RFC 2524
Neda's Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery (EMSD) Protocol Specification Version 1.3
Pages: 83
Informational
Informational
Part 1 of 4 – Pages 1 to 11
Network Working Group M. Banan Request for Comments: 2524 Neda Communications, Inc. Category: Informational February 1999 Neda's Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery (EMSD) Protocol Specification Version 1.3 Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved. IESG Note The protocol specified in this document may be satisfactory for limited use in private wireless IP networks. However, it is unsuitable for general-purpose message transfer or for transfer of messages over the public Internet, because of limitations that include the following: - Lack of congestion control EMSD is layered on ESRO [RFC 2188], which does not provide congestion control. This makes EMSD completely unsuitable for end-to-end use across the public Internet. EMSD should be considered for use in a wireless network only if all EMSD email exchanged between the wireless network and the public Internet will transit an EMSD<->SMTP gateway between the two regions. - Inadequate security The document specifies only clear-text passwords for authentication. EMSD should be used across a wireless network only if sufficiently strong encryption is in use to protect the clear-text password. - Lack of character set internationalization EMSD has no provision for representation of characters outside of the ASCII repertoire or for language tags.
- Poorly defined gatewaying to and from Internet Mail
Because Internet Mail and EMSD have somewhat different and
conflicting service models and different data models, mapping
between them may provide good service only in limited cases, and
this may cause operational problems.
The IESG therefore recommends that EMSD deployment be limited to
narrow circumstances, i.e., only to communicate with devices that
have inherent limitations on the length and format of a message (no
more than a few hundred bytes of ASCII text), using either:
a. wireless links with adequate link-layer encryption and gatewayed
to the public Internet, or
b. a private IP network that is either very over-provisioned or has
some means of congestion control.
In the near future, the IESG may charter a working group to define an
Internet standards-track protocol for efficient transmission of
electronic mail messages, which will be highly compatible with
existing Internet mail protocols, and which wil be suitable for
operation over the global Internet, including both wireless and wired
links.
ABSTRACT
This document specifies the protocol and format encodings for
Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery (EMSD). EMSD is a messaging
protocol that is highly optimized for submission and delivery of
short Internet mail messages. EMSD is designed to be a companion to
existing Internet mail protocols.
This specification narrowly focuses on submission and delivery of
short mail messages with a clear emphasis on efficiency. EMSD is
designed specifically with wireless network (e.g., CDPD, Wireless-IP,
Mobile-IP) usage in mind. EMSD is designed to be a natural
enhancement to the mainstream of Internet mail protocols when
efficiency in mail submission and mail delivery are important. As
such, EMSD is anticipated to become an initial basis for convergence
of Internet Mail and IP-based Two-Way Paging.
The reliability requirement for message submission and message
delivery in EMSD are the same as existing email protocols. EMSD
protocol accomplishes reliable connectionless mail submission and
delivery services on top of Efficient Short Remote Operations (ESRO)
protocols as specified in RFC-2188 [1].
Most existing Internet mail protocols are not efficient. Most existing Internet mail protocols are designed with simplicity and continuity with SMTP traditions as two primary requirements. EMSD is designed with efficiency as a primary requirement. The early use of EMSD in the wireless environment is manifested as IP-based Two-Way Paging services. The efficiency of this protocol also presents significant benefits for large centrally operated Internet mail service providers.Table of Contents
