This is a purely informative rendering of an RFC that includes verified errata. This rendering may not be used as a reference.

The following 'Verified' errata have been incorporated in this document: EID 2545
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                          N. Freed
Request for Comments: 6009                                        Oracle
Category: Standards Track                                   October 2010
ISSN: 2070-1721


                         Sieve Email Filtering:
        Delivery Status Notifications and Deliver-By Extensions

Abstract

   This document describes the "envelope-dsn", "redirect-dsn",
   "envelope-deliverby", and "redirect-deliverby" extensions to the
   Sieve email filtering language.  The "envelope-dsn" and "envelope-
   deliverby" extensions provide access to additional envelope
   information provided by the delivery status notification (DSN) and
   Deliver-By SMTP extensions, respectively.  The "redirect-dsn" and
   "redirect-deliverby" extensions extend Sieve's redirect action to
   provide control over delivery status notification and Deliver-By
   parameters, respectively.

Status of This Memo

   This is an Internet Standards Track document.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
   Internet Standards is available in 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/rfc6009.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2010 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.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Conventions Used in This Document  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Capability Identifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   4.  Envelope-dsn Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     4.1.  Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5.  Envelope-deliverby Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     5.1.  Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   6.  redirect-dsn Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     6.1.  MAIL FROM Address Selection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     6.2.  Example  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   7.  redirect-deliverby Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     7.1.  MAIL FROM Address Selection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     7.2.  Example  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   8.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   9.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1.  Introduction

   Sieve [RFC5228] is a language for filtering email messages at or
   around the time of final delivery.  It is designed to be
   implementable on either a mail client or mail server.  It is suitable
   for running on a mail server where users may not be allowed to
   execute arbitrary programs, such as on black box Internet Message
   Access Protocol [RFC3501] servers, as it has no user-controlled loops
   or the ability to run external programs.

   The base Sieve specification defines the envelope extension and test
   to access information in the message envelope.  Only information
   available in regular SMTP [RFC5321] is provided; additional
   information added to the SMTP envelope by SMTP extensions cannot be
   accessed.

   The "envelope-dsn" extension extends the envelope test to allow
   access to the additional envelope fields defined by the SMTP
   extension for delivery status notifications (DSNs) specified in
   RFC 3461 [RFC3461].  The "envelope-deliverby" extension extends the
   envelope test to allow access to the additional envelope fields
   defined by the Deliver-By SMTP extension defined in [RFC2852].

   The base Sieve specification also defines the redirect action, which
   sends the message to a different address.  Redirect only allows
   specification of the new recipient address.  The "redirect-dsn"
   extension extends redirect to allow specification of some fields
   defined by the delivery status notification SMTP extension.
   "redirect-deliverby" in turn provides the ability to set a time limit
   for delivery as specified in RFC 2852 [RFC2852].

2.  Conventions Used in This Document

   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 [RFC2119].

   The terms used to describe the various components of the Sieve
   language are taken from Section 1.1 of [RFC5228].  The nature and
   handling of Sieve errors are described in Section 2.10.6 of
   [RFC5228].

   This document uses the ABNF notation specified in [RFC5234], and
   refers to the notify-esmtp-value ABNF production defined in
   Section 4.1 of [RFC3461].

3.  Capability Identifiers

   The capability strings associated with the extensions defined in this
   document are "envelope-dsn", "redirect-dsn", "envelope-deliverby",
   and "redirect-deliverby".

4.  Envelope-dsn Extension

   The "envelope-dsn" extension does not define any new tests or
   actions; rather, it adds four values to the list of possible (case-
   insensitive) envelope-part strings defined in Section 5.4 of
   [RFC5228]:

   notify -  Match the list of notification conditions, or NOTIFY
      values, associated with the TO address used in the SMTP RCPT TO
      command that resulted in this message getting delivered to this
      user.  More than one notification condition can be in effect at
      once; each condition that is in effect is tested separately, and
      any match causes the test to succeed.  The syntax and semantics of
      the NOTIFY parameter are defined in Section 4.1 of RFC 3461
      [RFC3461] .  Currently, the possible notification condition values
      are "NEVER", "SUCCESS", "FAILURE", and "DELAY".  Note that the
      value "NEVER" is never combined with any other value.

   orcpt -  Match the original recipient, or ORCPT, value associated
      with the TO address used in the SMTP RCPT TO command that resulted
      in this message getting delivered to this user, with xtext
      encoding removed.  The syntax and semantics of the ORCPT parameter
      are defined in Section 4.2 of RFC 3461 [RFC3461].

   ret -  Match the return of content, or RET, value given in the SMTP
      MAIL FROM command.  The syntax and semantics of the RET parameter
      are defined in Section 4.3 of RFC 3461 [RFC3461].  The possible
      return of content values are "FULL" and "HDRS".

   envid -  Match the envelope identifier, or ENVID, value in decoded
      form given in the SMTP MAIL FROM command.  The syntax and
      semantics of the ENVID parameter are defined in Section 4.4 of
      RFC 3461 [RFC3461].

