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- Network Working Group J. Houttuin
- Request for Comments: 1615 RARE Secretariat
- RARE Technical Report: 9 J. Craigie
- Category: Informational Joint Network Team
- May 1994
-
-
- Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88)
-
- Status of this Memo
-
- This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
- does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
- this memo is unlimited.
-
- Scope
-
- In the context of a European pilot for an X.400(88) messaging
- service, this document compares such a service to its X.400(84)
- predecessor. It is aimed at a technical audience with a knowledge of
- electronic mail in general and X.400 protocols in particular.
-
- Abstract
-
- This document compares X.400(88) to X.400(84) and describes what
- problems can be anticipated in the migration, especially considering
- the migration from the existing X.400(84) infrastructure created by
- the COSINE MHS project to an X.400(88) infrastructure. It not only
- describes the technical complications, but also the effect the
- transition will have on the end users, especially concerning
- interworking between end users of the 84 and the 88 services.
-
- Table of Contents
-
- 1. New Functionality 2
- 2. OSI Supporting Layers 3
- 3. General Extension Mechanism 5
- 4. Interworking 5
- 4.1. Mixed 84/88 Domains 5
- 4.2. Generation of OR-Name Extensions from X.400(84) 6
- 4.3. Distribution List Interworking with X.400(84) 8
- 4.4. P2 Interworking 10
- 5. Topology for Migration 11
- 6. Conclusion 12
- 7. Security Considerations 13
- Appendix A - DL-expanded and Redirected Messages in X.400(84) 14
- Appendix B - Bibliography 14
- Appendix C - MHS Terminology 15
-
-
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- Houttuin & Craigie [Page 1]
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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-
- Appendix D - Abbreviations 16
- Authors' Addresses 17
-
- 1. New Functionality
-
- Apart from the greater maturity of the standard and the fact that it
- makes proper use of the Presentation Layer, the principal features of
- most use to the European R&D world in X.400(88) not contained in
- X.400(84) are:
-
- - A powerful mechanism for arbitrarily nested Distribution
- Lists including the ability for DL owners to control access
- to their lists and to control the destination of nondelivery
- reports. The current endemic use of DLs in the research
- community makes this a fundamental requirement.
-
- - The Message Store (MS) and its associated protocol, P7. The
- Message Store provides a server for remote User Agents (UAs)
- on Workstations and PCs enabling messages to be held for
- their recipient, solving the problems of non-continuous
- availability and variability of network addresses of such
- UAs. It provides powerful selection mechanisms allowing the
- user to select messages from the store to be transferred to
- the workstation/PC. This facility is not catered for
- adequately by the P3 protocol of X.400(84) and provides a
- major incentive for transition.
-
- - Use of X.500 Directories. Support for use of Directory Names
- in MHS will allow a transition from use of O/R Addresses to
- Directory Names when X.500 Directories become widespread,
- thus removing the need for users to know about MHS
- topological addressing components.
-
- - The provision of message Security services including
- authentication, confidentiality, integrity and non-
- repudiation as well as secure access between MHS components
- may be important for a section of the research community.
-
- - Redirection of messages, both by the recipient if
- temporarily unable to receive them, and by the originator in
- the event of failure to deliver to the intended recipient.
-
- - Use of additional message body encodings such as ISO 8613
- ODA (Office Document Architecture) reformattable documents or
- proprietary word processor formats.
-
-
-
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-
- - Physical Delivery services that cater for the delivery of an
- electronic message on a physical medium (such as paper)
- through the normal postal delivery services to a recipient
- who (presumably) does not use electronic mail.
-
- - The use of different body parts. In addition to the
- extensible externally defined body parts, the most common
- types are predefined in the standard. In order to give end-
- users a real advantage as compared to other technologies, the
- following body-parts should be supported as a minimum:
-
- - IA5
- - Message
- - G3FAX
- - External
- - General Text
- - Others
-
- The last bullet should be interpreted as follows: all UAs
- should be configurable to use any type of externally defined
- body part, but as a minimum General Text can be generated and
- read.