1 PRELIMINARIES 4 1.1 Internet Mail Submission and Delivery . . . . 4 1.2 Relationship Of EMSD To Other Mail Protocols . . . 5 1.3 EMSD Requirements and Goals . . . . . . . 7 1.4 Anticipated Uses Of EMSD . . . . . . . . 8 1.5 Definitions of Terms Used in this Specification . . 9 1.6 Conventions Used In This Specification . . . . 9 1.7 About This Specification . . . . . . . . 10 2 EFFICIENT MAIL SUBMISSION AND DELIVERY OVERVIEW 10 3 EFFICIENT MAIL SUBMISSION AND DELIVERY PROTOCOL 11 3.1 Use Of Lower Layers . . . . . . . . . 13 3.1.1 Use of ESROS . . . . . . . . . 13 3.1.2 Use Of UDP . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.1.3 Encoding Rules . . . . . . . . . 13 3.1.4 Presentation Context . . . . . . . 14 3.2 EMSD-UA Invoked Operations . . . . . . . 14 3.2.1 submit . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.2.2 deliveryControl . . . . . . . . 17 3.2.3 deliveryVerify . . . . . . . . . 21 3.3 EMSD-SA Invoked Operations . . . . . . . 23 3.3.1 deliver . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.3.2 submissionControl . . . . . . . . 25 3.3.3 submissionVerify . . . . . . . . 28 3.4 EMSD Common Information Objects . . . . . . 30 3.4.1 SecurityElements . . . . . . . . 30 3.4.2 Message Segmentation and Reassembly . . . 30 3.4.3 Common Errors . . . . . . . . . 33 3.4.4 ContentType . . . . . . . . . 35 3.4.5 EMSDMessageId . . . . . . . . . 35 3.4.6 EMSDORAddress . . . . . . . . . 36 3.4.7 EMSDAddress . . . . . . . . . 36 3.4.8 DateTime . . . . . . . . . . 36 3.4.9 AsciiPrintableString . . . . . . . 37 3.4.10 ProtocolVersionNumber . . . . . . . 37 3.5 Submission and Delivery Procedures . . . . . 38 4 DUPLICATE OPERATION DETECTION SUPPORT 40
4.1 Duplicate Operation Detection Support Overview . . 40
4.1.1 Operation Value . . . . . . . . 40
4.1.2 Operation Instance Identifier . . . . . 41
5 EMSD PROCEDURE FOR OPERATIONS 42
5.1 MTS Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1.1 MTS Performer . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1.2 Message-submission . . . . . . . . 44
5.1.3 Delivery-control . . . . . . . . 46
5.1.4 Delivery-verify . . . . . . . . 46
5.1.5 MTS Invoker . . . . . . . . . 46
5.2 UA Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.2.1 UA Performer . . . . . . . . . 49
5.2.2 UA Invoker . . . . . . . . . . 52
6 EMSD FORMAT STANDARDS 54
6.1 Format Standard Overview . . . . . . . . 54
6.2 Interpersonal Messages . . . . . . . . 54
6.2.1 Heading fields . . . . . . . . . 55
6.2.2 Body part types . . . . . . . . 61
7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 62
8 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS 62
9 AUTHOR'S ADDRESS 62
A. EMSD-P ASN.1 MODULE 63
B. EMSD-IPM ASN.1 MODULE 74
C. RATIONALE FOR KEY DESIGN DECISIONS 78
C.1 Deviation From The SMTP Model . . . . . . 78
C.1.1 Comparison of SMTP and EMSD Efficiency . . . 78
C.2 Use of ESRO Instead of TCP . . . . . . . 79
C.3 Use Of Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Model . . . . 79
C.4 Use Of ASN.1 . . . . . . . . . . . 80
D. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT 81
E. REFERENCES 82
F. FULL COPYRIGHT STATEMENT 83
1 PRELIMINARIES
Mail in the Internet was not a well-planned enterprise, but instead
arose in more of an "organic" way.
This introductory section is not intended to be a reference model and
concept vocabulary for mail in the Internet. Instead, it only
provides the necessary preliminaries for the concepts and terms that
are essential to this specification.
1.1 Internet Mail Submission and Delivery
For the purposes of this specification, mail submission is the
process of putting mail into the mail transfer system (MTS).
For the purposes of this specification, mail delivery is the process of the MTS putting mail into a user's final mail-box. Throughout the Internet, presently most of mail submission and delivery is done through SMTP. SMTP was defined as a message *transfer* protocol, that is, a means to route (if needed) and deliver mail by putting finished (complete) messages in a mail-box. Originally, users connected to servers from terminals, and all processing occurred on the server. Now, a split- MUA (Mail User Agent) model is common, with MUA functionality occurring on both the user's own system and the server. In the split-MUA model, getting the messages to the user is accomplished through access to a mail-box on the server through such protocols as POP and IMAP. In the split-MUA model, user's access to its message is a "Message Pull" paradigm where the user is required to poll his mailbox. Proper message delivery based on a "Message Push" paradigm is presently not supported. The EMSD protocol addresses this shortcoming with an emphasis on efficiency. In the split-MUA model, message submission is often accomplished through SMTP. SMTP is widely used as a message *submission* protocol. Widespread use of SMTP for submission is a reality, regardless of whether this is good or bad. EMSD protocol provides an alternative mechanism for message submission which emphasizes efficiency.1.2 Relationship Of EMSD To Other Mail Protocols
Various Internet mail protocols facilitate accomplishment of various functions in mail processing.