   The envelope test fails unconditionally for each of these envelope-
   part strings if the specified envelope parameter does not exist for
   the current message or recipient.

   The envelope test's ADDRESS-PART argument assumes the string being
   tested has the syntax of an email address.  None of the new envelope
   parts defined here have address syntax; accordingly, it is an error
   to specify an ADDRESS-PART argument in conjunction with these new
   envelope parts.

   The "relational" extension [RFC5231] adds a match type called
   ":count".  The count of an envelope test with an envelope-part of
   "orcpt", "ret", and "envid" is 1 if the corresponding SMTP parameter
   is present and 0 otherwise.  The count of an envelope test with an
   envelope-part of "notify" is equal to the number of notification
   conditions specified and 0 if the NOTIFY parameter is not present.

4.1.  Examples

   The fact that the NOTIFY envelope parameter is multivalued and the
   notify envelope-part turns this into a list of values makes it easy
   to check to see if a given value is present without having to worry
   about other values:

   require ["envelope", "envelope-dsn"];

   # Check whether SUCCESS notifications were requested,
   # irrespective of any other requests that were made
   if envelope "notify" "SUCCESS"
   {
       # do whatever
   }

   Checking to see if a given request is the only one present is a
   little trickier, however:

   require ["envelope", "envelope-dsn", "relational",
            "comparator-i;ascii-numeric"];

   # Check whether only FAILURE notifications were requested
   if allof ( envelope "notify" "FAILURE",
              envelope :comparator "i;ascii-numeric"
                       :count "eq" "notify" "1"
            )
   {
       # do whatever
   }

   The orcpt envelope-part always contains an address type indicator
   prefix in addition to an address, which must be taken into account in
   any tests:

   require ["envelope", "envelope-dsn"];

   # See if the orcpt is an RFC822 address in the example.com
   # domain
   if envelope :matches "orcpt" "rfc822;*@example.com"
   {
       # do whatever
   }

5.  Envelope-deliverby Extension

   The "envelope-deliverby" extension does not define any new tests or
   actions; rather, it adds four values to the list of possible (case-
   insensitive) envelope-part strings defined in Section 5.4 of
   [RFC5228] and an optional :zone tagged argument.  This updates the
   usage description for envelope to:

   Usage:   envelope [COMPARATOR] [ADDRESS-PART]
                     [MATCH-TYPE] [:zone <time-zone: string>]
                     <envelope-part: string-list>
                     <key-list: string-list>

   These new envelope parts correspond to the new MAIL FROM parameters
   defined in Section 4 of [RFC2852].  They are:

   bytimeabsolute -  Match the current value of the initial integer part
      of the Deliver-By extension's BY parameter on the SMTP MAIL FROM
      command, converted into an absolute time represented in restricted
      ISO 8601 format.  The restricted ISO 8601 format is specified by
      the date-time ABNF production given in [RFC3339], Section 5.6,
      with the added restrictions that the letters "T" and "Z" MUST be
      in upper case, and a time zone offset of zero MUST be represented
      by "Z" and not "+00:00".

   bytimerelative -  Match the current value of the initial integer part
      of the Deliver-By extension's BY parameter specified in the SMTP
      MAIL FROM command.

   bymode -  Match a string computed from the by-mode part of the
      Deliver-By extension's BY parameter.  The possible values are
      "notify" and "return", which correspond to the BY parameter mode
      specifier characters "N" and "R", respectively.

   bytrace -  Match the trace modifier computed from the by-trace
      modifier on the Deliver-By extension's BY parameter.  The possible
      values are "trace" and "" (the empty string).  These values
      correspond to the presence or absence of the by-trace "T"
      modifier, respectively.

   The envelope test fails unconditionally for each of these envelope-
   part strings if the BY SMTP MAIL FROM parameter does not exist for
   the current message or recipient.