-
- - The use of extended character sets, both in O/R addresses
- and in the General Text extended bodypart. As a minimum, the
- character sets as described in the European profiles will be
- supported. A management domain may choose as an internal
- matter which character sets it wants to support in
- generating, but all user agents must be able to copy (in
- local address books and in replies) any O/R address, even if
- it contains character sets it cannot interpret itself.
-
- 2. OSI Supporting Layers
-
- The development of OSI Upper Layer Architecture since 1984 allows the
- new MHS standards to sit on the complete OSI stack, unlike X.400(84).
- A new definition of the Reliable Transfer Service (RTS), ISO 9066,
- has a mode of operation, Normal-mode, which uses ACSE and the OSI
- Presentation Layer. It also defines another mode compatible with
- X.410(84) RTS that was intended only for interworking with X.400(84)
- systems.
-
- However, there are differences between the conformance requirements
- of ISO MOTIS and CCITT X.400(88) for mandatory support for the
- complete OSI stack. ISO specify use of Normal-mode RTS as a mandatory
- requirement with X.410-mode RTS as an additional option, whereas
- CCITT require X.410-mode and have Normal-mode optional. The ISO
- standard identifies three MTA types to provide options in RTS modes:
-
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- - MTA Type A supports only Normal-mode RTS, and provides
- interworking within a PRMD and with other PRMDs (conforming
- to ISO 10021), and with ADMDs which have complete
- implementations of X.400(88) or which conform to ISO 10021.
-
- - MTA Type B adds to the functionality of MTA type A the
- ability to interwork with ADMDs implementing only the minimal
- requirements of X.400(88), by requiring support for X.410-
- mode RTS in addition to Normal-mode.
-
- - MTA Type C adds to the functionality of MTA type B the
- ability to interwork with external X.400(84) Management
- Domains (MDs, i.e., PRMDs and ADMDs), by requiring support for
- downgrading (see 5.1) to the X.400(84) P1 protocol.
-
- The interworking between ISO and CCITT conformant systems is
- summarised in the following table:
-
- CCITT
-
- X.400(84) X.400(88)
- minimal complete
- implementation
-
- ISO 10021/ MTA Type A N N Y
- MOTIS MTA Type B N Y Y
- MTA Type C Y Y Y
-
- Table 1: Interworking ISO <-> CCITT systems
-
- The RTS conformance difference would totally prevent interworking
- between the two versions of the standard if implementations never
- contained more than the minimum requirements for conformance, but in
- practice many 88 implementations will be extensions of 84 systems,
- and will thus support both modes of RTS. (At the moment we are aware
- of only one product that doesn't support Normal mode.)
-
- Both ISO and CCITT standards require P7 (and P3) to be supported
- directly over the Remote Operations Service (ROS), ISO 9072, and use
- Normal-mode presentation (and not X.410-mode). Both allow optionally
- ROS over RTS (in case the Transport Service doesn't provide an
- adequately reliable service), again using Normal-mode and not X.410-
- mode.
-
- CCITT made both Normal and X.410 mode mandatory in its X.400(92)
- version, and it is expected that the 94 version will have the X.410
- mode as an option only.
-
-
-
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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- 3. General Extension Mechanism
-
- One of the major assets in ISO 10021/X.400(88) is the extension
- mechanism. This is used to carry most of the extensions defined in
- these standards, but its principal benefit will be in reducing the
- trauma of transitions to future versions of the standards. Provided
- that implementations of the 88 standards do not try to place
- restrictions on the values that may be present, any future extension
- will be relayed by these implementations when appropriate (i.e., when
- the extension is not critical), thus providing a painless migration
- to new versions of the standards.
-
- 4. Interworking
-
- 4.1. Mixed 84/88 Domains
-
- ISO 10021-6/X.419(88) defines rules for interworking with X.400(84),
- called downgrading. As X.400 specifies the interconnection of MDs,
- these rules define the actions necessary by an X.400(88) MD to
- communicate with an X.400(84) MD. The interworking rules thus apply
- at domain boundaries. Although it would not be difficult to extend
- these to rules to convert Internal Trace formats which might be
- thought a sufficient addition to allow mixed X.400(84)/X.400(88)
- domains, the problems involved in attempting to define mixed 84/88
- domains are not quite that simple.
