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Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 3501 (Obsoleted by RFC 9051) Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 2 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group R. Sparks 3 Internet-Draft Tekelec 4 Intended status: Informational Dec 9, 2011 5 Expires: June 11, 2012 7 IETF Email List Archiving and Search Tool Requirements 8 draft-sparks-genarea-mailarch-01 10 Abstract 12 The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work. 13 Participants frequently need to search and browse the archives of 14 these lists, and have asked for improved search capabilities. The 15 current archive mechanism could also be made more efficient. This 16 memo captures the requirements for improved email list archiving and 17 searching systems. 19 Status of this Memo 21 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 22 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 24 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 25 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 26 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 27 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 29 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 30 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 31 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 32 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 34 This Internet-Draft will expire on June 11, 2012. 36 Copyright Notice 38 Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 39 document authors. All rights reserved. 41 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 42 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 43 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 44 publication of this document. Please review these documents 45 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 46 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 47 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 48 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 49 described in the Simplified BSD License. 51 Table of Contents 53 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 54 2. List Search and Archive Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 55 2.1. Search and Browsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 56 2.2. IMAP access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 57 2.3. Archiving Active Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 58 2.4. Importing Messages from Other Archives . . . . . . . . . . 5 59 2.5. Exporting messages from the Archives . . . . . . . . . . . 5 60 2.6. Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 61 2.7. Archive Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 62 2.8. Transition Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 63 3. Future Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 64 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 65 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 66 6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 67 7. Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 68 7.1. 00 to 01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 69 8. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 70 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 72 1. Introduction 74 The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work. 75 Participants frequently need to search the archives of these lists, 76 and have asked for improved search capabilities. The current archive 77 mechanism could also be made more efficient. This memo captures the 78 requirements for improved email list archiving and searching systems. 80 Discussion of this memo should take place on the ietf@ietf.org 81 mailing list. 83 2. List Search and Archive Requirements 85 2.1. Search and Browsing 87 o The system must provide a web interface for search and browsing 88 archived messages. 90 o The system must allow browsing the entire archive of a given list 91 by thread or by date. 93 o The system must allow browsing the results of a search by thread 94 or by date. 96 Both threading based on Message-Id/References/In-Reply-To and 97 threading based on same subject line (modulo short prefixes 98 like re: and fwd:) shoul dbe taken into account. 100 o The system must allow searching across any subset of the archived 101 lists (one list, a selection of lists, or all lists). 103 o The system must allow searching of any combination (using AND and 104 OR operators) of the following attributes. Richer search 105 capabilites are highly desirable. 107 - string occurring in sender name 109 - date range 111 - string occurring in Subject 113 - string occurring in message body 115 - string occuring in message header (in particular, exact match 116 of Message-Id) 117 For instance, it would be nice to search the entire archive 118 for instances of a message with a given Message-ID with a 119 URL like 122 o Individual messages must be representable by a long-term stable 123 URI that can be shared between users. That is, the URI must be 124 suitable for reference in an email message. 126 o Searches should be representable by a URI that can be shared 127 between users 129 - Such URIs should be long-term stable. 131 - The search may be re-executed when the URI is referenced. It 132 is acceptable for the same URI to produce different results if 133 accessed at different times (reflecting additional messages 134 that may match the search criteria for example.) 