dec-1992 ]
-
- I have prototype scripts operating with metamail to do some of this.
- Some of it is in contrib directory.
-
- Currently I have 2 scripts:
-
- mm2fax - convert mail and metamail messages to TIFF/F (uses various
- tools to convert different body parts to TIFF/F);
-
- faxmm - send rfc822 and mime email messages via facsimile (uses
- mm2fax to convert to TIFF/F).
-
- [ Ned Freed <ned@innosoft.com> 31-Dec-1992 ]
-
- PMDF-FAX is a set of channel programs for PMDF that provide
- facilities for converting text, PostScript, and various other
- formats into Group 3 FAX, as well as a set of programs that take
- these Group 3 FAX files and use them to drive a variety of FAX
- modems. MIME is used throughout to provide type information,
- multipart facilities, and so forth. PMDF-FAX was developed with MIME
- in mind from the outset.
-
-
- 5.6 Should I always use external body parts to save space?
-
- Not necessarily. In many cases, for example, at the ends of UUCP
- connections, your recipients may not be able to retrieve external body
- parts easily. It depends on your audience. Making files available via
- a mail server is to be encouraged. It is always possible to provide
- MIME alternative parts that first offer FTP, then mail server options.
-
-
- 5.7 What mail servers can I reference?
-
- There are various mail servers available. Check news.answers for the
- FAQ about mail server software. We do not presently have a
- recommendation.
-
-
- 5.8 How can I register a new MIME type?
-
- The procedures for registering new content types, character set
- values, access types, and conversions parameters with IANA (the
- Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) are documented in RFC 1341.
-
-
- 5.9 What's ESMTP, and how does it affect MIME?
-
- ESMTP (Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a mechanism by which
- extensions to "traditional" (RFC 821) SMTP can be negotiated by client
- and server. The mechanism (RFC 1425) is open-ended; so far two
- extensions have been defined.
-
- Message size declaration (RFC 1427) offers a graceful way for servers
- to limit the size of message they are prepared to accept. (With SMTP,
- the only possibility is for the server to discard the message after it
- has been sent in its entirety. There is no way for the client to know
- that it was the size of the message that caused the problem.)
-
- When a message is returned to the user as being too large to deliver,
- one possible approach might be to fragment the message using the MIME
- Message/Partial mechanism, and resubmit it.
-
- Depending on the exact reason for the "too large" rejection, this may
- or may not be a good idea. For example, the limitation may reflect
- the recipient's disk quota, in which case the fragmented message will
- not be fully deliverable either.
-
- The possibility of fragmentation should, therefore, be left to the
- user's discretion (not performed automatically by the SMTP client).
-
- 8bit-MIMEtransport (RFC 1426) opens up the possibility of sending 8bit
- data in mail messages, without having to use base64, quoted-printable,
- or another encoding, and without the breakage that can result from
- sending 8bit data to an unsuspecting RFC 821 SMTP server. RFC 1428
- (Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8bit-SMTP/MIME)
- discusses some of the implications of this.
-
-
- 5.10 Where can I get some sample MIME messages?
-
- thumper.bellcore.com:pub/nsb/samples/*
-
-
- 5.11 Wouldn't MIME be better if it did <foo>?
-
- This question is asked for various values of <foo>. Perhaps the most
- common is "multilevel encodings": see the next question. There are
- a couple general points that apply to all <foo>.
-
- 1. Please remember that MIME is the result of a lot of work by a lot
- of people, over a long time (look at the Acknowledgements section of
- RFC 1341). A great many ideas, probably including yours, were
- considered. In many cases, there were conflicting goals, such as
- simplicity and interoperability on the one hand, and power and
- flexibility on the other.
-
- 2. If you really think you've got an original idea which would improve
- MIME, the correct place to pursue it is not this newsgroup, but the
- working group mailing list (having first read the archives, to check
- that it really is new). Yes, this is going to be a lot more work than
- posting a news article.
-
-
- 5.12 So what about multilevel encodings?
-
- MIME uses a two-level encoding scheme. The original object (for
- example, a picture, or a text document) is encoded using a well
- defined mechanism appropriate to that object (perhaps GIF for the
- picture, and text/enriched for the document). Then a second encoding
- is used to ensure that the first encoding can be transmitted intact
- (probably base64 for the GIF, and quoted printable for the
- text/enriched document).
-
- Note that there is a very small number of the second encodings (five,
- but three of these are simply indications of what kind of data an
- unencoded body part contains), and it is not expected that there will
- be many more in the foreseeable future.
