IMAP4 Extension: Message Preview Generation
draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-08

EXTRA                                                         M. Slusarz
Internet-Draft                                         Open-Xchange Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track                            July 1, 2020
Expires: January 2, 2021

              IMAP4 Extension: Message Preview Generation
                 draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-08

Abstract

   This document specifies an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
   protocol extension allowing a client to request a server-generated
   abbreviated text representation of message data useful as a
   contextual preview of the entire message.

Status of This Memo

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

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 2, 2021.

Copyright Notice

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   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions Used In This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  FETCH Data Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.2.  Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.3.  Preview Text Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  PREVIEW Priority Modifiers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  LAZY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   6.  Formal Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Appendix A.  Change History (To be removed by RFC Editor before
                publication) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

1.  Introduction

   Many modern mail clients display small extracts of the body text as
   an aid to allow a user to quickly decide whether they are interested
   in viewing the full message contents.  Mail clients implementing the
   Internet Message Access Protocol [RFC3501] would benefit from a
   standardized, consistent way to generate these brief textual previews
   of messages.

   Generation of a preview on the server has several benefits.  First,
   it allows consistent representation of previews across all clients.
   This standardized display can reduce user confusion when using
   multiple clients, as abbreviated message representations in clients
   will show identical message contents.

   Second, server-side preview generation is more efficient.  A client-
   based algorithm needs to issue, at a minimum, a FETCH BODYSTRUCTURE
   command in order to determine which MIME [RFC2045] body part(s)
   should be represented in the preview.  Subsequently, at least one
   FETCH BODY command may be needed to retrieve body data used in
   preview generation.  These FETCH commands cannot be pipelined since
   the BODYSTRUCTURE query must be parsed on the client before the list
   of parts to be retrieved via the BODY command(s) can be determined.

   Additionally, it may be difficult to predict the amount of body data
   that must be retrieved to adequately represent the part via a

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   preview, therefore requiring inefficient fetching of excessive data
   in order to account for this uncertainty.  For example, a preview
   algorithm to display data contained in a text/html [RFC2854] part
   will likely strip the markup tags to obtain textual content.
   However, without fetching the entire content of the part, there is no
   way to guarantee that sufficient non-tag content will exist unless
   either 1) the entire part is retrieved or 2) an additional partial
   FETCH is executed when the client determines that it does not possess
   sufficient data from a previous partial FETCH to display an adequate
   representation of the preview.

   Finally, server generation allows caching in a centralized location.
   Using server-generated previews allows global generation once per
   message, and then cached for the retention period of the source
   message.  Retrieval of message data may be expensive within a server,
   for example, so a server can be configured to reduce its storage
   retrieval load by pre-generating preview data.

   A server indicates support for this extension via the "PREVIEW"
   capability name.

2.  Conventions Used In This Document

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   "User" is used to refer to a human user, whereas "client" refers to
   the software being run by the user.

   In examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client and
   server respectively.  If a single "C:" or "S:" label applies to
   multiple lines, then the line breaks between those lines are for
   editorial clarity only and are not part of the actual protocol
   exchange.

   As with all IMAP extension documents, the case used in writing IMAP
   protocol elements herein is chosen for editorial clarity, and
   implementations must pay attention to the numbered rules at the
   beginning of [RFC3501] Section 9.

3.  FETCH Data Item

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3.1.  Command

   To retrieve a preview for a message, the "PREVIEW" FETCH attribute is
   used when issuing a FETCH command.

3.2.  Response

   The server returns a variable-length string that is the generated
   preview for that message.

   Example: Retrieving preview information in a SELECTed mailbox

     C: A1 FETCH 1 (PREVIEW)
     S: * 1 FETCH (PREVIEW "Preview text!")
     S: A1 OK FETCH complete.

   A server SHOULD strive to generate the same string for a given
   message for each request.  However, since previews are understood to
   be an approximation of the message data and not a canonical view of
   its contents, a client MUST NOT assume that a message preview is
   immutable for a given message.  This relaxed requirement permits a
   server to offer previews as an option without requiring potentially
   burdensome storage and/or processing requirements to guarantee
   immutability for a use case that does not require this strictness.
   For example, the underlying IMAP server may change due to a system
   software upgrade; an account's state information may be retained in
   the migration but the new server may generate different PREVIEW text
   than the old server.

