An Extensible Message Format for Message Tracking Responses
RFC 3886
| Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(September 2004; Errata)
Updates RFC 3463
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Last updated | 2020-01-21 | ||
| Stream | IETF | ||
| Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized with errata bibtex | ||
| Stream | WG state | (None) | |
| Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
| IESG | IESG state | RFC 3886 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | |||
| Responsible AD | Scott Hollenbeck | ||
| Send notices to | <tony@att.com> | ||
Network Working Group E. Allman
Request for Comments: 3886 Sendmail, Inc.
Updates: 3463 September 2004
Category: Standards Track
An Extensible Message Format for Message Tracking Responses
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).
Abstract
Message Tracking is expected to be used to determine the status of
undelivered e-mail upon request. Tracking is used in conjunction
with Delivery Status Notifications (DSN) and Message Disposition
Notifications (MDN); generally, a message tracking request will be
issued only when a DSN or MDN has not been received within a
reasonable timeout period.
This memo defines a MIME content-type for message tracking status in
the same spirit as RFC 3464, "An Extensible Message Format for
Delivery Status Notifications". It is to be issued upon a request as
described in "Message Tracking Query Protocol". This memo defines
only the format of the status information. An extension to SMTP to
label messages for further tracking and request tracking status is
defined in a separate memo.
Allman Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 3886 Message/Tracking-Status September 2004
1. Introduction
Message Tracking is expected to be used to determine the status of
undelivered e-mail upon request. Tracking is used in conjunction
with Delivery Status Notifications (DSN) [RFC-DSN-SMTP] and Message
Disposition Notifications (MDN) [RFC-MDN]; generally, a message
tracking request will be issued only when a DSN or MDN has not been
received within a reasonable timeout period.
This memo defines a MIME [RFC-MIME] content-type for message tracking
status in the same spirit as RFC 3464, "An Extensible Message Format
for Delivery Status Notifications" [RFC-DSN-STAT]. It is to be
issued upon a request as described in "Message Tracking Query
Protocol" [RFC-MTRK-MTQP]. This memo defines only the format of the
status information. An extension to SMTP [RFC-ESMTP] to label
messages for further tracking and request tracking status is defined
in a separate memo [RFC-MTRK-SMTPEXT].
2. Other Documents and Conformance
The model used for Message Tracking is described in [RFC-MTRK-MODEL].
Message tracking is intended for use as a "last resort" mechanism.
Normally, Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs) [RFC-DSN-SMTP] and
Message Disposition Notifications (MDNs) [RFC-MDN] would provide the
primary delivery status. Only if no response is received from either
of these mechanisms would Message Tracking be used.
This document is based on [RFC-DSN-STAT]. Sections 1.3
(Terminology), 2.1.1 (General conventions for DSN fields), 2.1.2
("*-type" subfields), and 2.1.3 (Lexical tokens imported from RFC
822) of [RFC-DSN-STAT] are included into this document by reference.
Other sections are further incorporated as described herein.
Syntax notation in this document conforms to [RFC-ABNF].
The following lexical tokens, defined in [RFC-MSGFMT], are used in
the ABNF grammar for MTSNs: atom, CHAR, comment, CR, CRLF, DIGIT, LF,
linear-white-space, SPACE, text. The date-time lexical token is
defined in [RFC-HOSTREQ].
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC-
KEYWORDS].
Allman Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 3886 Message/Tracking-Status September 2004
3. Format of a Message Tracking Status Notification
A Message Tracking Status Notification (MTSN) is intended to be
returned as the body of a Message Tracking request [RFC-MTRK-MTQP].
The actual body MUST be a multipart/related [RFC-RELATED] with type
parameter of "message/tracking-status"; each subpart MUST be of type
"message/tracking-status" as described herein. The multipart/related
body can include multiple message/tracking-status parts if an MTQP
server chains requests to the next server; see [RFC-MTRK-MODEL] and
[RFC-MTRK-MTQP] for more information about chaining.
3.1. The message/tracking-status content-type
The message/tracking-status content-type is defined as follows:
MIME type name: message
MIME subtype name: tracking-status
Optional parameters: none
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