-
- The principle problem is in precisely defining the standard that
- would be used between MTAs within an X.400(84) domain, as X.400(84)
- only defines the interconnection of MDs. In practice, MTA
- implementations either use X.400(84) unmodified, or X.400(84) with
- the addition of Internal Trace from the first MOTIS DIS (DIS 8883),
- or support MOTIS as defined in DIS 8505, DIS 8883, and DIS 9065. The
- second option is recommended in the NBS Implementors Agreements, and
- the third option is in conformance with the CEN/CENELEC MHS
- Functional Standard [1], which requires as a minimum tolerance of all
- "original MOTIS" protocol extensions. An 84 MD must decide which of
- these options it will adopt, and then require all its MTAs to adopt
- (or at least be compatible with) this choice. No doubt this is one of
- the reasons for the almost total absence currently of mixed- vendor
- X.400(84) MDs in the European R&D MHS community. The fact that none
- of these three options for communication between MTAs within a domain
- have any status within the standardisation bodies accounts for the
- absence from ISO 10021/X.400(88) of detailed rules for interworking
- within mixed 84/88 domains.
-
- Use of the first option, unmodified X.400(84), carries the danger of
- undetectable routing loops occurring. Although these can only occur
- if MTAs have inconsistent routing tables, the absence of standardised
-
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-
- methods of disseminating routing information makes this a possibility
- which if it occurred might cause severe disruption before being
- detected. The only addition to the interworking rules needed for this
- case is the deletion of Internal Trace when downgrading a message.
-
- Use of the second option, X.400(84) plus Internal Trace, allows the
- detection and prevention of routing loops. Details of the mapping
- between original-MOTIS Internal Trace and the Internal Trace of ISO
- 10021 can be found in Annex A. This should be applied not only when
- downgrading from 88 to 84, but also in reverse when an 84 MPDU is
- received by the 84/88 Interworking MTA. If the 84 domain properly
- implements routing loop detection algorithms, then this will allow
- completely consistent reception of messages by an 84 recipient even
- after DL expansion or Redirection within that domain (but see also
- section 5.3). Unfortunately, the first DIS MOTIS like X.400(84) left
- far too much to inference, so not all implementors may have
- understood that routing loop detection algorithms must only consider
- that part of the trace after the last redirection flag in the trace
- sequence.
-
- Use of the third option, tolerance of all original-MOTIS extensions,
- would in principle allow a still higher level of interworking between
- the 84 and 88 systems. However, no implementations are known which do
- more than relay the syntax of original-MOTIS extensions: there is no
- capability to generate these protocol elements or ability to
- correctly interpret their semantics.
-
- The choice between the first two options for mixed domains can be
- left to individual management domains. It has no impact on other
- domains provided the topology recommended in section 5 is adopted.
-
- 4.2. Generation of OR-Name Extensions from X.400(84)
-
- The interworking rules defined in DIS 10021-6/X.419 Annex B allow for
- delivery of 88 messages to 84 recipients, but do not make any 88
- extensions available to 84 originators. In general this is an
- adequate strategy. Most 88 extensions provide optional services or
- have sensible defaults. The exception to this is the OR-Name
- extensions. These fall into three categories: the new CommonName
- attribute; fifteen new attributes for addressing physical delivery
- recipients; and alternative Teletex (T.61) encodings for all
- attributes that were defined as Printable Strings. Without some
- mechanism to generate these attributes, 84 originators are unable to
- address 88 recipients with OR-Addresses containing these attributes.
- Such a mechanism is defined in RARE Technical Report 3 ([2]), "X.400
- 1988 to 1984 downgrading".
-
-
-
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-
- Common-name appears likely to be a widely used attribute because it
- remedies a serious deficiency in the X.400(84) OR-Name: it provides
- an attribute suitable for naming Distribution Lists and roles, and
- even individuals where the constraints of the 84 personal-name
- structure are inappropriate or undesirable. As 84 originators will no
- doubt wish to be able to address 88 DLs (and roles), [2] defines a
- Domain Defined Attribute (DDA) to enable generation of common-name by
- 84 originators. This consists of a DDA with its type set to "common-
- name" and its value containing the Printable String encoding to be
- set into the 88 common-name attribute.