   It is possible that preview text is not available now, but might be
   available later -- perhaps the server's preview-generating resources
   are overloaded, there is a server-imposed timeout during preview
   generation, or there is some transient issue with fetching the
   message body.  In such cases, the server will return NIL as the
   preview response, and the client can try to retrieve the preview
   later.

   On the other hand, it is possible that the server has determined that
   no meaningful preview text can be generated for a particular message,
   and that decision won't change later.  Examples of this involve
   encrypted messages, content types the server does not support
   previews of, and other situations where the server is not able to
   extract information for a preview.  In such cases, the server will
   return a zero-length string.  Clients SHOULD NOT send another FETCH
   for a preview for such messages.  (As discussed previously, preview
   data is not immutable so there is chance that at some point in the
   future the server would be able to generate meaningful text.
   However, this scenario is expected to be rare so a client should not

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   continually send out requests to try to capture this infrequent
   occurrence.

3.3.  Preview Text Format

   The generated preview text MUST be treated as text/plain [RFC2046]
   media type data by the client.

   The generated string MUST NOT be content transfer encoded and MUST be
   encoded in UTF-8 [RFC3629].  The server SHOULD remove any formatting
   markup and do whatever processing might be useful in rendering the
   preview as plain text.

   For purposes of this section, a "preview character" is defined as a
   single UCS character encoded in UTF-8.  Note: a single preview
   character may compromise multiple octets, so any buffers implemented
   to conform to the string limitations identified in this document
   should be sized to prevent possible overflow errors.

   The server SHOULD limit the length of the preview text to 200 preview
   characters.  This length should provide sufficient data to generally
   support both various languages (and their different average word
   lengths) and diverse client display size requirements.

   The server MUST NOT output preview text longer than 256 preview
   characters.

   If the preview is not generated based on the body content of the
   message, and the LANGUAGE [RFC5255] extension is supported by the
   server, the preview text SHOULD be generated according to the
   language rules that apply to human-readable text.  For example, a
   message that consists of a single image MIME part has no human-
   readable text from which to generate preview information.  Instead,
   the server may wish to output a description that the message contains
   an image and describe some attributes of the image, such as image
   format, size, and filename.  This descriptive text is not a product
   of the message body itself but is rather auto-generated data by the
   server, and should thus use the rules defined for human-generated
   text described in the LANGUAGE extension (if supported on the
   server).

4.  PREVIEW Priority Modifiers

4.1.  LAZY

   The LAZY modifier directs the server to return the preview
   representation only if that data can be returned without undue delay
   to the client.

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   This modifier allows a client to inform the server that preview data
   is nice-to-have, but the server SHOULD NOT block the return of other
   FETCH information at the expense of generating the preview data.

   For example, a client displaying the initial mailbox listing to a
   user may want to display preview information associated with messages
   in that listing.  However, this information is secondary to providing
   the mailbox listing, with message details, and the client is willing
   to load any unavailable previews in the background and display them
   as they are provided by the server.  In this case, the client would
   send the LAZY modifier directing the server to only return pre-
   generated preview data so that retrieval of the other FETCH
   information is not blocked by possibly expensive preview generation.

   Generally, the LAZY modifier will only be used once per mailbox load
   during the initial listing.  If preview information is not available
   during this initial FETCH, the expectation is that a second non-LAZY
   FETCH will take place after mailbox listing activities are complete.
   Thus, a maximum of 2 PREVIEW FETCH queries should occur for any
   message in a selected mailbox.  A client SHOULD NOT continually issue
   LAZY PREVIEW FETCH commands in a selected mailbox as the server is
   under no requirement to return preview information for this command,
   which could lead to an unnecessary waste of system and network
   resources.  See Example 2 in the Examples section for how this can be
   implemented.

   The LAZY modifier MUST be implemented by any server that supports the
   PREVIEW extension.

5.  Examples

   Example 1: Requesting PREVIEW without LAZY modifier.

