Message Disposition Notification
RFC 3798

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• IESG evaluation record
• IESG writeups
• Email expansions
• History

• Versions
• 05

Network Working Group                                     T. Hansen, Ed.
Request for Comments: 3798                             AT&T Laboratories
Obsoletes: 2298                                        G. Vaudreuil, Ed.
Updates: 3461, 2046                                  Lucent Technologies
Category: Standards Track                                       May 2004

                   Message Disposition Notification

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This memo defines a MIME content-type that may be used by a mail user
   agent (MUA) or electronic mail gateway to report the disposition of a
   message after it has been successfully delivered to a recipient.
   This content-type is intended to be machine-processable.  Additional
   message headers are also defined to permit Message Disposition
   Notifications (MDNs) to be requested by the sender of a message.  The
   purpose is to extend Internet Mail to support functionality often
   found in other messaging systems, such as X.400 and the proprietary
   "LAN-based" systems, and often referred to as "read receipts,"
   "acknowledgements", or "receipt notifications."  The intention is to
   do this while respecting privacy concerns, which have often been
   expressed when such functions have been discussed in the past.

   Because many messages are sent between the Internet and other
   messaging systems (such as X.400 or the proprietary "LAN-based"
   systems), the MDN protocol is designed to be useful in a multi-
   protocol messaging environment.  To this end, the protocol described
   in this memo provides for the carriage of "foreign" addresses, in
   addition to those normally used in Internet Mail.  Additional
   attributes may also be defined to support "tunneling" of foreign
   notifications through Internet Mail.

Hansen & Vaudreuil          Standards Track                     [Page 1]
RFC 3798            Message Disposition Notification            May 2004

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
       1.1.  Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
       1.2.  Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
       1.3.  Terminology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Requesting Message Disposition Notifications . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.1.  The Disposition-Notification-To Header . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.2.  The Disposition-Notification-Options Header. . . . . . .  6
       2.3.  The Original-Recipient Header. . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       2.4.  Use with the Message/Partial Content Type. . . . . . . .  8
   3.  FORMAT OF A MESSAGE DISPOSITION NOTIFICATION . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.1.  The message/disposition-notification content-type. . . .  9
       3.2.  Message/disposition-notification Fields. . . . . . . . . 11
       3.3.  Extension-fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   4.  Timeline of Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   5.  Conformance and Usage Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   6.  Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
       6.1.  Forgery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
       6.2.  Privacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
       6.3.  Non-Repudiation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
       6.4.  Mail Bombing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   7.  Collected Grammar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   8.  Guidelines for Gatewaying MDNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
       8.1.  Gatewaying from other mail systems to MDNs . . . . . . . 23
       8.2.  Gatewaying from MDNs to other mail systems . . . . . . . 23
       8.3.  Gatewaying of MDN-requests to other mail systems . . . . 24
   9.  Example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   10. IANA Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
       10.1. Disposition-Notification-Options header parameter names. 26
       10.2. Disposition modifier names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
       10.3. MDN extension field names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
   12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
   Appendix A - Changes from RFC 2298 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29