Document Shepherd Writeup
“The Require-Recipient-Valid-Since Header Field and SMTP Service Extension”
(draft-ietf-appsawg-rrvs-header-field-06)
By J. Trent Adams
January 23, 2013.
1. Summary
The document shepherd is J. Trent Adams. The responsible Area Director is Barry Leiba.
This document defines an extension for the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol called
RRVS, and a header field called Require-Recipient-Valid-Since, to provide a method
for senders to indicate to receivers the time when the sender last confirmed the
ownership of the target mailbox. This can be used to detect changes of mailbox
ownership, and thus prevent mail from being delivered to the wrong party.
The intended use of these facilities is on automatically generated messages that
might contain sensitive information, though it may also be useful in other applications.
The Applications Area Work Group (AppsArea WG) is requesting that the document
become a Proposed Standard.
2. Review and Consensus
The document has gone through 7 iterations, starting with the -00 draft published as
an I-D on August 18, 2013, and the most recent -05 version posted on January 10,
2014. Each iteration represents updates to the document following discussion on the
AppsArea WG discussion list (apps-discuss@ietf.org). There have been
approximately a dozen active contributors throughout the process, representing strong
engagement.
By way of example of the impact of the review by the AppsArea WG, the initial draft
focused on the addition of a header field within the message as a means to identifying
continuous ownership of the mailbox. Through the conversation, however, it became
clear that the community felt it was more appropriate to perform the validation through
the addition of an SMTP extension. At the conclusion of the discussion, the
document was updated and now includes an SMTP extension.
The -06 version includes clarifications and addresses issues that were brought up on
the list in response to a call for final comments. The comments on the -05 version
were incorporated to the point where those who contributed them responded that they
were comfortable that the -06 version effectively addressed their comments.
As of this writing, the document appears to have reached consensus support and
it is the opinion of this shepherd that it is ready to be moved forward.
3. Intellectual Property
The document was developed within the AppsArea WG in which all contributions by
the participants, including the named authors, were made in conformance with BCPs
78 and 79 and the copyright of the document has been granted to the IETF Trust.
The authors have further confirmed that they have no knowledge of any
encumbrances on their contributions, or any contributions made by other participants.
4. Other Points
The document requests the following be registered by IANA:
* The registration in the “Permanent Message Header Field Names” registry of a new
Header Field Name: “Require-Recipient-Valid-Since”. This request is made to support
the header field option described in this document. No expert review is required.
* The registration in the “SMTP Service Extension in the Mail Parameters” registry of
a new EHLO Keyword: ”RRVS”. No additional parameters are being requested. No
expert review is required.
* The registration of two additional “Enumerated Status Codes” within the “Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Enhanced Status Codes” registry: One to identify when a
mailbox owner has changed, the other when a domain owner has changed. At the
time of this review, the requested entries are: “X.7.17” and “X.7.18”. No expert
review is required.
* The registration in the “Email Authentication Methods” table of the “Email
Authentication Parameters” registry of a new Method: “rrvs”, with a ptype: “smtp”, and
property: “rcptto”. An expert review is required, though no expert reviewer has been
identified at this time.