136 2.2. IMAP access 138 Many participants would prefer to access the list archives using IMAP 139 [RFC3501]. Providing this access while meeting the following 140 requirements will likely require an IMAP server with specialized 141 capabilities. 143 o The system should expose the archive using an IMAP interface, with 144 each list represented as a mailbox. 146 o This interface must work with standard IMAP clients. 148 o The interface should allow users to each have their own read/ 149 unread marks for messages. Allowing other annotation is 150 desirable. 152 - If this requires the user to login, the system should use 153 datatracker login credentials 155 o The interface must have server-side searching enabled, and should 156 support multiple simultaneous extensive searches. 158 2.3. Archiving Active Lists 160 o The archive system must accept messages handled by various mail 161 reflector packages. 163 - Lists hosted on the IETF systems are served by mailman 164 [mailman]. 166 - Lists hosted at other organizations may use other packages. 168 * The archive system must accept messages through subscribing 169 to such an external list. 171 * The archive system may support other mechanisms for 172 accepting messages into the archive 174 2.4. Importing Messages from Other Archives 176 Lists hosted at other systems are sometimes moved to the IETF 177 servers, and their archive is moved with them. The archiving system 178 must be able to import these archives. 180 o At a minimum the archive system must be able to import mbox 181 formatted archives [RFC4155][mbox]. 183 o The archive system should be able to import maildir and maildir- 184 like (the key characteristic being on-message-per-file) formatted 185 archives [maildir]. 187 o It is acceptable to use a separate utility to convert between 188 these formats before import as long as the conversion is lossless 190 2.5. Exporting messages from the Archives 192 o The archive system must support exporting messages in the mbox 193 format 195 o The archive system should support exporting messages in mailder 196 format 198 o The archive system must support exporting the entire archive of a 199 given list 201 o The archive system must support exporting all messages from a 202 given list within a given daterange 204 o The archive system should allow exporting the results of any 205 supported search query 207 2.6. Redundancy 209 o The systems must facilitate providing archive, search, and browse 210 functions through geographically distributed servers 212 - The systems must support a single active an dsingle standby 213 server. This reflects the current operating configuration and 214 is expected to be the initial deployment model. 216 - The systems should support a single active and multiple standby 217 servers. 219 - The systems should support multiple active servers for the 220 search and browse functions. Multiple active archive servers 221 are not a requirement. 223 - The amount of data replication between servers should be on the 224 order of the size of any new/changed messages in the archives. 226 * It is acceptable for replication to be part of the archival 227 system itself (such as using the replication mechanisms from 228 an underlying database). 230 * It is acceptable to rely on replication of the underlying 231 filesystem objects (using rsync of one or more directory 232 trees for example), but only if the objects in the 233 underlying filesystem are formatted such that the size of 234 the replication data is on the order of the size of any new/ 235 changed messages in the archives. 237 2.7. Archive Administration 239 o The archive system must support adding and removing lists to be 240 archived 242 o The system must allow the administrator to add messages to and 243 delete messages from an archived list. The system should log such 244 actions. 246 o The system must allow the administrator to delete messages from an 247 archived list 249 2.8. Transition Requirements 251 There are many existing archived messages containing embedded links 252 into the existing MHonArc mail archive. These links must continue to 253 work, but should reach the message as archived in the new system. 255 3. Future Considerations 257 The archive and search functions should anticipate internationalized 258 email addresses as discussed in the EAI working group. Since the EAI 259 WG has not finished their work, there is no firm requirement at this 260 time. 262 4. Security Considerations 264 Creating a new tool for searching and archiving IETF email lists does 265 not affect the security of the Internet in any significant fashion. 267 5. IANA Considerations 269 This document has no actions for IANA. 271 6. Acknowledgements 273 The Tools Development team provided input into this initial 274 brainstorm. Text suggestions from Alexey Melnikov and Pete Resnick 275 have been incorporated. 277 7. Changelog 279 7.1. 00 to 01 281 1. Requested ability to import maildir-like archives, not just 282 maildir proper 284 2. Added a section requesting IMAP access to the archive. 286 8. Informative References 288 [RFC3501] Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 289 4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003. 291 [RFC4155] Hall, E., "The application/mbox Media Type", RFC 4155, 292 September 2005. 294 [maildir] "Maildir", . 296 [mailman] "Mailman", . 298 [mbox] "Mbox", . 300 Author's Address 302 Robert Sparks 303 Tekelec 304 17210 Campbell Road 305 Suite 250 306 Dallas, Texas 75254-4203 307 USA 309 Email: RjS@nostrum.com