-
- The multilevel encodings idea is for a more generalized MIME-like
- encoding mechanism that could indicate many arbitrary transformations
- of the original object. For example,
-
- Content-Type: application/tar; conversions="encrypt,compress,uuencode"
-
- might indicate a UNIX tar file that had been encrypted, then
- compressed, then uuencoded. (Don't worry if you've never heard of
- some of these transformations.)
-
- This may look like an attractive scheme at first, but it has a number
- of problems.
-
- 1. If you've been brought up on UNIX and command pipelines, the
- implementation of such a scheme seems trivial. Surely any half-decent
- machine can do something similar? Unfortunately, this turns out to be
- true only for a very restricted definition of "half-decent". In
- practice, it would be awfully difficult to implement this on a lot of
- systems. Probably even more systems would not allow new
- transformations to be just "slotted in", and would require
- recompilation or reshipping whenever a new one came along.
-
- 2. Each successive transformation reduces the size of the audience who
- can successfully decode the message. Every MIME mailer must be able
- to decode base64 and quoted-printable, so it's guaranteed that you can
- at least get back to the raw data. What if, in the above example, I
- have tar, decrypt, uudecode, but no uncompressor?
-
- 3. Such a scheme does not increase the scope of the framework defined
- by MIME. If uuencoded, compressed, encrypted tar files are useful
- things to sling around, it is entirely possible to define a new MIME
- type (presumably a subtype of application) to handle them.
-
-
- 5.13 Why doesn't MIME include a mechanism for compression?
-
- Compression is a difficult area. It was considered by the working
- group, but no consensus was reached. There is still work going on in
- this area: there may someday be a compressed-64 encoding.
-
- Most compression algorithms have one of more of these undesirable
- properties: they are covered by patent, they require the ability to
- treat the input as a stream of bits, they use a large data space. The
- chances of finding a truly interoperable compression algorithm are
- therefore rather slim.
-
- It is worth noting that (at least) three image subtypes (GIF, JPEG,
- and TIFF), and (at least) one video subtype (MPEG) define their own
- compression schemes.
-
- { Can anyone tell me if ief and quicktime are compressed formats? }
- { I suspect they must be, but... }
-
-
- 5.14 Can I interwork between MIME and X.400?
-
- Conversion between RFC 822 and X.400 was defined in RFC 1327.
-
- Recently, the MIME-MHS working group has published RFCs (which are on
- the IAB standards track) which extend RFC 1327 to define conversions
- between MIME and X.400.
-
- { Sorry this is a bit scant---I haven't even had a chance to read the }
- { RFCs yet. Any contributions to this section gratefully received. }
-
-
- 6 MIME information available from the Internet
-
- 6.1 Anonymous FTP
-
- Information about FTPable stuff is scattered throughout this FAQ.
- More specifically, look into the RFCs, mentioned in item 2.4. Other
- goodies can be found in the MH and MetaMail source trees.
-
- thumper.bellcore.com:pub/nsb
-
- contains a collection of MIME sample messages which can be used to
- test implementations.
-
-
- 6.2 Mail based archive servers
-
- 6.2.1 Eitech "ServiceMail"
-
- [ Jay C. Weber <weber@eitech.COM> 13-Oct-1992 ]
-
- We (Enterprise Integration Technologies Corporation) have a MIME
- implementation, which we are distributing freely. Instead of a
- MIME MUA, it is a toolkit for building services that automatically
- process MIME messages. It is similar, in spirit, to the few other
- email-scripting packages except:
-
- o it exploits several MIME features
- o it is intended to run standalone (as opposed to a back-end to a MUA)
- o it uses TCL (from Berkeley) as its scripting language
-
- and support for PEM is in the works.
-
- EIT is providing ServiceMail access to the ServiceMail toolkit.
- If you have the METAMAIL or some other MIME-compliant mail reader,
- just send the message
-
- To: services@eitech.com
- Subject: archive-request servicemail.tar.Z
-
- and read the response(s) using METAMAIL. Save the result in
- servicemail.tar.Z
-
- The package can also be retrieved by anonymous FTP from the site
- eitech.com.
-
- If you have any problems with acquisition, installation, or use,
- don't hesitate to send mail to "servicemail-help@eitech.com" and
- ask for help.
-
- IF YOU WANT FUTURE UPDATES ON TOOL KIT VERSIONS, BUGS, AND
- SERVICES, MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE PACT-KIT MAILING LIST. To get
- on it, send a message to "services@eitech.com" with subject
- "listserv subscribe pact-kit your-real-name".
