INTERNET-DRAFT A. Melnikov (Ed.) Document: draft-ietf-lemonade-rfc2192bis-09.txt Isode Ltd. Expires: February 2008 C. Newman Intended status: Standards Track Sun Microsystems Obsoletes: RFC 2192 (if approved) August 8, 2007 Updates: RFC 4467 IMAP URL Scheme Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress". The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. A revised version of this draft document will be submitted to the RFC editor as a Proposed Standard for the Internet Community. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested, and should be sent to the IMAPEXT Mailing list . Distribution of this draft is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 1] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 Abstract IMAP (RFC 3501) is a rich protocol for accessing remote message stores. It provides an ideal mechanism for accessing public mail- ing list archives as well as private and shared message stores. This document defines a URL scheme for referencing objects on an IMAP server. This document obsoletes RFC 2192. It also updates RFC 4467. 1. 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 RFC 2119 [KEYWORDS]. This document references many productions from [URI-GEN]. When the document needs to emphasize IMAP URI-specific differences from [URI-GEN] (i.e. for parts of IMAP URIs which have more restricted syntax than generic URIs), it uses a non terminal i to define an IMAP specific version of the non terminal from [URI-GEN]. Note that the ABNF syntax shown in section 11 is normative. Sec- tions 2-6 may use a less formal syntax that does not necessarily match the normative ABNF shown in section 11. If there are any dif- ferences between syntax shown in sections 2-6 and section 11, then the syntax shown in the Section 11 must be treated as authorita- tive. Non-syntax requirements included in sections 2-6 are, of course, normative. 2. Introduction The IMAP URL scheme is used to designate IMAP servers, mailboxes, messages, MIME bodies [MIME], and search programs on Internet hosts accessible using the IMAP protocol over TCP. The IMAP URL follows the common Internet scheme syntax as defined in [URI-GEN]. If : is omitted, the port defaults to 143 (as defined in Section 2.1 of [IMAP4]). Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 2] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 An absolute IMAP URL takes one of the following forms: imap://[/] imap:///[][?] imap:///[] [][][] The first form is used to refer to an IMAP server (see section 4), the second form refers to the contents of a mailbox or a set of messages resulting from a search (see section 5), and the final form refers to a specific message or message part, and possibly a byte range in that part (see section 6). If [URLAUTH] extension is supported, then the final form can have the component (see section 6.1 for more details). The component common to all types of absolute IMAP URLs has the following syntax expressed in ABNF [ABNF]: [iuserinfo "@"] host [ ":" port ] The component is the same as "authority" defined in [URI- GEN]. The syntax and uses of the ("IMAP userinfo com- ponent") are described in details in section 3. Syntax of and is described in [URI-GEN]. 3. IMAP userinfo component (iuserinfo) The component conforms to the generic syntax of defined in [URI-GEN]. It has the following syntax expressed in ABNF [ABNF]: enc-user [iauth] / [enc-user] iauth The meaning of different parts is described in subsections of this section. 3.1. IMAP mailbox naming scope The "enc-user" part of the "iuserinfo" component, if present, denotes mailbox naming scope. If it is absent, the IMAP URL can only reference mailboxes with globally unique names, i.e. mailboxes with names that don't change depending on the user the client authenticated as to the IMAP server. (Note, that not all IMAP implementations support globally unique names.) Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 3] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 For example, a personal mailbox described by the following URL is most likely be different from a personal mailbox described by , even though both URLs use the same mailbox name. 3.2. IMAP User Name and Authentication Mechanism The userinfo component (see [URI-GEN]) of an IMAP URI may contain an IMAP user name (a.k.a. authorization identity [SASL], "enc- user") and/or an authentication mechanism. (Note that the "enc- user" also defines a mailbox naming scope as described in section 3.1). The IMAP user name and the authentication mechanism are used in the "LOGIN" or "AUTHENTICATE" commands after making the connec- tion to the IMAP server. If no user name and no authentication mechanism is supplied, the client MUST authenticate as anonymous to the server. If the server advertises AUTH=ANONYMOUS IMAP capability, the client MUST use the AUTHENTICATE command with ANONYMOUS [ANONYMOUS] SASL mechanism. If SASL ANONYMOUS is not available, the (case-insensitive) user name "anonymous" is used with the "LOGIN" command and the Internet e- mail address of the end user accessing the resource is supplied as the password. The latter option is given in order to provide for interoperability with deployed servers. Note that as described in RFC 3501, the LOGIN command MUST NOT be used when the IMAP server advertises the LOGINDISABLED capability. An authentication mechanism (as used by the IMAP AUTHENTICATE com- mand) can be expressed by adding ";AUTH=" to the end of the user name in an IMAP URL. When such an is indicated, the client SHOULD request appropriate credentials from that mechanism and use the "AUTHENTICATE" command instead of the "LOGIN" command. If no user name is specified, one MUST be obtained from the mechanism or requested from the user/configura- tion as appropriate. The string ";AUTH=*" indicates that the client SHOULD select an appropriate authentication mechanism. (Though the '*' character in this usage is not strictly a delimiter, it is being treated like a sub-delim [URI-GEN] in this instance. It MUST NOT be percent encoded in this usage, as ";AUTH=%2A" will not match this produc- tion.) It MAY use any