   The new :zone argument specifies a time zone offset string that any
   bytimeabsolute value is to be shifted to prior to testing. :zone has
   no effect on envelope-parts other than bytimeabsolute.  The value of
   the time zone offset string MUST be an offset relative to UTC with
   the following syntax:

   time-zone  =  ( "+" / "-" ) 4DIGIT

   The "+" or "-" indicates whether the time-of-day is ahead of (i.e.,
   east of) or behind (i.e., west of) UTC.  The first two digits
   indicate the number of hours difference from Universal Time, and the
   last two digits indicate the number of minutes difference from
   Universal Time.  Note that this agrees with the [RFC5322] format for
   time zone offsets, not the ISO 8601 format.  The local time zone MUST
   be used for bytimeabsolute if the :zone argument is omitted.

   The envelope test's ADDRESS-PART argument assumes the string being
   tested has the syntax of an email address.  None of the new envelope
   parts defined here have address syntax; accordingly, it is an error
   to specify an ADDRESS-PART argument in conjunction with these new
   envelope parts.

   The "relational" extension [RFC5231] adds a match type called
   ":count".  The count of an envelope test with an envelope-part of
   "bytime", "bymode", and "bytrace" is 1 if the BY parameter is present
   and 0 otherwise.

   It is important to note that the Deliver-By by-time is decremented as
   the message passes through the transport infrastructure.
   Accordingly, it is not possible to tell what the message originator
   set the value to; only the amount of time remaining at the moment the
   sieve is run can be determined.  Additionally, note that
   bytimerelative values can be negative, making it necessary to either
   perform additional checks or else use a comparator that, unlike
   i;ascii-numeric, is capable of handling signed integers.

5.1.  Examples

   As noted above, this extension does not provide access to the
   originator's initial by-time setting for the simple reason that this
   information is not part of the envelope.  It can, however, be used to
   check and see if the message was delivered within the allotted time.
   Note the additional check to see if the value is negative:

   require ["envelope", "envelope-deliverby", "relational",
            "comparator-i;ascii-numeric"];

   # Check to see if this message didn't make it in the time allotted by
   # the originator.
   if anyof (envelope :contains "bytimerelative" "-",
             envelope :value "eq" :comparator "i;ascii-numeric"
                      "bytimerelative" "0")
   {
       # do whatever
   }

   This operation can be done more simply if the date [RFC5260] and
   variables [RFC5229] extensions are available:

   require ["envelope", "envelope-deliverby", "relational", "date",
            "variables"];

   # Check to see if this message didn't make it in the time allotted by
   # the originator.
   if currentdate :matches "iso8601" "*" {
       set "cdate" "${0}";
       if envelope :value "ge" "bytimeabsolute" "${cdate}" {
           # do whatever
       }
   }

   Note that there is no need to force the use of a particular time zone
   since both currentdate and the bytimeabsolute value are required to
   default to the local time zone.  A similar check could be written
   using :zone if the action taken depends on having the by-time
   represented in a particular zone:

   require ["envelope", "envelope-deliverby", "relational", "date",
            "variables"];

   # If the message didn't make it in time, file it according to when it
   # should have been received
   if envelope :matches :zone "+0000" "bytimeabsolute" "*T*:*:*" {
       set "bdate" "${0}";
       set "bhour" "${2}";
       if currentdate :zone "+0000" :value "lt" "iso8601" "${bdate}")
           fileinto "missed-${bhour}";
       }
   }

6.  redirect-dsn Extension

   The "redirect-dsn" extension does not define any new tests or
   actions; rather, it adds two new arguments, NOTIFY and RET, to the
   redirect action defined in Section 4.2 of [RFC5228].  This updates
   the usage description for redirect to:

   Usage:   redirect [:notify "value"] [:ret "FULL"|"HDRS"]
                     <address: string>

   The syntax for the NOTIFY and RET arguments are:

   NOTIFY = ":notify" notify-value
   notify-value = DQUOTE ("NEVER" / notify-esmtp-list) DQUOTE
   notify-esmtp-list = notify-list-element *("," notify-list-element)

   RET = ":ret" ret-value
   ret-value = DQUOTE ("FULL" / "HDRS") DQUOTE

   The notify-list-element ABNF production is defined in Section 4.1 of
   [RFC3461].

   When these arguments are specified, they set the corresponding NOTIFY
   ESMTP RCPT TO and RET ESMTP MAIL FROM parameters, respectively.
   These arguments are only honored if the delivery status notification
   (DSN) ESMTP extension is available.  When the DSN extension is not
   available, these arguments MUST be ignored and MUST NOT cause an
   error.