     C: A1 CAPABILITY
     S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 PREVIEW
     S: A1 OK Capability command completed.
     [...a mailbox is SELECTed...]
     C: A2 FETCH 1 (RFC822.SIZE PREVIEW)
     S: * 1 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 5647 PREVIEW {200}
     S: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
     S: Curabitur aliquam turpis et ante dictum, et pulvinar dui congue.
     S: Maecenas hendrerit, lorem non imperdiet pellentesque, nulla
     S: ligula nullam
     S: )
     S: A2 OK FETCH complete.

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   Example 2: Requesting PREVIEW with LAZY modifier, to obtain previews
   during initial mailbox listing if readily available; otherwise, load
   previews in background.

     C: D1 FETCH 1:3 (ENVELOPE PREVIEW (LAZY))
     S: * 1 FETCH (ENVELOPE ("Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:03:11 +0000" [...])
        PREVIEW "Preview text for message 1.")
     S: * 2 FETCH (PREVIEW "" ENVELOPE
        ("Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:17:23 +0000" [...]))
     S: * 3 FETCH (ENVELOPE ("Fri, 27 Oct 2017 22:19:21 +0000" [...])
        PREVIEW NIL)
     S: D1 OK FETCH completed.
     [...Client knows that message 2 has a preview that is empty;
         therefore, client only needs to request message 3 preview again
         (e.g. in background)...]
     C: D2 FETCH 3 (PREVIEW)
     S: * 3 FETCH (PREVIEW {30}
     S: Message data from message 3.
     S: )
     S: D2 OK Fetch completed.

   Example 3: Retrieve preview information for search results within a
   single mailbox.  Use SEARCHRES [RFC5182] extension to save a round-
   trip.

     C: E1 CAPABILITY
     S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 PREVIEW SEARCHRES
     S: E1 OK Capability command completed.
     [...a mailbox is SELECTed...]
     C: E2 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) FROM "FOO"
     C: E3 FETCH $ (UID PREVIEW (LAZY))
     S: E2 OK SEARCH completed.
     S: * 5 FETCH (UID 13 PREVIEW "Preview!")
     S: * 9 FETCH (UID 23 PREVIEW NIL)
     S: E3 OK FETCH completed.
     [...Retrieve message 9 preview in background...]
     C: E4 UID FETCH 23 (PREVIEW)
     S: * 9 FETCH (UID 23 PREVIEW "Another preview!")
     S: E4 OK FETCH completed.

6.  Formal Syntax

   The following syntax specification uses the augmented Backus-Naur
   Form (BNF) as described in ABNF [RFC5234].  It includes definitions
   from IMAP [RFC3501].

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     capability        =/ "PREVIEW"

     fetch-att         =/ "PREVIEW" [SP "(" preview-mod *(SP
                          preview-mod) ")"]

     msg-att-dynamic   =/ "PREVIEW" SP nstring

     preview-mod       =  "LAZY"

7.  IANA Considerations

   IMAP4 [RFC3501] capabilities are registered by publishing a standards
   track or IESG-approved experimental RFC.  The registry is currently
   located at:

      http://www.iana.org/assignments/imap-capabilities

   This document requests that IANA adds the "PREVIEW" capability to the
   IMAP4 [RFC3501] capabilities registry.

8.  Security Considerations

   Implementation of this extension might enable denial-of-service
   attacks against server resources, due to excessive memory or CPU
   usage during preview generation or increased storage usage if preview
   results are stored on the server after generation.  Servers MAY limit
   the resources that preview generation uses.  In order to mitigate
   such attacks, servers SHOULD log the client authentication identity
   on FETCH PREVIEW operations in order to facilitate tracking of
   abusive clients.

   Just as the messages they summarize, preview data may contain
   sensitive information.  If generated preview data is stored on the
   server, e.g. for caching purposes, these previews MUST be protected
   with equivalent authorization and confidentiality controls as the
   source message.

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2046]  Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
              Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2046, November 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2046>.

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   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC3501]  Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
              4rev1", RFC 3501, DOI 10.17487/RFC3501, March 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3501>.

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629, November
              2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3629>.

   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
              Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.

   [RFC5255]  Newman, C., Gulbrandsen, A., and A. Melnikov, "Internet
              Message Access Protocol Internationalization", RFC 5255,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5255, June 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5255>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

9.2.  Informative References

   [RFC2045]  Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
              Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message
              Bodies", RFC 2045, DOI 10.17487/RFC2045, November 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2045>.

