An Extensible Message Format for Message Tracking Responses
RFC 3886
Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(September 2004; Errata)
Updates RFC 3463
|
|
---|---|---|---|
Author | Eric Allman | ||
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: noneShow full document text