6.1.  MAIL FROM Address Selection

   RFC 5228 does not require that any particular envelope sender address
   be associated with redirected messages.  However, the redirect-dsn
   extension isn't terribly useful if the place where the delivery
   status notifications are sent isn't known.  Accordingly, when either
   :notify or :ret is specified and the envelope sender address isn't
   empty, implementations MUST set the envelope sender address to the
   address of the sieve owner.

6.2.  Example

   One possible use of :notify on redirect is to combine the copy
   extension [RFC3894] with the ability to suppress nondelivery
   notifications to generate a private copy of selected messages with no
   side effects or error notifications:

   require ["copy", "redirect-dsn"];

   # Make a private copy of messages from user@example.com
   if address "from" "user@example.com"
   {
       redirect :copy :notify "NEVER" "elsewhere@example.com";
   }

7.  redirect-deliverby Extension

   The "redirect-deliverby" extension does not define any new tests or
   actions; rather, it adds three new arguments, BYTIME, BYMODE, and
   BYTRACE, to the redirect action defined in Section 4.2 of [RFC5228].
   This updates the usage description for redirect to:

   Usage:   redirect [:bytimerelative <rlimit: number> /
                      :bytimeabsolute <alimit:string>
                      [:bymode "notify"|"return"] [:bytrace]]
                     <address: string>

   :bytimerelative specifies the number of seconds within which the
   message should be delivered.  This parameter does not allow
   specification of negative values; it should not be necessary to
   specify such values in this context. :bytimeabsolute specifies an
   absolute time limit on delivery.  The limit in this case is specified
   in the restricted ISO 8601 format specified by the date-time ABNF
   production given in [RFC3339].

   :bymode specifies whether a notification should be sent or the
   message simply returned if the time limit is exceeded.  The default
   is "return" if :bymode is not specified. :bytrace, if specified,
   activates message tracing.

   The semantics of delivery time limits and these parameters are
   specified and discussed at length in [RFC2852].

   It is an error to specify either :bymode or :bytrace without either
   :bytimeabsolute or :bytimerelative.

   When these arguments are specified, they are used to construct the
   corresponding BY ESMTP MAIL FROM parameter.  The :bytimeabsolute or
   :bytimerelative value becomes the by-time, the :bymode becomes the
   by-mode value, and :bytrace sets the by-trace modifier.  If the
   Deliver-By extension is unavailable, the handling of the redirected
   message MUST conform to the semantics specified in [RFC2852],
   Section 4.1.4 for relaying to a server that does not support the
   Deliver-By SMTP extension.

7.1.  MAIL FROM Address Selection

   RFC 5228 does not require that any particular envelope sender address
   be associated with redirected messages.  However, the redirect-
   deliverby extension, like the redirect-dsn extension, isn't terribly
   useful if the place where any delivery status notifications are sent
   isn't known.  Accordingly, when either :bytimeabsolute or
   :bytimerelative is specified and the envelope sender address isn't
   empty, implementations MUST set the envelope sender address to the
   address of the sieve owner.

7.2.  Example

   The obvious use of "redirect-deliverby" is to specify a limit on
   delivery attempts for a redirected message:

   require ["copy", "redirect-deliverby"];

   # Send a copy to my cell phone, time out after 10 minutes
   if address "from" "user@example.com"
   {
       redirect :copy :bytimerelative 600 "cellphone@example.com";
   }

   Limits on delivery after a particular time of day may also be
   constructed:

   require ["copy", "redirect-deliverby", "date", "variables",
            "relational", "comparator-i;ascii-numeric"];

      # Send a copy to my cell phone to be delivered before 10PM 
   if currentdate :value "lt"
                  :comparator "i;ascii-numeric" "hour" "22"
   {
       if currentdate :matches "date" "*" {set "date" "${0}";}
       if currentdate :matches "zone" "*" {set "zone" "${0}";}
      redirect :copy :bytimeabsolute "${date}T22:00:00${zone}"
                :bymode "return" "cellphone@example.com";
   }
EID 2545 (Verified) is as follows:

Section: 7.2

Original Text:

   # Send a copy to my cell phone to be delivered before 10PM
   if currentdate :value "lt"
                  :comparator "i;ascii-numeric" "hour" "22"
   {
       if currentdate :matches "date" "*" {set "date" "${0}";}
       if currentdate :matches "zone" "*" {set "zone" "${0}";}
|      redirect :copy :bytimeabsolute "${date}T20:00:00${zone}"
                :bymode "return" "cellphone@example.com";
   }

Corrected Text:

   # Send a copy to my cell phone to be delivered before 10PM
   if currentdate :value "lt"
                  :comparator "i;ascii-numeric" "hour" "22"
   {
       if currentdate :matches "date" "*" {set "date" "${0}";}
       if currentdate :matches "zone" "*" {set "zone" "${0}";}
|      redirect :copy :bytimeabsolute "${date}T22:00:00${zone}"
                :bymode "return" "cellphone@example.com";
   }
Notes:
Rationale: "10PM" corresponds to T22:00:00 , not T20:00:00 .
8. Security Considerations The envelope-dsn and envelope-deliverby extensions provide access to additional message envelope information. This is not believed to raise any additional security issues beyond those for the Sieve "envelope" test. The redirect-dsn extension allows specification of the delivery status notification's NOTIFY parameter, which can cause the generation of notification messages that might otherwise not be generated, especially if notification in the event of successful delivery is required. Sites that limit the ability to request success notifications will also need to restrict the ability to request them using the redirect-dsn extension. Similarly, the redirect-deliverby extension is used to control how long the transport infrastructure will continue to attempt to deliver a message before giving up, which could result in the generation of additional notification messages. While the underlying Deliver-By extension does have a minimum by-time limit, sites may wish to impose additional limits on the minimum by-time allowed in a redirect action. All of the security considerations given in the base Sieve specification also apply to this extension. 9. IANA Considerations The following template specifies the IANA registration of the Sieve extension specified in this document: To: iana@iana.org Subject: Registration of new Sieve extensions Capability name: envelope-dsn Description: The "envelope-dsn" extension extends the envelope test to allow checking of information associated with the DSN ESMTP extension defined in RFC 3461. RFC number: RFC 6009 Contact address: Sieve discussion list <sieve@ietf.org> Capability name: envelope-deliverby Description: The "envelope-deliverby" extension extends the envelope test to allow checking of information associated with the Deliver-By ESMTP extension defined in RFC 2852. RFC number: RFC 6009 Contact address: Sieve discussion list <sieve@ietf.org> Capability name: redirect-dsn Description: The "redirect-dsn" extension extends the redirect action to allow specification of the NOTIFY and RET ESMTP parameters associated with the DSN SMTP extension defined in RFC 3461. RFC number: RFC 6009 Contact address: Sieve discussion list <sieve@ietf.org> Capability name: redirect-deliverby Description: The "redirect-deliverby" extension extends the redirect action to allow specification of the BY ESMTP parameter associated with the Deliver-By SMTP extension defined in RFC 2852. RFC number: RFC 6009 Contact address: Sieve discussion list <sieve@ietf.org> This information has been added to the list of Sieve extensions available from http://www.iana.org. 10. References 10.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2852] Newman, D., "Deliver By SMTP Service Extension", RFC 2852, June 2000. [RFC3339] Klyne, G., Ed. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps", RFC 3339, July 2002. [RFC3461] Moore, K., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Service Extension for Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs)", RFC 3461, January 2003. [RFC5228] Guenther, P. and T. Showalter, "Sieve: An Email Filtering Language", RFC 5228, January 2008. [RFC5231] Segmuller, W. and B. Leiba, "Sieve Email Filtering: Relational Extension", RFC 5231, January 2008. [RFC5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008. [RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321, October 2008. [RFC5322] Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 5322, October 2008. 10.2. Informative References [RFC3501] Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003. [RFC3894] Degener, J., "Sieve Extension: Copying Without Side Effects", RFC 3894, October 2004. [RFC5229] Homme, K., "Sieve Email Filtering: Variables Extension", RFC 5229, January 2008. [RFC5260] Freed, N., "Sieve Email Filtering: Date and Index Extensions", RFC 5260, July 2008. Appendix A. Acknowledgements Cyrus Daboo, Derek Diget, Philip Guenther, Arnt Gulbrandsen, Tero Kivinen, Barry Leiba, Andrew McKeon, Alexey Melnikov, Chris Newman, Aaron Stone, and Alexandros Vellis provided helpful suggestions and corrections. Author's Address Ned Freed Oracle 800 Royal Oaks Monrovia, CA 91016-6347 USA EMail: ned.freed@mrochek.com