-
- This requires that all European R&D MHS 88 MTAs capable of
- interworking with 84 systems shall be able to map the value of
- "common-name" DDA in OR-Names received from 84 systems to the 88
- standard attribute extension component common-name, and vice versa.
-
- X.400(84) originators will only be able to make use of this ability
- to address 88 common-name recipients if their system is capable of
- generating DDAs. Unfortunately, one of the many serious deficiencies
- with the CEN/CENELEC and CEPT 84 MHS Functional Standards ([1] and
- [3]), as originally published, is that this ability is not a
- requirement for all conformant systems. Thus if existing European R&D
- MHS X.400(84) users wish to be able to address a significant part of
- the ISO 10021/X.400(84) world they must explicitly ensure that their
- 84 systems are capable of generating DDAs. However, this will be a
- requirement in the revised versions of ENV 41201 and ENV 41202, which
- are to be published soon. There is no alternative mechanism for
- providing this functionality to 84 users. It is estimated that
- currently 95% of all European R&D MHS users are able to generate
- DDAs.
-
- When messages are sent to both ISO 10021/X.400(88) and X.400(84)
- recipients outside the European R&D MHS community, this
- representation of common-name will not enable the external recipients
- to communicate directly unless their 84/88 interworking MTA also
- implements this mapping. However, use of this mapping within the
- European R&D MHS community has not reduced external connectivity, and
- provided RTR 3, RFC 1328 is universally implemented within this
- community it will enhance connectivity within the community.
-
- As for the new Physical Delivery address attributes in X.400(88), RTR
- 3 (RFC1328) takes the following approach. A DDA with type "X400-88"
- is used, whose value is an std-or encoding of the address as defined
- in RARE Technical Report 2 ([4]), "Mapping between X.400(1988)/ISO
- 10021 and RFC 822". This allows source routing through an appropriate
- gateway. Where the generated address is longer than 128 characters,
- up to three overflow DDAs are used: X400-C1; X400-C2; X400-C3. This
- solution is general, and does not require co-operation, i.e., it can
-
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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-
- be implemented in the gateways only.
-
- Note that the two DDA solutions mentioned above have the undesirable
- property that the P2 heading will still contain the DDA form, unless
- content upgrading is also done. In order to shield the user from
- cryptic DDAs, such content upgrading is in general recommended, also
- for nested forwarded messages, even though the available standards
- and profiles do not dictate this.
-
- 4.3. Distribution List Interworking with X.400(84)
-
- Before all X.400(84) systems are upgraded to ISO 10021, the
- interaction of Distribution Lists with X.400(84) merits special
- attention as DLs are already widely used.
-
- Nothing, apart perhaps from the inability to generate the DL's OR-
- Address if the DL uses the common-name attribute, prevents an
- X.400(84) originator from submitting a message to a DL.
-
- X.400(84) users can also be members (i.e., recipients) of a DL.
- However, if the X.400(84) systems involved correctly implement
- routing loop detection, the X.400(84) recipient may not receive all
- messages sent to the DL. X.400(84) routing loop detection involves a
- recipient MD in scanning previous entries in a message's trace
- sequence for an occurrence of its own domain, and if such an entry is
- found the message is non-delivered. The new standards extend the
- trace information to contain flags to indicate DL-expansion and
- redirection, and re-define the routing loop detection algorithm to
- only examine trace elements from the last occurrence of either of
- these flags. Thus 88 systems allow a message to re-traverse an MD (or
- be relayed again by an MTA) after either DL-expansion or redirection.
- However, these flags cannot be included in X.400(84) trace, so are
- deleted on downgrading. Therefore the 84 DL recipient will receive
- all messages sent to the DL except those which had a common point in
- the path to the DL expansion point with the path from the expansion
- points to his UA. This common point is an MD in the case of a DL in
- another MD or an MTA in the case of a DL in the same MD. Although
- this is quite deterministic behaviour, the user is unlikely to
- understand it and instead regard it as erratic or inconsistent
- behaviour.