Figure 1, categorizes the capabilities of SMTP, IMAP, POP and EMSD
based on the following functions:
+------------------+------+-------+-----+------+
| Protocols| SMTP | IMAP | POP | EMSD |
|Functions | | | | |
|------------------|------|-------|-----|------|
|Submission | XX | | | XXX |
|------------------|------|-------|-----|------|
|Delivery | XXX | | | XXX |
|------------------|------|-------|-----|------|
|Relay (Routing) | XXX | | | |
|------------------|------|-------|-----|------|
|Retrieval | | XXX | XXX | XX |
|------------------|------|-------|-----|------|
|Mailbox Access | | XXX | X | |
|------------------|------|-------|-----|------|
|Mailbox Synch. | | XXX | | |
+------------------+------+-------+-----+------+
Figure 1: Messaging Protocols vs. Supported Functions
o Mail Submission
o Mail Delivery
o Mail Routing (Relay)
o Mail Retrieval
o Mail-box Access
o Mail-box Synchronization
In Figure 1, the number of "X"es in each box denotes the extent to
which a particular function is supported by a particular protocol.
Figure 1 clearly shows that combinations of these protocols can be
used to complement each other in providing rich functionality to the
user. For example, a user interested in highly mobile messaging
functionalities can use EMSD for "submission and delivery of time
critical and important messages" and use IMAP for comprehensive
access to his/her mail-box.
For mail submission and delivery of short messages EMSD is up to 5
times more efficient than SMTP both in terms of the number of packets
transmitted and in terms of number of bytes transmitted. Even with
PIPELINING and other possible optimizations of SMTP, EMSD is up to 3 times more efficient than SMTP both in terms of the number of packets transmitted and in terms of number of bytes transmitted. Various efficiency studies comparing EMSD with SMTP, POP and IMAP are available. See Section C.1.1 for more information about comparison of SMTP and EMSD's efficiency.1.3 EMSD Requirements and Goals
The requirements and goals driving design of EMSD protocol are enumerated below. 1. Provide for submission of short mail messages with the same level of functionality (or higher) that the existing Internet mail protocols provide. 2. Provide for delivery of short mail messages with the same level of functionality (or higher) that the existing Internet mail protocols provide. 3. Function as an extension of the existing mainstream Internet mail. 4. Minimize the number of transmissions. 5. Minimize the number of bytes transmitted. 6. Be quick: minimize latency of message submission and delivery. 7. Provide the same level of reliability (or higher) that the existing email protocols provide. 8. Accommodate varying sizes of messages: the size of a message may determine how the system deals with the message, but the system must accommodate it. 9. Be power efficient and respect mobile platform resources: including memory and CPU levels, as well as battery power longevity (i.e. client-light and server-heavy). 10. Highly extendible: different users will demand different options, so the solution cannot require every feature to be a part of every message. Likewise, usage will emerge that is not currently recognized as a requirement. The solution must be extendible enough to handle new, emerging requirements.
11. Secure: provide the same level of security (or higher) that the
existing email protocols provide. Content confidentiality,
originator/recipient authentication and message integrity must
be available options to users.
12. Easy to implement: Re-use existing technology as much as
possible.
1.4 Anticipated Uses Of EMSD
Any network and network operator which has significant bandwidth and
capacity limitations can benefit from the use of EMSD. Any network
user who must bear high costs for measured network usage can benefit
from the use of EMSD.
Initial uses of EMSD is anticipated to be primarily over IP-based
wireless networks to provide two-way paging services.
EMSD can also function as an adjunct to Mail Access Protocols for
"Mail Notification Services".
Considering:
o that most wireless networks shall converge toward being IP-
based;
o that two-way paging is the main proven application in most
wide-area wireless networks;
o that two-way paging industry and the Internet Email industry can
and should converge based on a set of open protocols that
address the efficiency requirements adequately;
o that existing Internet email protocols are not bandwidth
efficient;
o that existing Internet email protocols do not properly support
the "push" model of delivery of urgent messages,
the EMSD protocol is designed to facilitate the convergence of IP-
based two-way paging and Internet email.
Mail submission and delivery take place at the edges of the network.