mechanism listed in the response to the CAPABILITY command (or CAPABILITY response code) or use an out of band security service resulting in a PREAUTH connection. If no user name is specified and no appropriate authentication mechanisms Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 4] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 are available, the client SHOULD fall back to anonymous login as described above. The behavior prescribed in this section allows a URL which grants read-write access to authorized users, and read- only anonymous access to other users. If a user name is included with no authentication mechanism, then ";AUTH=*" is assumed. Clients must take care when resolving a URL which requires or requests any sort of authentication, since URLs can easily come from untrusted sources. Supplying authentication credentials to the wrong server may compromise the security of the user's account, therefore the program resolving the URL should meet at least one of the following criteria in this case: (1) The URL comes from a trusted source, such as a referral server which the client has validated and trusts according to site policy. Note that user entry of the URL may or may not count as a trusted source, depending on the experience level of the user and site pol- icy. (2) Explicit local site policy permits the client to connect to the server in the URL. For example, a company example.com may have a site policy to trust all IMAP server names ending in example.com, whereas such a policy would be unwise for example.edu where random students can set up IMAP servers. (3) The user confirms that connecting to that domain name with the specified credentials and/or mechanism is permitted. For example, when using LOGIN or SASL PLAIN with TLS, the IMAP URL client presents a dialog box "Is it OK to send your password to server "example.com"? Please be aware the owners of example.com will be able to reuse your password to connect to other servers on your behalf." (4) A mechanism is used which validates the server before passing potentially compromising client credentials. For example, a site has a designated TLS certificate used to certify site-trusted IMAP server certificates and this has been configured explicitly into the IMAP URL client. Another example is use of a SASL mechanism such as DIGEST-MD5 [DIGEST-MD5], which supports mutual authentica- tion. (5) An authentication mechanism is used which will not reveal any information to the server which could be used to compromise future connections. For example, SASL ANONYMOUS [ANONYMOUS] or GSSAPI [GSSAPI]. URLs which do not include a user name, but include an authentica- tion mechanism (";AUTH=") must be treated with extra care, since for some s they are more likely to compromise the user's primary account. A URL containing ";AUTH=*" must also be Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 5] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 treated with extra care since it might fall back on a weaker secu- rity mechanism. Finally, clients are discouraged from using a plain text password as a fallback with ";AUTH=*" unless the connec- tion has strong encryption. A program interpreting IMAP URLs MAY cache open connections to an IMAP server for later re-use. If a URL contains a user name, only connections authenticated as that user may be re-used. If a URL does not contain a user name or authentication mechanism, then only an anonymous connection may be re-used. Note that if unsafe or reserved characters such as " " (space) or ";" are present in the user name or authentication mechanism, they MUST be percent-encoded as described in [URI-GEN]. 3.3. Limitations of enc-user As per sections 3.1 and 3.2 of this document the IMAP URI enc-user has two purposes: 1) It provides context for user-specific mailbox paths such as "INBOX" (section 3.1). 2) It specifies that resolution of the URL requires logging in as that user and limits use of that URL to only that user (Section 3.2). An obvious limitation of using the same field for both purposes is that the URL can be resolved only by the mailbox owner. In order to avoid this restriction, implementations should use globally unique mailbox names (see Section 3.1) whenever possible (*). The URLAUTH component overrides the second purpose of the enc-user in the IMAP URI and by default permits the URI to be resolved by any user permitted by the identifier. URLAUTH and identifier are described in section 6.1. (*) There is currently no general way in IMAP of learning a glob- ally unique name for a mailbox. However by looking at the NAMESPACE [NAMESPACE] command result it is possible to determine if a mailbox name is globally unique or not. 4. IMAP server An IMAP URL referring to an IMAP server has the following form: imap://[/] This URL type is frequently used to describe a location of an IMAP Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 6] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 server, both in referrals and in configuration. It may optionally contain the "iuserinfo" component (see Sections 3 and 11). A pro- gram interpreting this URL would issue the standard set of commands it uses to present a view of the content of the IMAP server, as visible to the user described by the "enc-user" part of the "iuser- info" component, if the "enc-user" part is specified. 