-
- Another problem with X.400(84) DL members will be that delivery and
- non-delivery reports will be sent back directly to the originator of
- a message, rather than routed through the hierarchy of DL expansion
- points where they could have been routed to the DL administrator
- instead of (or as well as) the originator.
-
-
-
-
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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-
- No general solution to this problem has yet been devised, despite
- much thought from a number of experts. The nub of the problem is that
- changing the downgrading rules to enable 84 recipients to receive all
- such messages also allows the possibility of undetectable infinite DL
- or redirection looping where there is an 84 transit domain.
-
- A potential solution is to extend the DL expansion procedures to
- explicitly identify X.400(84) recipients and to treat them specially,
- at least by deleting all trace prior to the expansion point. This
- solution is only dangerous if another DL reached through an 84
- transit domain is inadvertently configured as an 84 recipient, when
- infinite looping could occur. It does however impose the problems of
- 84 interworking into MHS components which need to know nothing even
- of the existence of X.400(84). It also requires changes to the
- Directory attribute mhs-dl-members to accommodate the indication that
- identifies the recipient as an X.400(84) user, unless European R&D
- MHS DLs are restricted to being implemented by local tables rather
- than making use of the Directory.
-
- A similar change would be required for Redirection. However, the
- change for Redirection would have substantially more impact as it
- would require European R&D MHS-specific MHS protocol extensions to
- identify the redirected recipient as an X.400(84) user. If the
- European R&D MHS adopts a reasonable quality of MHS(88) service, all
- its MTAs would be capable of Redirection and all UAs would be capable
- of requesting originator-specified-alternate-recipient and thus be
- required to incorporate these non-standard additions. A special
- European R&D MHS modification affecting all MTAs and UAs seems
- impractical, too!
-
- If the recommended European R&D MHS topology for MHS migration (See
- chapter 5) is adopted there will never be an X.400(84) transit domain
- (or MTA) between two ISO 10021 systems. This allows the deletion of
- trace prior to the last DL expansion or redirection to be performed
- as part of the downgrading, giving the X.400(84) user a consistent
- service. This solution has the advantage of only requiring changes at
- the convertors between X.400(84) and ISO 10021/X.400(88), where other
- European R&D MHS specific extensions have also been identified. A
- precise specification of this solution is given in Annex A.
-
- Finally, problems might occur because some X.400(84) MTAs could
- object to messages containing more than one recipient with the same
- extension-id (called originally-requested-recipient-number in the new
- standards), since this was not defined in X.400(84). Note that
- X.400(84) only requires that all extension-id's be different at
- submission time, so 84 software that does not except messages with
- identical extension-id's for relaying or delivery must be considered
- broken.
-
-
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- 4.4. P2 Interworking
-
- RTR 3, RFC 1328 also defines the downgrading rules for P2 (IPM)
- interworking: The IPM service in X.400(1984) is usually provided by
- content type 2. In many cases, it will be useful for a gateway to
- downgrade P2 from content type 22 to 2. This will clearly need to be
- made dependent on the destination, as it is quite possible to carry
- content type 22 over P1(1984). The decision to make this downgrade
- will be on the basis of gateway configuration.
-
- When a gateway downgrades from 22 to 2, the following should be done:
-
- 1. Strip any 1988 specific headings (language indication, and
- partial message indication).
-
- 2. Downgrade all O/R addresses, as described in Section 3.
-
- 3. If a directory name is present, there is no method to
- preserve the semantics within a 1984 O/R Address. However, it
- is possible to pass the information across, so that the
- information in the Distinguished Name can be informally
- displayed to the end user. This is done by appending a text
- representation of the Distinguished Name to the Free Form
- Name enclosed in round brackets. It is recommended that the
- "User Friendly Name" syntax is used to represent the
- Distinguished Name [5]. For example:
-
- (Steve Hardcastle-Kille, Computer Science,
- University College London, GB)
-
- 4. The issue of body part downgrade is discussed in Section 6.