More than one mail submission and delivery protocols which address
requirements specific to a particular user's environment are likely
to be developed. Such diversity on the edges of the network is
desirable and with the right protocols, this diversity does not adversely impact the integrity of the mail transfer system. EMSD is the initial basis for the mail submission and delivery protocol to be used when the user's environment demands efficiency.1.5 Definitions of Terms Used in this Specification
The following informal definitions and acronyms are intended to help describe EMSD model described in this specification. Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery Protocol (EMSD-P): The protocol used to transfer messages between the EMSD - Server Agent (e.g., a Message Center) and the EMSD - User Agent (e.g., a Two-Way Pager), see Figure 2. Message Transfer Agent (MTA) Message Transfer Service (MTS) Message Routing Service (MRS): Collection of MTAs responsible for mail routing. Message User Agent (MUA) Efficient Mail Submission Server Agent (EMS-SA): An Application Process which conforms to this protocol specification and accepts mail from an EMS-UA and transfers it towards its recipients. Efficient Mail Delivery Server Agent (EMD-SA): An Application Process which conforms to this protocol specification and delivers mail to an EMD-UA. Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery Server Agent (EMSD-SA): An Application Process which incorporates both EMS-SA and EMD-SA capabilities. Efficient Mail Submission User Agent (EMS-UA): An Application Process which conforms to this protocol specification and submits mail to EMS-SA. Efficient Mail Delivery User Agent (EMD-UA): An Application Process which conforms to this protocol specification and accepts delivery of mail from EMD-SA. Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery User Agent (EMSD-UA): An Application Process which incorporates both EMS-UA and EMD-UA capabilities.1.6 Conventions Used In This Specification
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", and "MAY" in this specification are to be interpreted as defined in [2].
This specification uses the ES-OPERATION notation defined in Efficient Short Remote Operations (ESRO) protocols as specified in RFC-2188 [1]. Operations and information objects are typically described using the ES-OPERATION and ASN.1 notations in the relevant sections of the specification. The complete machine verifiable ASN.1 modules are also compiled in one place in Appendix A and Appendix B.1.7 About This Specification
This protocol specification constitutes a point-of-record. It documents information exchanges and behaviors of existing implementations. It is a basis for implementation of efficient mail submission and delivery user agents and servers. This specification has been developed entirely outside of IETF. It has had the benefit of review by many outside of IETF. Much has been learned from existing implementations of this protocol. A number of deficiencies and areas of improvement have been identified and are documented in this specification. This protocol specification is being submitted on October 23, 1998 for timely publication as an Informational RFC. Future development and enhancements to this protocol may take place inside of IETF.2 EFFICIENT MAIL SUBMISSION AND DELIVERY OVERVIEW
This section offers a high level view of the Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery Protocol and Format Standards (EMSD-P&FS). The EMSD-P&FS are used to transfer messages between the EMSD - Server Agent (e.g., a Message Center) and the EMSD - User Agent (e.g., a Two-Way Pager), see Figure 2. This specification defines the protocols between an EMSD - User Agent (EMSD-UA) and an EMSD - Server Agent (EMSD-SA). The EMSD - P&FS consist of two independent components: 1. EMSD Format Standard (EMSD-FS). EMSD-FS is a non-textual form of compact encoding of Internet mail (RFC-822) messages which facilitates efficient transfer of messages. EMSD-FS is used in conjunction with the EMSD-P but is
not a general replacement for RFC-822. EMSD-FS defines a method
of representation of short interpersonal messages. It defines
the "Content" encoding (Header + Body). Although EMSD-FS
contains end-to-end information its scope is purely point-to-
point. EMSD-FS relies on EMSD-P (see 2 below) for the transfer
of the content to its recipients.
This is described in the section entitled EMSD Format Standards.
2. Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery Protocol (EMSD-P).
EMSD-P is responsible for wrapping an EMSD-FS message (see 1
above) in a point-to-point envelope and submitting or delivering
it. EMSD-P relies on the services of Efficient Short Remote
Operation Services (ESROS) as specified in RFC-2188 [1] for
transporting the point-to-point envelope. Some of the services
of EMSD-P include: message originator authentication and
optional message segmentation and reassembly. The EMSD-P is
expressed in terms of abstract services using the ESROS notation.
This is described in the section entitled Efficient Mail
Submission and Delivery Protocol.
It is important to recognize that EMSD-P and EMSD-FS are not end-to-
end, but focus on the point-to-point transfer of messages. The two
points being EMSD-SA and EMSD-UA. EMSD-P function as elements of the
Internet mail environment, which provide end-to-end (EMSD-User to any
other Messaging Originator or Recipient) services.
Figure 2 illustrates how the EMSD-P&FS defines the communication
between a specific EMSD-UA and a specific EMSD-SA. The Message
Transfer System may include a number of EMSD-SAs. Each EMSD-SA may
have any number of EMSD-UAs with which it communicates.
The Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery Services use the Efficient
Short Remote Operation Services (ESROS). They also use the Duplicate
Operation Detection Support Functions as described in the section
entitled Duplicate Operation Detection Support Functions. These
functions guarantee that an operation is performed no more than once.
(page 11 continued on part 2)