Re: Last Call: draft-siemborski-rfc1734bis (POP3 SASL Authentication Mechanism) to Proposed Standard

[Philip Guenther <guenther+ietf at sendmail.com>]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007, The IESG wrote:
> The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
> the following document:
>
> - 'POP3 SASL Authentication Mechanism '
>   <draft-siemborski-rfc1734bis-10.txt> as a Proposed Standard

My apologies to the authors for not commenting on this document earlier.

Both this document and the related draft-siemborski-rfc2554bis discuss how 
the client can cancel an authentication exchange by sending a line with a 
single "*", but then fail to permit that in the ABNF of what the client 
sends.  The 'auth-resp' production might have been part of an attempt to 
permit that, but it's not referenced or explained.  I therefore suggest 
dropping the dangling 'auth-resp' line and changing this production:

      auth-command    = "AUTH" SP sasl-mech [SP (base64 / "=")] *(CRLF
                        [base64]) CRLF

to something like

      auth-command    = "AUTH" SP sasl-mech [SP (base64 / "=")]
                        *(CRLF [base64]) [ CRLF "*" ] CRLF

or better: it should be consistent with the other document, 
draft-siemborski-rfc2554bis, and have a production for the initial 
response.  One for the cancel response would clarify the usage:

      auth-command    = "AUTH" SP sasl-mech [SP initial-response]
                        *(CRLF [base64]) [CRLF cancel-response] CRLF

      initial-response= base64 / "="

      cancel-response = "*"

A similar change should be made to the rfc2554bis draft.


Otherwise, I support the advancement of this document.  It's definitely an 
improvement over the existing scattering of documents.


Philip Guenther

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