5. Lists of messages An IMAP URL referring to a list of messages has the following form: imap:///[][?] The field is used as the argument to the IMAP4 "SELECT" or "EXAMINE" command. Note that if unsafe or reserved characters such as " " (space), ";", or "?" are present in they MUST be percent-encoded as described in [URI-GEN]. The field is optional. If it is present, it MUST be the same as the value of IMAP4 UIDVALIDITY response code at the time the URL was created. This MUST be used by the program inter- preting the IMAP URL to determine if the URL is stale. If the IMAP URL is stale, then the program should behave as if the correspond- ing mailbox doesn't exist. Note that the field is a modifier to the , i.e. it is considered a part of the last "component" (as used in [URI-GEN]) of the . This is significant during rel- ative URI resolution. The "?" field is optional. If it is not present, the program interpreting the URL will present the entire content of the mailbox. If the "?" field is present, the program interpreting the URL should use the contents of this field as arguments follow- ing an IMAP4 SEARCH command. These arguments are likely to contain unsafe characters such as " " (space) (which are likely to be present in the ). If unsafe characters are present, they MUST be percent-encoded as described in [URI-GEN]. Note that quoted strings and non-synchronizing literals [LITERAL+] are allowed in the content, however synchronizing lit- erals are not allowed, as their presence would effectively mean that the agent interpreting IMAP URLs needs to parse an content, find all synchronizing literals and perform proper command continuation request handling (see sections 4.3 and 7 of Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 7] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 [IMAP4]). 6. A specific message or message part An IMAP URL referring to a specific message or message part has the following form: imap:///[] [][][] The and [uidvalidity] are as defined in section 5 above. If is present in this form, it SHOULD be used by the program interpreting the URL to determine if the URL is stale. The refers to an IMAP4 message UID, and SHOULD be used as the argument to the IMAP4 "UID FETCH" command. The field is optional. If not present, the URL refers to the entire Internet message as returned by the IMAP command "UID FETCH BODY.PEEK[]". If present, the URL refers to the object returned by a "UID FETCH BODY.PEEK[
]" command. The type of the object may be determined with a "UID FETCH BODYS- TRUCTURE" command and locating the appropriate part in the result- ing BODYSTRUCTURE. Note that unsafe characters in [isection] MUST be percent-encoded as described in [URI-GEN]. The field is optional. If present, it effectively appends "<>" to the end of the UID FETCH BODY.PEEK[
] command constructed as described in the previ- ous paragraph. In other words it allows the client to request a byte range of the message/message part. The field is described in details in section 6.1. 6.1 URLAUTH authorized URL URLAUTH authorized URLs are only supported by an IMAP server adver- tising the URLAUTH IMAP capability [URLAUTH]. 6.1.1. Concepts Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 8] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 6.1.1.1. URLAUTH The URLAUTH is a component, appended at the end of a URL, which conveys authorization to access the data addressed by that URL. It contains an authorized access identifier, an authorization mecha- nism name, and an authorization token. The authorization token is generated from the URL, the authorized access identifer, authoriza- tion mechanism name, and a mailbox access key. (Note that this specification only allows for the URLAUTH component in IMAP URLs describing a message or its part.) 6.1.1.2. Mailbox Access Key The mailbox access key is a random string with at least 128 bits of entropy. It is generated by software (not by the human user), and MUST be unpredictable. Each user has a table of mailboxes and an associated mailbox access key for each mailbox. Consequently, the mailbox access key is per- user and per-mailbox. In other words, two users sharing the same mailbox each have a different mailbox access key for that mailbox, and each mailbox accessed by a single user also has a different mailbox access key. 6.1.1.3. Authorized Access Identifier The authorized access identifier restricts use of the URLAUTH authorized URL to certain users authorized on the server, as described in section 6.1.2. 6.1.1.4. Authorization Mechanism The authorization mechanism is the algorithm by which the URLAUTH is generated and subsequently verified, using the mailbox access key. 6.1.1.5. Authorization Token Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 9] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 The authorization token is a deterministic string of at least 128 bits which an entity with knowledge of the secret mailbox access key and URL authorization mechanism can use to verify the URL. 6.1.2. URLAUTH extensions to IMAP URL A specific message or message part IMAP URL can optionally contain ";EXPIRE=" and/or ";URLAUTH=::". When ";EXPIRE=" is used, this indicates the latest date and time that the URL is valid. After that date and time, the URL has expired and server implementations MUST reject the URL. If ";EXPIRE=" is not used, the URL has no expiration, but still can be revoked using the RESETKEY command [URLAUTH]. The URLAUTH takes the form ";URLAUTH=::", and MUST be at the end of the URL. It is composed of three parts. The portion provides the authorized access identifiers which may constrain the operations and users that are permitted to use this URL. The portion provides the authorization mechanism used by the IMAP server to generate the authorization token that follows. The portion provides authorization token, which can be generated using the GENURLAUTH command [URLAUTH]. The "submit+" identifier prefix, followed by a userid, indicates that only a userid authorized as a message submission entity on behalf of the specified userid is permitted to use this URL. The IMAP server does not validate the specified userid but does validate that the IMAP session has an authorization identity that is authorized as a message submission entity. The authorized message submission entity MUST validate the userid prior to con- tacting the IMAP server. The "user+" identifier prefix, followed by a userid, indi- cates that use of this URL is limited to IMAP sessions which are logged in as the specified userid (that is, have authorization identity as that userid). Note: if a SASL mechanism which provides both authorization and authentication identifiers is used to authenticate to the IMAP server, the "user+" access identifier MUST match the authoriza- tion identifier. If the SASL mechanism can't transport the authorization identifier, the "user+" access identifier MUST match the authorization identifier derived from the authentica- tion identifier (see [SASL]). Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 10] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 The "authuser" identifier indicates that use of this URL is limited to authenticated IMAP sessions which are logged in as any non-anonymous user (that is, have authorization identity as a non-anonymous user user) of that IMAP server. To restate this: use of this type of URL is prohibited to anonymous IMAP sessions, i.e. any URLFETCH command containing this type of URL issued in an anonymous session MUST return NIL in the URLFETCH response. The "anonymous" identifier indicates that use of this URL is not restricted by session authorization identity; that is, any IMAP session in authenticated or selected state (as defined in [IMAP4]), including anonymous sessions, may issue a URLFETCH [URLAUTH] using this URL. The authorization token is represented as an ASCII-encoded hexadec- imal string, which is used to authorize the URL. The length and the calculation of the authorization token depends upon the mecha- nism used; but, in all cases, the authorization token is at least 128 bits (and therefore at least 32 hexadecimal digits). Example: 7. Relative IMAP URLs Relative IMAP URLs are permitted and are resolved according to the rules defined in [URI-GEN]. In particular in IMAP URLs, parameters (such as ";uid=" or ";section=") are treated as part of the normal path with respect to relative URL resolution. [URI-GEN] defines 4 forms of relative URLs: , , , . Their syntax is defined in section 11. A relative reference that begins with two slash characters is termed a network-path reference (); such references are rarely used, because in most cases they can be replaced with an equivalent absolute URL. A relative reference that begins with a single slash character is termed an absolute-path reference (, see also section 7.1). A relative reference that does not begin with a slash character is termed a relative-path reference (, see also section 7.2). The final form is , which is "same-document reference" (see section 4.4 of [URI-GEN]). Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 11] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 The following observations about relative URLs are important: The grammar element (which is a part of , which is in its turn a part of ; see section 3) is considered part of the user name for purposes of resolving relative IMAP URLs. This means that unless a new user name/server specification is included in the relative URL, the authentication mechanism is inherited from the base IMAP URL. URLs always use "/" as the hierarchy delimiter for the purpose of resolving paths in relative URLs. IMAP4 permits the use of any hierarchy delimiter in mailbox names. For this reason, relative mailbox paths will only work if the mailbox uses "/" as the hierar- chy delimiter. Relative URLs may be used on mailboxes which use other delimiters, but in that case, the entire mailbox name MUST be specified in the relative URL or inherited as a whole from the base URL. If an IMAP server allows for mailbox names starting with "./" or "../", ending with "/." or "/..", or containing sequences "/../" or "/./", then such mailbox names MUST be percent-encoded as described in [URI-GEN]. Otherwise they would be misinterpreted as dot-seg- ments (see Section 3.3 of [URI-GEN]), which are processed specially during relative path resolution process. 7.1. absolute-path References A relative reference that begins with a single slash character is termed an absolute-path reference (see section 4.2 of [URI-GEN]). If an IMAP server permits mailbox names with a leading "/", then the leading "/" MUST be percent-encoded as described in [URI-GEN]. Otherwise the produced absolute-path reference URI will be misin- terpreted as a network-path reference [URI-GEN] described by non-terminal. 7.2. relative-path References A relative reference that does not begin with a slash character is termed a relative-path reference [URI-GEN]. Implementations MUST NOT generate or accept relative-path IMAP references. See also section 4.2 of [URI-GEN] for restrictions on relative-path references. 8. Internationalization Considerations Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 12] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 IMAP4 [IMAP4] section 5.1.3 includes a convention for encoding non- US-ASCII characters in IMAP mailbox names. Because this convention is private to IMAP, it is necessary to convert IMAP's encoding to one that can be more easily interpreted by a URL display program. For this reason, IMAP's modified UTF-7 encoding for mailboxes MUST be converted to UTF-8 [UTF-8]. Since 8-bit octets are not permit- ted in URLs, the UTF-8 octets are percent-encoded as required by the URL specification [URI-GEN], section 2.1. Sample code is included in Appendix A to demonstrate this conversion. IMAP usernames are UTF-8 strings and MUST be percent-encoded as required by the URL specification [URI-GEN], section 2.1. Also note that IMAP SEARCH criteria can contain non US-ASCII char- acters. 8-bit octets in those strings MUST be percent-encoded as required by the URL specification [URI-GEN], section 2.1. 