-
-
- 6.2.2 Metamail "mailserver"
-
- [ Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@thumper.bellcore.com> 9-Jan-1993 ]
-
- The metamail distribution includes a simple "mailserver" shell
- script that can be used to operate a MIME-conformant mail server
- mechanism, e.g. for making anon-ftp files available as MIME mail.
- ServiceMail is also now available under the "contrib" area of the
- metamail distribution.
-
-
- 6.3 Gopher
-
- [ Randall Atkinson <atkinson@tengwar.itd.nrl.navy.mil> 2-Jan-1993 ]
-
- There is experimental work underway in the Internet Gopher community
- to include MIME as a mechanism for marking the content of files.
- The freely distributable Gopher client for NeXTstep 3.0 includes
- MIME support. Other gopher clients will probably add it eventually.
-
-
- 6.4 World Wide Web
-
- [ Marc VanHeyningen <mvanheyn@cs.indiana.edu> 26-Jun-1993 ]
-
- There is more-than-experimental work underway in the Internet World
- Wide Web (WWW) community to use MIME as the mechanism for marking
- the contents of information exchanged via HyperText Transfer
- Protocol (HTTP); the specification of HTTP/1.0 dictates that both
- the request and the response are more or less MIME-compliant
- messages. There are implementations already doing this today.
-
- Support is also included for format negotiation (e.g. a server
- might have both a PostScript and a plaintext version of a paper
- and decide which to send based on what the client can accept,
- presentation preferences, size, and the like.) It's nearly as
- complicated as the "badness" mechanisms in TeX, and unrelated to
- (and, for its application, probably superior to) the
- multipart/alternative MIME type.
-
- There is an FAQ for WWW in comp.infosystems.www
-
-
- 7 Published books and articles
-
- Published books or articles that cover MIME.
-
- Marshall T. Rose has recently published the fourth book in his
- networking "trilogy".
-
- Marshall T. Rose
- "The Internet Message: closing the book with electronic mail"
- Prentice-Hall
- ISBN 0-13-092941-7
-
- It is a reasonably complete, although not technically detailed, review
- of the Internet world of electronic mail, including recent
- developments. One chapter is devoted to MIME (be warned that events
- have moved on since the publication of this book, and some of the
- detail in this chapter is no longer accurate).
-
-
- [ Alec Henderson <alech@hpindda.cup.hp.com> 18-Dec-1992 ]
-
- There is a good introductory article on MIME in the September 1992
- issue of Connexions; also several other interesting articles on
- email, both MIME and X.400. (Ole Jacobsen, the Connexions
- editor, was kind enough to send me a copy of the September issue.)
-
-
- 8 MIME based relays for commercial mail services
-
- 8.1 Large national or international providers
-
- { Lots missing here. Anyone got any info these, or any others? }
- { America On-line }
- { Compuserve }
- { Dialog }
- { Genie }
- { MCI Mail }
- { Sprintmail }
-
-
- 8.1.1 ATTMAIL
-
- [ Steve <atthelp@attmail.com> 30-Dec-1992]
-
- We do support binary attachment but are not MIME compliant nor do
- we have an X.400 to MIME conversion header routine. This is 'in the
- works', however, and due to overwhelming interest by our users and
- other prmd's, research and development are currently engaged in
- working on the issue. I do not have any information on when this
- will be available, but will let you know when I receive word of our
- MIME status.
-
-
- 8.1.2 Radiomail
-
- [ Jerry Sweet <jsweet@irvine.com> 17-Dec-1992 ]
-
- RadioMail Corp. (formerly Anterior Technology) operates three types
- of email services having these statuses with respect to MIME:
-
- 1. UUCP/Internet gatewaying. The gateway passes MIME messages using
- 7 bit encodings in either direction. The sender and receiver must,
- of course, have MIME-complaint user agents in order to handle MIME
- email.
-
- 2. cc:Mail/Internet gatewaying. cc:Mail does permit binary
- attachments of various types, and these attachments are encoded by
- the gateway for transfer via SMTP, but the encoding is not presently
- MIME compliant. This may change.
-
- 3. Wireless email gatewaying. This service can pass MIME messages
- using 7-bit encodings in either direction. However, MIME per se is
- understood neither by the DOS-hosted user agents presently supplied
- by RadioMail Corp. for use on radio modem equipped computers, nor by
- any RadioMail-compatible third-party DOS-hosted user agents. This
- may change.