   [RFC2854]  Connolly, D. and L. Masinter, "The 'text/html' Media
              Type", RFC 2854, DOI 10.17487/RFC2854, June 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2854>.

   [RFC5182]  Melnikov, A., "IMAP Extension for Referencing the Last
              SEARCH Result", RFC 5182, DOI 10.17487/RFC5182, March
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5182>.

Appendix A.  Change History (To be removed by RFC Editor before
             publication)

   Changes from draft-slusarz-imap-fetch-snippet-00:

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   o  Added standardized language to Section 2 regarding IMAP ABNF
      conventions

   o  Changed draft name to draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-snippet-##

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-snippet-00:

   o  Changed nomenclature from "snippet" to "preview"

   o  Changed draft name to draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-##

   o  Update to RFC 8174 boilerplate

   o  Updated length requirements for PREVIEW=FUZZY

   o  Added preview-atom ABNF to limit use of "=" character

   o  UTF-8 is a normative reference

   o  Clarify that characters for purpose of length limitations are
      defined as UCS characters as encoded by UTF-8

   o  Fix some incorrect literal lengths in examples

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-00:

   o  Updated postal address

   o  Added example to FETCH response section

   o  Added example on how LANGUAGE extension may influence preview
      generation

   o  Added recommendation that only one LAZY FETCH be executed for a
      message per mailbox

   o  Added request to create algorithm and modifier registries

   o  Added requirement that algorithm and modifier names conform to RFC
      6648

   o  Added DoS attack info to security considerations

   o  Distinguish between NIL response and zero-length string

   o  Don't use deprecated "X-" convention in example

   o  Spelling and nits

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   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-01:

   o  Fix capability ABNF

   o  Removed CAPABILITY string for examples where it did not add
      valuable context

   o  Altered preview data in examples to cover a variety of potential
      server return scenarios

   o  Added "SHOULD be registered" language to algorithm names and
      priority modifiers

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-02:

   o  Move Acknowledgments to un-numbered appendix

   o  Improved abstract text

   o  Consistently use "priority modifiers" instead of "modifiers"

   o  Update example to conform with RFC 3501 UID FETCH requirements

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-03:

   o  Remove preview modifier registry request

   o  Improve instructions for registration of algorithms

   o  Add storage information to security considerations

   o  Clarify parsing of algorithm list in FETCH command

   o  Clarify difference between NIL response and zero-length string

   o  Add normative reference for text/plain

   o  Add warning regarding buffers and multiple octet preview
      characters

   o  Clarify how to handle preview data return when using an explicit
      algorithm list

   o  Various editorial fixes

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-04:

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   o  Make clear that preview caching is tied to retention period of the
      source message

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-05:

   o  Clarify "zero-length string" preview data vs. NIL preview data

   o  MIME data -> media type

   o  Capability registration should not include the algorithm name

   o  Give example of how PREVIEW data might change over time

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-06:

   o  Change algorithm names to media types

   o  FUZZY algorithm changed to text/imap-fetch-preview

   o  Remove server broadcast of PREVIEW algorithm extensions from
      capability

   o  Default, fallback algorithm in absence of client selection now
      MUST be text/imap-fetch-preview

   o  LAZY modifier should work on default algorithm if no specific
      algorithm is provided as an argument

   Changes from draft-ietf-extra-imap-fetch-preview-07:

   o  Remove algorithm selection; PREVIEW always returns text in format
      defined in Section 3.3

Acknowledgments

   The author would like to thank the following people for their
   comments and contributions to this document: Stephan Bosch, Bron
   Gondwana, Teemu Huovila, Neil Jenkins, Steffen Lehmann, Barry Leiba,
   Alexey Melnikov, Chris Newman, Pete Resnick, Jeff Sipek, Timo
   Sirainen, Steffen Templin, and Aki Tuomi.

Author's Address

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   Michael M. Slusarz
   Open-Xchange Inc.
   530 Lytton Avenue
   Palo Alto, California  94301
   US

   Email: michael.slusarz@open-xchange.com

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