9. Examples The following examples demonstrate how an IMAP4 client program might translate various IMAP4 URLs into a series of IMAP4 commands. Commands sent from the client to the server are prefixed with "C:", and responses sent from the server to the client are prefixed with "S:". The URL: may result in in the following client commands and server responses: S: * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 STARTTLS AUTH=ANONYMOUS] Welcome C: A001 AUTHENTICATE ANONYMOUS S: + C: c2hlcmlkYW5AYmFieWxvbjUuZXhhbXBsZS5vcmc= S: A001 OK Welcome sheridan@babylon5.example.org C: A002 SELECT gray-council C: A003 UID FETCH 20 BODY.PEEK[]<0.1024> Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 13] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 The URL: May results in the following client commands: S: * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 STARTTLS AUTH=CRAM-MD5] Welcome C: A001 LOGIN ANONYMOUS bester@psycop.psicorp.example.org C: A002 SELECT ~peter/&ZeVnLIqe-/&U,BTFw- The URL: May result in the following client commands: S: * OK Greetings C: A000 CAPABILITY S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 STARTTLS AUTH=GSSAPI S: A000 OK C: A001 AUTHENTICATE GSSAPI C: A002 SELECT gray-council C: A003 UID FETCH 20 BODY.PEEK[1.2] If the following relative URL is located in that body part: <;section=1.4> This could result in the following client commands: C: A004 UID FETCH 20 (BODY.PEEK[1.2.MIME] BODY.PEEK[1.MIME] BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (Content-Location)]) C: A005 UID FETCH 20 BODY.PEEK[1.4] Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 14] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 The URL: Could result in the following: S: * OK Welcome C: A001 CAPABILITY S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 AUTH=DIGEST-MD5 S: A001 OK C: A002 AUTHENTICATE DIGEST-MD5 S: A002 OK user lennier authenticated C: A003 SELECT "gray council" ... C: A004 SEARCH SUBJECT shadows S: * SEARCH 8 10 13 14 15 16 S: A004 OK SEARCH completed C: A005 FETCH 8,10,13:16 ALL ... NOTE: In this final example, the client has implementation depen- dent choices. The authentication mechanism could be anything, including PREAUTH. And the final FETCH command could fetch more or less information about the messages, depending on what it wishes to display to the user. The URL: shows that 8-bit data can be sent using non-synchronizing literals [LITERAL+]. This could result in the following: S: * OK Hi there C: A001 CAPABILITY S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ AUTH=DIGEST-MD5 S: A001 OK C: A002 AUTHENTICATE DIGEST-MD5 S: A002 OK user john authenticated C: A003 SELECT babylon5/personel ... C: A004 SEARCH CHARSET UTF-8 SUBJECT {14+} Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 15] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 C: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX S: * SEARCH 7 10 12 S: A004 OK SEARCH completed C: A005 FETCH 7,10,12 ALL ... Where XXXXXXXXXXXXXX is 14 bytes of UTF-8 encoded data as specified in the URL above. 9.1. Examples of relative URLs The following absolute-path reference is the same as I.e. both of them reference the mailbox "foo" located on the IMAP server described by the corresponding Base URI. The following relative-path reference <;UID=20> references a message with UID in the mailbox specified by the Base URI. The following edge case example demostrates that the ;UIDVALIDITY= modifier is a part of the mailbox name as far as relative URI reso- lution is concerned: <..;UIDVALIDITY=385759045/;UID=20> In this example ".." is not a dot-segment [URI-GEN]. 10. Security Considerations Security considerations discussed in the IMAP specification [IMAP4] and the URI specification [URI-GEN] are relevant. Security consid- erations related to authenticated URLs are discussed in section 3.2 of this document. Many email clients store the plain text password for later use Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 16] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 after logging into an IMAP server. Such clients MUST NOT use a stored password in response to an IMAP URL without explicit permis- sion from the user to supply that password to the specified host name. Clients resolving IMAP URLs that wish to achieve data confidential- ity and/or integrity SHOULD use the STARTTLS command (if supported by the server) before starting authentication, or use a SASL mecha- nism, such as GSSAPI, that provides a confidentiality security layer. 10.1. Security Consideration specific to URLAUTH authorized URL The "user+" access identifier limits resolution of that URL to a particular userid, whereas the "submit+" access iden- tifier is more general and simply requires that the session be authorized by a user that has been granted a "submit" role within the authentication system. Use of either of these access identi- fiers makes it impossible for an attacker, spying on the session, to use the same URL, either directly or by submission to a message submission entity. The "authuser" and "anonymous" access identifiers do not have this level of protection. These access identifiers are primarily useful for public export of data from an IMAP server, without requiring that it be copied to a web or anonymous FTP server. The decision to use the "authuser" access identifier should be made with caution. An "authuser" access identifier can be used by any authorized user of the IMAP server; and therefore use of this access identifier should be limited to content which may be dis- closed to any authorized user of the IMAP server. The decision to use the "anonymous" access identifier should be made with extreme caution. An "anonymous" access identifier can be used by anyone; and therefore use of this access identifier should be limited to content which may be disclosed to anyone. 11. ABNF for IMAP URL scheme Formal syntax is defined using ABNF [ABNF], extending the ABNF rules in section 9 of [IMAP4]. Elements not defined here can be found in the [ABNF], [IMAP4], [IMAPABNF] or [URI-GEN]. Strings are not case sensitive and free insertion of linear-white-space is not permitted. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 17] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 sub-delims-sh = "!" / "$" / "'" / "(" / ")" / "*" / "+" / "," ;; Same as [URI-GEN] sub-delims, ;; but without ";", "&" and "=". uchar = unreserved / sub-delims-sh / pct-encoded achar = uchar / "&" / "=" ;; Same as [URI-GEN] 'unreserved / sub-delims / ;; pct-encoded', but ";" is disallowed. bchar = achar / ":" / "@" / "/" enc-auth-type = 1*achar ; %-encoded version of [IMAP4] "auth-type" enc-mailbox = 1*bchar ; %-encoded version of [IMAP4] "mailbox" enc-search = 1*bchar ; %-encoded version of [IMAPABNF] ; "search-program". Note that IMAP4 ; literals may not be used in ; a "search-program", i.e. only ; quoted or non-synchronizing ; literals (if the server supports ; LITERAL+ [LITERAL+]) are allowed. enc-section = 1*bchar ; %-encoded version of [IMAP4] "section-spec" enc-user = 1*achar ; %-encoded version of [IMAP4] authorization ; identity or "userid". imapurl = "imap://" iserver ipath-query ; Defines an absolute IMAP URL ipath-query = ["/" [ icommand ]] ; Corresponds to "path-abempty [ "?" query ]" ; in [URI-GEN] Generic syntax for relative URLs is defined in Section 4.2 of [URI-GEN]. For ease of implementation, the relative IMAP URL syntax is defined below: imapurl-rel = inetwork-path Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 18] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 / iabsolute-path / irelative-path / ipath-empty inetwork-path = "//" iserver ipath-query ; Corresponds to '"//" authority path-abempty ; [ "?" query ]' in [URI-GEN] iabsolute-path = "/" [ icommand ] ; icommand, if present, MUST NOT start with '/'. ; ; Corresponds to 'path-absolute [ "?" query ]' ; in [URI-GEN] irelative-path = imessagelist / imsg-or-part ; Corresponds to 'path-noscheme [ "?" query ]' ; in [URI-GEN] imsg-or-part = ( imailbox-ref "/" iuid-only ["/" isection-only] ["/" ipartial-only] ) / ( iuid-only ["/" isection-only] ["/" ipartial-only] ) / ( isection-only ["/" ipartial-only] ) / ipartial-only ipath-empty = 0 ; Zero characters. ; The same-document reference. The following 3 rules are only used in the presence of the IMAP [URLAUTH] extension: authimapurl = "imap://" iserver "/" imessagepart ; Same as "imapurl" when "[icommand]" is ; "imessagepart" authimapurlfull = authimapurl iurlauth ; Same as "imapurl" when "[icommand]" is ; "imessagepart iurlauth" authimapurlrump = authimapurl iurlauth-rump enc-urlauth = 32*HEXDIG iurlauth = iurlauth-rump iua-verifier Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 19] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 iua-verifier = ":" uauth-mechanism ":" enc-urlauth iurlauth-rump = [expire] ";URLAUTH=" access access = ("submit+" enc-user) / ("user+" enc-user) / "authuser" / "anonymous" expire = ";EXPIRE=" date-time ; date-time is defined in [DATETIME] uauth-mechanism = "INTERNAL" / 1*(ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / ".") ; Case-insensitive. ; New mechanisms MUST be registered with IANA. iauth = ";AUTH=" ( "*" / enc-auth-type ) icommand = imessagelist / imessagepart [iurlauth] imailbox-ref = enc-mailbox [uidvalidity] imessagelist = imailbox-ref [ "?" enc-search ] ; "enc-search" is [URI-GEN] "query". imessagepart = imailbox-ref iuid [isection] [ipartial] ipartial = "/" ipartial-only ipartial-only = ";PARTIAL=" partial-range isection = "/" isection-only isection-only = ";SECTION=" enc-section iserver = [iuserinfo "@"] host [ ":" port ] ; This is the same as "authority" defined ; in [URI-GEN]. See [URI-GEN] for "host" ; and "port" definitions. iuid = "/" iuid-only iuid-only = ";UID=" nz-number ; See [IMAP4] for "nz-number" definition iuserinfo = enc-user [iauth] / [enc-user] iauth Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 20] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 ; conforms to the generic syntax of ; "userinfo" as defined in [URI-GEN]. partial-range = number ["." nz-number] ; partial FETCH. The first number is ; the offset of the first byte, ; the second number is the length of ; the fragment. uidvalidity = ";UIDVALIDITY=" nz-number ; See [IMAP4] for "nz-number" definition 12. IANA Considerations IANA is requested to update "imap" definition in the "Uniform Resource Identifier scheme registry" to point to this document. The registration template (as per [URI-REG]) is specified in sec- tion 12.1 of this document. 12.1. IANA Registration of imap: URI Scheme This section provides the information required to register the imap: URI scheme. URI scheme name: imap Status: permanent URI scheme syntax: See section 11 of [RFCXXXX]. URI scheme semantics: The imap: URI scheme is used to designate IMAP servers, mail- boxes, messages, MIME bodies [MIME] and their parts, and search programs on Internet hosts accessible using the IMAP protocol. There is no MIME type associated with this URI. Encoding considerations: See Section 8 of [RFCXXXX]. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 21] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 Applications/protocols that use this URI scheme name: The imap: URI is intended to be used by applications that might need access to IMAP mailstore. Such applications may include (but not limited to) IMAP-capable web browsers; IMAP clients that wish to access a mailbox, message, or edit a message on the server using [CATENATE]; [SUBMIT] clients and servers that are requested to assemble a complete message on submission using [BURL]. Interoperability considerations: A widely deployed IMAP client Netscape Mail (and possibly Mozilla/ Thubderbird/Seamonkey) use a different imap: scheme inter- nally. Security considerations: See Security Considerations (Section 10) of [RFCXXXX]. Contact: Alexey Melnikov Author/Change controller: IESG References: [RFCXXXX] and [IMAP4]. 13. References 13.1. Normative References [KEYWORDS] Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Require- ment Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, Harvard University, March 1997. [IMAP4] Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol - Version 4rev1", RFC 3501, University of Washington, March 2003. [IMAPABNF] Melnikov, A., and C. Daboo, "Collected extensions to IMAP4 ABNF", RFC 4466, April 2006. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 22] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 [ABNF] Crocker, Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 4234, October 2005. [MIME] Freed, N., Borenstein, N., "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions", RFC 2045, November 1996. [URI-GEN] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 3986, January 2005. [UTF-8] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003. [NAMESPACE] Gahrns, M. and C. Newman, "IMAP4 Namespace", RFC 2342, May 1998. [LITERAL+] Myers, J., "IMAP4 non-synchronizing literals", RFC 2088, January 1997. [ANONYMOUS] Zeilenga, K. (Ed.), "Anonymous Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) Mechanism", RFC 4505, June 2006. [DATETIME] Klyne, G., and Newman, C., "Date and Time on the Inter- net: Timestamps", RFC 3339, July 2002. [URLAUTH] Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) - URLAUTH Extension", RFC 4467, May 2006. 