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The Jabber-ID Header Field
draft-saintandre-jabberid-09

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7259.
Author Peter Saint-Andre
Last updated 2013-09-20
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Formats
Reviews
IETF conflict review conflict-review-saintandre-jabberid, conflict-review-saintandre-jabberid, conflict-review-saintandre-jabberid, conflict-review-saintandre-jabberid, conflict-review-saintandre-jabberid, conflict-review-saintandre-jabberid
Additional resources
Stream WG state (None)
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 7259 (Informational)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Lisa M. Dusseault
Send notices to stpeter@jabber.org
draft-saintandre-jabberid-09
Network Working Group                                     P. Saint-Andre
Internet-Draft                                       Cisco Systems, Inc.
Intended status: Informational                        September 20, 2013
Expires: March 24, 2014

                       The Jabber-ID Header Field
                      draft-saintandre-jabberid-09

Abstract

   This document defines a header field that enables the author of an
   email or netnews message to include a Jabber Identifier in the
   message header block for the purpose of associating the author with a
   particular Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) address.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 24, 2014.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   2.  Syntax  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   3.  Implementation Notes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
     3.1.  Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
     3.2.  Generation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
     3.3.  Processing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
     3.4.  Disposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

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1.  Introduction

   The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), documented in
   [RFC6120], is a streaming XML technology that enables any two
   entities on a network to exchange well-defined but extensible XML
   elements (called "XML stanzas") in close to real time.  Given XMPP's
   heritage in the Jabber open-source community, one of the primary uses
   for XMPP is instant messaging and presence as documented in
   [RFC6121], and XMPP addresses are still referred to as Jabber IDs.

   Because almost all human users of Jabber/XMPP instant messaging and
   presence systems also use email systems [RFC5322] and because many
   such users also use netnews systems [RFC5536], it can be helpful for
   such users to specify their Jabber IDs in the messages they author.
   The Jabber-ID header field provides a standard location for that
   information.  Members of the XMPP instant messaging and presence
   community have been experimenting with this usage for many years.  As
   a result, this document provides informational documentation
   regarding the syntax and implementation of the Jabber-ID header
   field, including the information necessary to register the Jabber-ID
   field in the Provisional Message Header Field Registry maintained by
   the IANA.

2.  Syntax

   The syntax of the Jabber-ID header field is defined below using
   Augmented Backus-Naur Form [RFC5234], where the "pathxmpp" rule is
   defined in the XMPP URI specification [RFC5122] and the remaining
   rules are defined in the Internet Message Format specification
   [RFC5322]:

      Jabber-ID = SP *WSP pathxmpp *WSP CRLF

   Although a native XMPP address can contain virtually any Unicode
   character [UNICODE], the header of an email or netnews message is
   allowed to contain only printable ASCII characters (see Section 2 of
   [RFC5322]).  Therefore, any characters outside the ASCII range
   [RFC20] in an XMPP address needs to be converted to ASCII before
   inclusion in a Jabber-ID header field, in accordance with the rules
   specified in the XMPP URI specification [RFC5122].  In addition,
   characters allowed in XMPP localparts and XMPP resourceparts but
   disallowed by the relevant URI rules need to be percent-encoded in
   accordance with the rules specified in the URI specification
   [RFC3986].

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3.  Implementation Notes

3.1.  Inclusion

   The Jabber-ID header field is associated with the author of the
   message; see [RFC5322].  If the "From:" header field of an email
   message contains more than one mailbox, the Jabber-ID header field
   ought not be added to the message.  There ought to be no more than
   one instance of the Jabber-ID header field.

3.2.  Generation

   For a user whose XMPP address is "juliet@example.com", the
   corresponding Jabber-ID header field would be:

      Jabber-ID: juliet@example.com

   As noted, non-ASCII characters in XMPP addresses need to be converted
   into ASCII before inclusion in a Jabber-ID header field.  Consider
   the following XMPP address:

      jiři@čechy.example

   In the foregoing example, the string "ř" stands for the Unicode
   character LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH CARON and the string "č"
   stands for the Unicode character LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CARON,
   following the "XML Notation" used in [RFC3987] to represent
   characters that cannot be rendered in ASCII-only documents.  For
   those who do not read Czech, this example could be Anglicized as
   "george@czech-lands.example".