-
- { Should coordinate this with the global email list that is posted to }
- { comp.mail.misc. }
-
-
-
- 8.2 Local and regional providers
-
- { Any info? Should coordinate this with e.g. the PDIAL list. }
-
-
- 9 MIME and Usenet news
-
- 9.1 Introduction
-
- Usenet articles are (by design) very similar to RFC 822 mail
- messages. It is therefore reasonable to expect MIME software to be
- adopted for use on Usenet.
-
-
- 9.2 nn
-
- [ Luc Rooijakkers <lwj@cs.kun.nl> 26-Jul-1993 ]
-
- The current beta release of nn tags newly posted articles as
- text/plain; charset=xxx with transfer encoding 8bit if the message
- contains any 8 bit characters.
-
- Reading support needs further work.
-
-
- 9.3 GNUS
-
- [ Masanobu UMEDA <umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp> 07-Aug-1993 ]
-
- GNUS is an NNTP-based newsreader for GNU Emacs. GNUS versions
- 3.14.4 and later directly support reading of articles written in
- MIME format. It only requires the metamail package. Compositions
- of articles written in MIME format requires "mime.el" that is a
- part of MIME tools for GNU Emacs (see 3.13).
-
- [ Joe Ilacqua <spike@world.std.com> 24-Jun-1993 ]
-
- world.std.com:dist/gnus-mime.el.shar
-
- (also in the contrib tree of metamail)
-
- "gnus-mime.el" is an ELISP package that adds support for MIME to
- GNUS. This is the second release: I consider it very beta, and I'm
- sure there are bugs, but it does work. It provides support both to
- read and to post USENET articles in MIME format. It's scarcest
- feature is support for multi-part multi-media ".signatures".
-
- I believe that gnus-mime.el is for GNUS prior to version 3.14.4.
-
-
- 9.4 trn
-
- trn 3.0 has support for reading MIME articles with metamail, and
- creating them with mhn.
-
-
- 9.5 INN
-
- [ Christopher Davis <ckd@eff.org> 03-Jun-1993 ]
-
- There is some minimal MIME support in the INN package. Since INN
- is a transport system, not a newsreader, the support is for
- transferring MIME messages, not reading them.
-
- [ Christophe Wolfhugel <Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr> 23-Jul-1993 ]
-
- INN's MIME support is today divided in two parts:
-
- 1) the possibility to have nnrpd add default MIME headers to
- locally posted articles;
-
- 2) transfer-encoding changes on transport with `innxmit', i.e. recode
- 8bit to quoted-printable.
-
-
- 9.6 MH
-
- [ John Romine <jromine@ics.uci.edu> 30-Jul-1993 ]
-
- If you compile MH to use NNTP, it can read news with its "bbc"
- command; MH supports MIME.
-
-
- 10 Acknowledgements
-
- Many people have contributed to this document.
-
- They include:
-
- Harald Alvestrand, Ed Anselmo, Ran Atkinson, Ron Barak, Jason Beyer,
- Nathaniel Borenstein, Yehavi Bourvine, David Collier-Brown, Mark
- Crispin, Dave Curry, Christopher Davis, Paul Eggert, Ned Freed,
- Joergen Haegg, Alec Henderson, Marc VanHeyningen, Steve Hole, Ian
- Hoyle, Joe Ilacqua, Dave Lacey, Ray Langford, Carlyn Lowery, Stuart
- Lynne, John Martin, Keith Moore, Lars-Gunnar Olsson, Rich Ragan, Joyce
- Reynolds, John Romine, Luc Rooijakkers, Marshall Rose, Larry Salomon
- Jr, Susan Straub, Jerry Sweet, Rick Troth, Masanobu Umeda, Erik van
- der Poel, Edward Vielmetti, Jay Weber, Syd Weinstein, Christophe
- Wolfhugel.
-
- If I've left your name off, please accept my apologies. Drop me a
- note and I'll include it for next time.
-
- Tim.
- --
- Tim Goodwin | "The telephone analogy to the PC being turned off is one
- PIPEX Ltd | of the conversants dying. The telephone system doesn't
- Cambridge UK | drop the call when this happens." Barry Margolin.
- --
- Tim Goodwin | "The telephone analogy to the PC being turned off is one
- PIPEX Ltd | of the conversants dying. The telephone system doesn't
- Cambridge UK | drop the call when this happens." Barry Margolin.
-