-
- Note that a message represented as content type 22 may have
- originated from [6]. The downgrade for this type of message can be
- improved. This is discussed in RTR 2, RFC 1327.
-
- Note that the newer EWOS/ETSI recommendations specify further rules
- for downgrading, which are not all completely compatible with the
- rules in RTR 3, RFC 1328. This paper does not state which set of
- rules is preferred for the European R&D MHS, it only states that a
- choice will have to be made.
-
- As the transition topology recommended for the European R&D MHS is to
- never use 84 transit systems between 88 systems, it is possible to
- improve on the P2 originator downgrading and resending scenario. The
- absence of 84 transit systems means that the necessity for a P1
- downgrade implies that the recipient is on an 84 system, and thus
- that it is better to downgrade 88 P2 contents to 84 P2 rather than to
-
-
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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-
- relay it in the knowledge that it will not be delivered.
-
- 5. Topology for Migration
-
- Having decided that a transition from X.400(84) is appropriate, it is
- necessary to consider the degree of planning and co- ordination
- required to preserve interworking during the transition.
-
- It is assumed as a fundamental tenet that interworking must be
- preserved during the transition. This requires that one or more
- system in the European R&D MHS community must act as a protocol
- converter by implementing the rules for "Interworking with 1984
- Systems" listed in Annex B of ISO 10021-6/X.419.
-
- When downgrading from ISO 10021/X.400(88) to X.400(84) all extensions
- giving functionality beyond X.400(84) are discarded, or if a critical
- extension is present then downgrading fails and a non-delivery
- results. Thus, although it is possible to construct topologies of
- interconnected MTAs so that two 88 MTAs can only communicate by
- relaying through one or more 84 MTA, to maximise the quality of
- service which can be provided in the European R&D MHS community it is
- proposed that it require that no two European R&D MHS 88 MTAs shall
- need to communicate by relaying through a X.400(84) MTA. Furthermore,
- if this is extended to require that no two European R&D MHS 88 MTAs
- shall ever communicate by relaying through an X.400(84) MTA, then the
- European R&D MHS can provide enhanced interworking functionality to
- its X.400(84) users.
-
- If mixed vintage 88 and 84 Management Domains (MDs) are created, the
- routing loop detection rules, which specify that a message shall not
- re-enter an MD it has previously traversed, require that downgrading
- is performed within that mixed vintage MD. That MD therefore requires
- at least one MTA capable of downgrading from 88 to 84. It is unlikely
- that every MTA within an MD will be configured to act as an entry-
- point to that MD from other MDs. However, the proposed European R&D
- MHS migration topology requires that as soon as a domain has an 88
- MTA it shall also have an 88 entry point - this may, of course, be
- that same MTA.
-
- Even for MDs operating all the same MHS vintage internally, providing
- entry-points for both MHS vintages will give considerable advantage
- in maximising the connectivity to other MDs. Initially, it will be
- particularly important for 88 MDs to be able to communicate with 84
- only MDs, but as 88 becomes more widespread eventually the 84 MDs
- will become a minority for which the ability to support 88 will be
- important to maintain connectivity. For most practical MDs providing
- entry-points that implement options in the supporting layers will
- also be important. Support for at least the following is recommended
-
-
-
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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-
- at MD entry-points:
-
- 88-P1/Normal-mode RTS/CONS/X.25(84)
- 88-P1/Normal-mode RTS/RFC1006/TCP/IP
- 84-P1/X.25(80)
- 84-P1/RFC1006/TCP/IP
-
- The above table omits layers where the choice is obvious (e.g.,
- Transport class zero), or where no choice exists (e.g., RTS for 84-
- P1).
-
- The requirement for no intermediate 84 systems does require that the
- European R&D MHS use direct PRMD to PRMD routing between 88 PRMDs at
- least until such time as all ADMDs will relay the 88 MHS protocols.
-
- Finally, in order to keep routing co-ordination overhead to a
- minimum, an important requirement for the migration strategy is that
- only one common set of routing procedures is used for both 84 and 88
- systems in the European R&D MHS.