13.2. Informative References [SUBMIT] Gellens, R. and J. Klensin, "Message Submission for Mail", RFC 4409, April 2006. [BURL] Newman, C. "Message Submission BURL Extension", RFC 4468, May 2006. [CATENATE] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) CATENATE Extension", RFC 4469, April 2006. [SASL] Melnikov, A. and K. Zeilenga, "Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)", RFC 4422, June 2006. [GSSAPI] Melnikov, A., "The Kerberos V5 ("GSSAPI") Simple Authenti- cation and Security Layer (SASL) Mechanism", RFC 4752, November 2006. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 23] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 [DIGEST-MD5] Leach, P. and C. Newman, "Using Digest Authentication as a SASL Mechanism", RFC 2831, May 2000. [URI-REG] Hansen, T., Hardie, T. and L. Masinter, "Guidelines and Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes", BCP 115, RFC 4395, February 2006. 14. Author's Address Chris Newman (Author/Editor) Sun Microsystems 3401 Centrelake Dr., Suite 410 Ontario, CA 91761 EMail: chris.newman@sun.com Alexey Melnikov (Editor) Isode Limited 5 Castle Business Village 36 Station Road Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2BX, UK Email: Alexey.Melnikov@isode.com URI: http://www.melnikov.ca/ Appendix A. Sample code Here is sample C source code to convert between URL paths and IMAP mail- box names, taking into account mapping between IMAP's modified UTF-7 [IMAP4] and hex-encoded UTF-8 which is more appropriate for URLs. This code has not been rigorously tested nor does it necessarily behave rea- sonably with invalid input, but it should serve as a useful example. This code just converts the mailbox portion of the URL and does not deal with parameters, query or server components of the URL. /* Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). This version of sample C code is part of RFC XXXX; see the RFC itself for full legal notices. Regarding this sample C code (or any portion of it), the authors make no guarantees and are not responsible for any damage resulting from its use. The authors grant irrevocable permission to anyone to use, modify, and distribute it in any way that does not diminish the rights of anyone else to use, modify, and distribute it, provided that redistributed derivative works do not contain misleading author or version information. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 24] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 Derivative works need not be licensed under similar terms. */ #include #include /* hexadecimal lookup table */ static const char hex[] = "0123456789ABCDEF"; #define XX 127 /* * Table for decoding hexadecimal in %encoding */ static const char index_hex[256] = { XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,10,11,12, 13,14,15,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,10,11,12, 13,14,15,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, XX,XX,XX,XX, }; #define HEXCHAR(c) (index_hex[(unsigned char)(c)]) /* "gen-delims" excluding "/" but including "%" */ #define GENERAL_DELIMS_NO_SLASH ":?#[]@" "%" /* "gen-delims" (excluding "/", but including "%") plus subset of "sub-delims" */ #define GENERAL_UNSAFE_NO_SLASH GENERAL_DELIMS_NO_SLASH ";&=+" #define OTHER_UNSAFE " \"<>\\^`{|}" /* URL unsafe printable characters */ static const char mailbox_url_unsafe[] = GENERAL_UNSAFE_NO_SLASH OTHER_UNSAFE; /* UTF7 modified base64 alphabet */ static const char base64chars[] = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+,"; Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 25] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 #define UNDEFINED 64 /* UTF16 definitions */ #define UTF16MASK 0x03FFUL #define UTF16SHIFT 10 #define UTF16BASE 0x10000UL #define UTF16HIGHSTART 0xD800UL #define UTF16HIGHEND 0xDBFFUL #define UTF16LOSTART 0xDC00UL #define UTF16LOEND 0xDFFFUL /* Convert an IMAP mailbox to a URL path * dst needs to have roughly 4 times the storage space of src * Hex encoding can triple the size of the input * UTF-7 can be slightly denser than UTF-8 * (worst case: 8 octets UTF-7 becomes 9 octets UTF-8) */ void MailboxToURL(char *dst, char *src) { unsigned char c, i, bitcount; unsigned long ucs4, utf16, bitbuf; unsigned char base64[256], utf8[6]; /* initialize modified base64 decoding table */ memset(base64, UNDEFINED, sizeof (base64)); for (i = 0; i < sizeof (base64chars); ++i) { base64[(int) base64chars[i]] = i; } /* loop until end of string */ while (*src != '\0') { c = *src++; /* deal with literal characters and &- */ if (c != '&' || *src == '-') { /* NB: There are no "URL safe" characters after the '~' */ if (c < ' ' || c > '~' || strchr(mailbox_url_unsafe, c) != NULL) { /* hex encode if necessary */ dst[0] = '%'; dst[1] = hex[c >> 4]; dst[2] = hex[c & 0x0f]; dst += 3; } else { /* encode literally */ *dst++ = c; } /* skip over the '-' if this is an &- sequence */ if (c == '&') ++src; Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 26] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 } else { /* convert modified UTF-7 -> UTF-16 -> UCS-4 -> UTF-8 -> HEX */ bitbuf = 0; bitcount = 0; ucs4 = 0; while ((c = base64[(unsigned char) *src]) != UNDEFINED) { ++src; bitbuf = (bitbuf << 6) | c; bitcount += 6; /* enough bits for a UTF-16 character? */ if (bitcount >= 16) { bitcount -= 16; utf16 = (bitcount ? bitbuf >> bitcount : bitbuf) & 0xffff; /* convert UTF16 to UCS4 */ if (utf16 >= UTF16HIGHSTART && utf16 <= UTF16HIGHEND) { ucs4 = (utf16 - UTF16HIGHSTART) << UTF16SHIFT; continue; } else if (utf16 >= UTF16LOSTART && utf16 <= UTF16LOEND) { ucs4 += utf16 - UTF16LOSTART + UTF16BASE; } else { ucs4 = utf16; } /* convert UTF-16 range of UCS4 to UTF-8 */ if (ucs4 <= 0x7fUL) { utf8[0] = (unsigned char) ucs4; i = 1; } else if (ucs4 <= 0x7ffUL) { utf8[0] = 0xc0 | (unsigned char) (ucs4 >> 6); utf8[1] = 0x80 | (unsigned char) (ucs4 & 0x3f); i = 2; } else if (ucs4 <= 