The Jabber-ID Header Field
RFC 7259

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Independent Submission                                    P. Saint-Andre
Request for Comments: 7259                                          &yet
Category: Informational                                         May 2014
ISSN: 2070-1721

                       The Jabber-ID Header Field

Abstract

   This document defines a header field that enables the author of an
   email or netnews message to include a Jabber ID 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 document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any other
   RFC stream.  The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this document at
   its discretion and makes no statement about its value for
   implementation or deployment.  Documents approved for publication by
   the RFC Editor are not a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7259.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 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
   to this document.

Saint-Andre                   Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 7259                        Jabber-ID                       May 2014

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Syntax  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.2.  Generation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.3.  Processing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.4.  Disposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Security and Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

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
   also use netnews systems [RFC5536], it can be helpful for them to
   associate their Jabber IDs with 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 the Jabber-ID header field for many years.
   This document defines the syntax and usage of the Jabber-ID header
   field, including the information necessary to register the field in
   the Provisional Message Header Field Names registry maintained by the
   IANA.

Saint-Andre                   Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 7259                        Jabber-ID                       May 2014

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 need to be converted to ASCII before
   inclusion in a Jabber-ID header field, in accordance with the rules
   defined in the XMPP URI specification [RFC5122].  In addition,