-
- 6. Conclusion
-
- 1. The transition from X.400(84) to ISO 10021/X.400(88) is
- worthwhile for the European R&D MHS, to provide:
-
- - P7 Message Store to support remote UAs.
- - Distribution Lists.
- - Support for Directory Names.
- - Standardised external Body Part types.
- - Redirection.
- - Security.
- - Future extensibility.
- - Physical Delivery.
-
- 2. To minimise the number of transitions the European R&D MHS
- target should be ISO 10021 rather than CCITT X.400(88) -
- i.e., straight to use of the full OSI stack with Normal-mode
- RTS.
-
- 3. To give a useful quality of service, the European R&D MHS
- should not use minimal 88 MTAs which relay the syntax but
- understand none of the semantics of extensions. In
- particular, all European R&D MHS 88 MTAs should generate
- reports containing extensions copied from the subject message
- and route reports through the DL expansion hierarchy where
- appropriate.
-
-
-
-
-
- Houttuin & Craigie [Page 12]
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
-
-
- 4. The European R&D MHS should carefully plan the transition so
- that it is never necessary to relay through an 84 system to
- provide connectivity between any two 88 systems.
-
- 5. The European R&D MHS should consider the additional
- functionality that can be provided to X.400(84) users by
- adopting an enhanced specification of the interworking rules
- between X.400(84) and ISO 10021/X.400(88), and weigh this
- against the cost of building and maintaining its own
- convertors. The advantages to X.400(84) users are:
-
- - Ability to generate 88 common-name attribute, likely to
- be widely used for naming DLs.
- - Consistent reception of DL-expanded and Redirected
- messages.
- - Ability to receive extended 88 P2 contents
- automatically downgraded to 84 P2.
-
- 7. Security Considerations
-
- Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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-
-
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-
- Houttuin & Craigie [Page 13]
-
- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
-
-
- Appendix A - DL-expanded and Redirected Messages in X.400(84)
-
- This Annex provides an additional to the rules for "Interworking with
- 1984 Systems" contained in Annex B of ISO 10021-6/X.419, to give
- X.400(84) recipients consistent reception of messages that have been
- expanded by a DL or redirected. It is applicable only if the
- transition topology for the European R&D MHS recommended in section
- 3 is adopted.
-
- Replace the first paragraph of B.2.3 by:
-
- If an other-actions element is present in any trace- information-
- elements, that other-actions element and all preceding trace-
- information-elements shall be deleted. If an other-actions element is
- present in any subject-intermediate-trace-information- elements, that
- other-actions element shall be deleted.
-
- Appendix B - Bibliography
-
- [1] ENV 41201, "Private MHS UA and MTA: PRMD to PRMD", CEN/CENELEC,
- 1988.
-
- [2] Kille, S., "X.400 1988 to 1984 downgrading", RTR 3, RFC 1328,
- University College London, May 1992.
-
- [3] ENV 41202, "Protocol for InterPersonal Messaging between MTAs
- accessing the Public MHS", CEPT, 1988.
-
- [4] Kille, S. "Mapping between X.400(1988)/ISO 10021 and RFC 822",
- RTR 2, RFC 1327; University College London. May 1992.
-
- [5] Kille, S., "Using the OSI Directory to achieve User Friendly
- Naming", RFC 1484, ISODE Consortium, July 1993.
-
- [6] Crocker, D., "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text
- Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, University of Delaware, August 1982.
-
- [7] Craigie, J., "COSINE Study 8.2.2. Migration Strategy for
- X.400(84) to X.400(88)/MOTIS", Joint Network Team, 1988.
-
- [8] Craigie, J., "ISO 10021-X.400(88): A Tutorial for those familiar
- with X.400(84)", Computer Networks and ISDN systems 16, 153-160,
- North-Holland, 1988.
-
- [9] Manros, C.-U., "The X.400 Blue Book Companion", ISBN 1 871802 00
- 8, Technology Appraisals Ltd, 1989.
-
-
-
-
-
- Houttuin & Craigie [Page 14]
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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-
- [10] CCITT Recommendations X.400 - X.430, "Data Communication
- Networks: Message Handling Systems", CCITT Red Book, Vol. VIII -
- Fasc. VIII.7, Malaga-Torremolinos, 1984.