0xffffUL) { utf8[0] = 0xe0 | (unsigned char) (ucs4 >> 12); utf8[1] = 0x80 | (unsigned char) ((ucs4 >> 6) & 0x3f); utf8[2] = 0x80 | (unsigned char) (ucs4 & 0x3f); i = 3; } else { utf8[0] = 0xf0 | (unsigned char) (ucs4 >> 18); utf8[1] = 0x80 | (unsigned char) ((ucs4 >> 12) & 0x3f); utf8[2] = 0x80 | (unsigned char) ((ucs4 >> 6) & 0x3f); utf8[3] = 0x80 | (unsigned char) (ucs4 & 0x3f); i = 4; } /* convert utf8 to hex */ for (c = 0; c < i; ++c) { dst[0] = '%'; Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 27] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 dst[1] = hex[utf8[c] >> 4]; dst[2] = hex[utf8[c] & 0x0f]; dst += 3; } } } /* skip over trailing '-' in modified UTF-7 encoding */ if (*src == '-') ++src; } } /* terminate destination string */ *dst = '\0'; } /* Convert hex coded UTF-8 URL path to modified UTF-7 IMAP mailbox * dst should be about twice the length of src to deal with non-hex * coded URLs */ int URLtoMailbox(char *dst, char *src) { unsigned int utf8pos = 0; unsigned int utf8total, i, c, utf7mode, bitstogo, utf16flag; unsigned long ucs4 = 0, bitbuf = 0; utf7mode = 0; /* is the output UTF7 currently in base64 mode? */ utf8total = 0; /* how many octets is the current input UTF-8 char; 0 == between characters */ bitstogo = 0; /* bits that need to be encoded into base64; if bitstogo != 0 then utf7mode == 1 */ while ((c = (unsigned char)*src) != '\0') { ++src; /* undo hex-encoding */ if (c == '%' && src[0] != '\0' && src[1] != '\0') { c = HEXCHAR(src[0]); i = HEXCHAR(src[1]); if (c == XX || i == XX) { return 0; } else { c = (char)((c << 4) | i); } src += 2; } /* normal character? */ if (c >= ' ' && c <= '~') { /* switch out of UTF-7 mode */ if (utf7mode) { if (bitstogo) { *dst++ = base64chars[(bitbuf << (6 - bitstogo)) & 0x3F]; Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 28] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 } *dst++ = '-'; utf7mode = 0; bitstogo = bitbuf = 0; } *dst++ = c; /* encode '&' as '&-' */ if (c == '&') { *dst++ = '-'; } continue; } /* switch to UTF-7 mode */ if (!utf7mode) { *dst++ = '&'; utf7mode = 1; } /* Encode US-ASCII characters as themselves */ if (c < 0x80) { ucs4 = c; utf8total = 1; } else if (utf8total) { /* this is a subsequent octet of a multi-octet character */ /* save UTF8 bits into UCS4 */ ucs4 = (ucs4 << 6) | (c & 0x3FUL); if (++utf8pos < utf8total) { continue; } } else { /* this is the first octet of a multi-octet character */ utf8pos = 1; if (c < 0xE0) { utf8total = 2; ucs4 = c & 0x1F; } else if (c < 0xF0) { utf8total = 3; ucs4 = c & 0x0F; } else { /* NOTE: can't convert UTF8 sequences longer than 4 */ utf8total = 4; ucs4 = c & 0x03; } continue; } /* Finished with UTF-8 character. Make sure it isn't an overlong sequence. If it is, return failure. */ if ((ucs4 < 0x80 && utf8total > 1) || (ucs4 < 0x0800 && utf8total > 2) || Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 29] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 (ucs4 < 0x00010000 && utf8total > 3) || (ucs4 < 0x00200000 && utf8total > 4) || (ucs4 < 0x04000000 && utf8total > 5) || (ucs4 < 0x80000000 && utf8total > 6)) { return 0; } /* loop to split ucs4 into two utf16 chars if necessary */ utf8total = 0; do { if (ucs4 >= UTF16BASE) { ucs4 -= UTF16BASE; bitbuf = (bitbuf << 16) | ((ucs4 >> UTF16SHIFT) + UTF16HIGHSTART); ucs4 = (ucs4 & UTF16MASK) + UTF16LOSTART; utf16flag = 1; } else { bitbuf = (bitbuf << 16) | ucs4; utf16flag = 0; } bitstogo += 16; /* spew out base64 */ while (bitstogo >= 6) { bitstogo -= 6; *dst++ = base64chars[(bitstogo ? (bitbuf >> bitstogo) : bitbuf) & 0x3F]; } } while (utf16flag); } /* if in UTF-7 mode, finish in ASCII */ if (utf7mode) { if (bitstogo) { *dst++ = base64chars[(bitbuf << (6 - bitstogo)) & 0x3F]; } *dst++ = '-'; } /* tie off string */ *dst = '\0'; return 1; } Appendix B. List of changes since RFC 2192 Updated boilerplate, list of editor's, etc. Updated references. Updated ABNF not to use _, to use SP instead of SPACE, etc. Updated example domains to use example.org. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 30] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 Fixed ABNF error in "imessagelist" non-terminal. Updated ABNF, due to changes in RFC 3501, RFC 4466 and RFC 3986. Renamed "iuserauth" non-terminal to "iuserinfo". Clarified that the userinfo component describes both authorization identity and mailbox naming scope. Allow for non-synchronizing literals in "enc-search". Added "ipartial" specifier that denotes a partial FETCH. Moved URLAUTH text from RFC 4467 to this document. Updated ABNF for the whole server to allow missing trailing "/" (e.g. "imap://imap.example.com" is now valid and is the same as "imap://imap.example.com/") Clarified how relative-path references are constructed. Added more examples demonstrating relative-path references. Added rules for relative URLs and restructured ABNF as the result. Removed text on use of relative URLs in MHTML. Added examples demonstrating security considerations when resolving URLs. Recommend usage of STARTTLS/SASL security layer to protect confidential data. Removed some advices about connection reuse, which were incorrect. Removed URLs referencing a list of mailboxes, as this feature haven't seen any deployments. Clarified that user name "anonymous" is case-insensitive. Appendix C. List of changes since RFC 4467 Renamed to . Restructured ABNF. Appendix D. Acknowledgments Text describing URLAUTH was lifted from [URLAUTH] by Mark Crispin. Stephane H. Maes contributed some ideas to this document, he also co-edited early versions of this document. Editors would like to thank Mark Crispin, Ken Murchison, Ted Hardie, Zoltan Ordogh, Dave Cridland, Kjetil Torgrim Homme, Lisa Dusseault, Spencer Dawkins, Filip Navara and Shawn M. Emery for the time they devoted to reviewing of this document and/or for the com- ments received. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 31] INTERNET DRAFT IMAP URL Scheme August 2007 Intellectual Property The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Acknowledgement Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Newman & Co Expires: February 2008 FORMFEED[Page 32]