   Following the rules in [RFC5122] and the Jabber-ID header field
   syntax, the resulting header field might be as shown below (note that
   this representation includes folding white space, which is allowed in
   accordance with the ABNF):

      Jabber-ID:
             ji%C5%99i@%C4%8Dechy.example

3.3.  Processing

   Upon receiving an email or netnews message containing a Jabber-ID
   header field, a user agent that supports the field ought to process
   the field by converting any escaped characters to characters outside
   the ASCII range in accordance with the rules specified in [RFC5122],
   thus yielding a Jabber Idenfitier that can be used for native
   communication on an XMPP network.

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3.4.  Disposition

   A user agent that has processed a Jabber-ID header field can provide
   appropriate interface elements if it has independent information
   linking the author of the email or netnews message with the specified
   Jabber Identifier (e.g., via a user-controlled address book or
   automated directory lookup).  Such interface elements might include
   an indicator of "presence" (i.e., that the author is online and
   available for communication via XMPP) if the user is subscribed to
   the presence of the author, and an element that enables the user to
   initiate a text chat with the author.

4.  IANA Considerations

   Header field name:  Jabber-ID
   Applicable protocol:  mail, netnews
   Status:  provisional
   Author/Change contoller  Peter Saint-Andre
      <mailto:stpeter@jabber.org>
   Specification document:  RFC XXXX
   Related information:  See RFC 6120

   Note to IANA and RFC Editor: Please replace "XXXX" with the number of
   the RFC that results from this specification.

5.  Security Considerations

   Message headers are an existing standard and are designed to easily
   accommodate new types.  Although the Jabber-ID header field could be
   forged, this problem is inherent in Internet email and netnews;
   however, because a forged Jabber-ID header field might break
   automated processing, applications ought not depend on the Jabber-ID
   header field to indicate the authenticity of an email or netnews
   message, or the identity of its author or sender.  Including the
   Jabber-ID header field among the signer header fields in DomainKeys
   Identified Mail (DKIM) can help to mitigate against forging of the
   header (see [RFC6376]).

   Advertising XMPP addresses in email or netnews headers might make it
   easier for malicious users to harvest XMPP addresses and therefore to
   send unsolicited bulk communications to the users or applications
   represented by those addresses.  Care ought to be taken in balancing
   the benefits of open information exchange against the potential costs
   of unwanted communication.  An email or netnews user agent that is
   capable of including the Jabber-ID header field in outgoing email or
   netnews messages ought to provide an option for its user to disable

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   inclusion of the Jabber-ID header field generally, on a per-recipient
   basis, and on a per-message basis.

   The security considerations discussed in [RFC3986], [RFC3987],
   [RFC5122], [RFC6120], and [RFC6121] also apply to the Jabber-ID
   message header.

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [RFC5122]  Saint-Andre, P., "Internationalized Resource Identifiers
              (IRIs) and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) for the
              Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP)",
              RFC 5122, February 2008.

   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
              Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.

   [RFC5322]  Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 5322,
              October 2008.

   [RFC6120]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, March 2011.

6.2.  Informative References

   [RFC20]    Cerf, V., "ASCII format for network interchange", RFC 20,
              October 1969.

   [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
              Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
              RFC 3986, January 2005.

   [RFC3987]  Duerst, M. and M. Suignard, "Internationalized Resource
              Identifiers (IRIs)", RFC 3987, January 2005.

   [RFC5536]  Murchison, K., Lindsey, C., and D. Kohn, "Netnews Article
              Format", RFC 5536, November 2009.

   [RFC6121]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Instant Messaging and Presence",
              RFC 6121, March 2011.

   [RFC6376]  Crocker, D., Hansen, T., and M. Kucherawy, "DomainKeys
              Identified Mail (DKIM) Signatures", RFC 6376,
              September 2011.

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   [UNICODE]  The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
              6.2", 2012,
              <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.2.0/>.

Author's Address

   Peter Saint-Andre
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   1899 Wynkoop Street, Suite 600
   Denver, CO  80202
   USA

   Phone: +1-303-308-3282
   Email: psaintan@cisco.com

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