-
- [11] CCITT Recommendations X.400 - X.420 (ISO IS-10021), "Data
- Communication Networks: Message Handling Systems", CCITT Blue
- Book, Vol. VIII - Fasc. VIII.7, Melbourne, 1988.
-
- Appendix C - MHS Terminology
-
- Message Handling is performed by four types of functional entity:
- User Agents (UAs) which enable the user to compose, send, receive,
- read and otherwise process messages; Message Transfer Agents (MTAs)
- which provide store-and-forward relaying services; Message Stores
- (MSs) which act on behalf of UAs located remotely from their
- associated MTA (e.g., UAs on PCs or workstations); and Access Units
- (AUs) which interface MHS to other communications media (e.g., Telex,
- Teletex, Fax, Postal Services). Each UA (and MS, and AU) is served by
- a single MTA, which provides that user's interface into the Message
- Transfer Service (MTS).
-
- Collections of MTAs (and their associated UAs, MSs and AUs) which are
- operated by or under the aegis of a single management authority are
- termed a Management Domain (MD). Two types of MD are defined: an
- ADMD, which provides a global public message relaying service
- directly or indirectly to all other ADMDs; and a PRMD operated by a
- private concern to serve its own users.
-
- A Message is comprised of an envelope and its contents. Apart from
- the MTS content-conversion service, the content is not examined or
- modified by the MTS which uses the envelope alone to provide the
- information required to convey the message to its destination.
-
- The MTS is the store-and-forward message relay service provided by
- the set of all MTAs. MTAs communicate with each other using the P1
- Message Transfer protocol.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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-
-
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- Houttuin & Craigie [Page 15]
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
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-
- Appendix D - Abbreviations
-
- ACSE Association Control Service Element
- ADMD Administration Management Domain
- ASCII American Standard Code for Information Exchange
- ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation One
- AU Access Unit
- CCITT Comite Consultatif International de Telegraphique et
- Telephonique
- CEN Comite Europeen de Normalisation
- CENELEC Comite Europeen de Normalisation Electrotechnique
- CEPT Conference Europeene des Postes et Telecommunications
- CONS Connection Oriented Network Service
- COSINE Co-operation for OSI networking in Europe
- DL Distribution List
- DIS Draft International Standard
- EN European Norm
- ENV Draft EN, European functional standard
- IEC International Electrotechnical Commission
- IPM Inter-Personal Message
- IPMS Inter-Personal Messaging Service
- IPN Inter-Personal Notification
- ISO International Organisation for Standardisation
- JNT Joint Network Team (UK)
- JTC Joint Technical Committee (ISO/IEC)
- MD Management Domain (either an ADMD or a PRMD)
- MHS Message Handling System
- MOTIS Message-Oriented Text Interchange Systems
- MTA Message Transfer Agent
- MTL Message Transfer Layer
- MTS Message Transfer System
- NBS National Bureau of Standardization
- OSI Open Systems Interconnection
- PRMD Private Management Domain
- RARE Reseaux Associes pour la Recherche Europeenne
- RFC Request for Comments
- RTR RARE Technical Report
- RTS Reliable Transfer Service
- WG-MSG RARE Working Group on Mail and Messaging
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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- Houttuin & Craigie [Page 16]
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- RFC 1615 Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88) May 1994
-
-
- Authors' Addresses
-
- Jeroen Houttuin
- RARE Secretariat
- Singel 466-468
- NL-1017 AW Amsterdam
- Europe
-
- Phone: +31 20 6391131
- RFC 822: houttuin@rare.nl
- X.400: C=NL;ADMD=400net;PRMD=surf;
- O=rare;S=houttuin;
-
-
- Jim Craigie
- Joint Network Team
- Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
- UK-OX11 OQX Chilton
- Didcot, Oxfordshire
- Europe
-
- Phone: +44 235 44 5539
- RFC 822: J.Craigie@jnt.ac.uk
- X.400: C=GB;ADMD= ;PRMD=UK.AC;
- O=jnt;I=J;S=Craigie;
-
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