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Network Working Group J. De Winter
Request for Comments: 1985 Wildbear Consulting, Inc.
Category: Standards Track August 1996
SMTP Service Extension
for Remote Message Queue Starting
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This memo defines an extension to the SMTP service whereby an SMTP
client and server may interact to give the server an opportunity to
start the processing of its queues for messages to go to a given
host. This extension is meant to be used in startup conditions as
well as for mail nodes that have transient connections to their
service providers.
1. Introduction
The TURN command was a valid attempt to address the problem of having
to start the processing for the mail queue on a remote machine.
However, the TURN command presents a large security loophole. As
there is no verification of the remote host name, the TURN command
could be used by a rogue system to download the mail for a site other
than itself.
Therefore, this memo introduces the ETRN command. This command uses
the mechanism defined in [4] to define extensions to the SMTP service
whereby a client ("sender-SMTP") may request that the server
("receiver-SMTP") start the processing of its mail queues for
messages that are waiting at the server for the client machine. If
any messages are at the server for the client, then the server should
create a new SMTP session and send the messages at that time.
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RFC 1985 SMTP Service Extension - ETRN August 1996
2. Framework for the ETRN Extension
The following service extension is therefore defined:
(1) the name of the SMTP service extension is "Remote Queue
Processing Declaration";
(2) the EHLO keyword value associated with this extension is "ETRN",
with no associated parameters;
(3) one additional verb, ETRN, with a single parameter that
specifies the name of the client(s) to start processing for;
(4) no additional SMTP verbs are defined by this extension.
The remainder of this memo specifies how support for the extension
affects the behavior of an SMTP client and server.
3. The Remote Queue Processing Declaration service extension
To save money, many small companies want to only maintain transient
connections to their service providers. In addition, there are some
situations where the client sites depend on their mail arriving
quickly, so forcing the queues on the server belonging to their
service provider may be more desirable than waiting for the retry
timeout to occur.
Both of these situations could currently be fixed using the TURN
command defined in [1], if it were not for a large security loophole
in the TURN command. As it stands, the TURN command will reverse the
direction of the SMTP connection and assume that the remote host is
being honest about what its name is. The security loophole is that
there is no documented stipulation for checking the authenticity of
the remote host name, as given in the HELO or EHLO command. As such,
most SMTP and ESMTP implementations do not implement the TURN command
to avoid this security loophole.
This has been addressed in the design of the ETRN command. This
extended turn command was written with the points in the first
paragraph in mind, yet paying attention to the problems that
currently exist with the TURN command. The security loophole is
avoided by asking the server to start a new connection aimed at the
specified client.
In this manner, the server has a lot more certainty that it is
talking to the correct SMTP client. This mechanism can just be seen
as a more immediate version of the retry queues that appear in most
SMTP implementations. In addition, as this command will take a
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RFC 1985 SMTP Service Extension - ETRN August 1996
single parameter, the name of the remote host(s) to start the queues
for, the server can decide whether it wishes to respect the request
or deny it for any local administrative reasons.
4. Definitions
Remote queue processing means that using an SMTP or ESMTP connection,
the client may request that the server start to process parts of its
messaging queue. This processing is performed using the existing
SMTP infrastructure and will occur at some point after the processing
is initiated.
The server host is the node that is responding to the ETRN
command.
The client host is the node that is initiating the ETRN command.
The remote host name is defined to be a plain-text field that
specifies a name for the remote host(s). This remote host name may
also include an alias for the specified remote host or special
commands to identify other types of queues.
5. The extended ETRN command
The extended ETRN command is issued by the client host when it wishes
to start the SMTP queue processing of a given server host. The
syntax of this command is as follows:
ETRN [<option character>]<node name><CR><LF>
This command may be issued at any time once a session is established,
as long as there is not a transaction occuring. Thus, this command
is illegal between a MAIL FROM: command and the end of the DATA
commands and responses.
The specified node name must be a fully qualified domain name for the
node, which may refer to a CNAME or MX pointer in the DNS. If an
alias is used for the node, multiple ETRN commands may be needed to
start the processing for the node as it may be listed at the remote
site under multiple names. This can also be addressed using the
options discussed in section 5.3.
The option character under normal circumstances is not used.
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RFC 1985 SMTP Service Extension - ETRN August 1996
5.1 Server action on receipt of the extended ETRN command
When the server host receives the ETRN command, it should have a look
at the node name that is specified in the command and make a local
decision if it should honour the request. If not, the appropriate
error codes should be returned to the client.
Otherwise, the server host should force its retry queues to start
sending messages to that remote site, using another SMTP connection.
At the moment, there is no requirement that a connection must occur,
or that the connection must occur within a given time frame. This
should be noted in the case where there are no messages for the
client host at the server host and only the 250 response is used.
Since the processing of the queues may take an indeterminate amount
of time, this command should return immediately with a response to
the client host. The valid return codes for this command are:
250 OK, queuing for node <x> started
251 OK, no messages waiting for node <x>
252 OK, pending messages for node <x> started
253 OK, <n> pending messages for node <x> started
458 Unable to queue messages for node <x>
459 Node <x> not allowed: <reason>
500 Syntax Error
501 Syntax Error in Parameters
The 250 response code does not indicate that messages will be sent to
the system in question, just that the queue has been started and some
action will occur. If the server is capable of supporting it, the
251, 252 or 253 response codes should be used to give more
information to the client side. In this case, if there are messages
waiting for the client side node, a check can be performed using
these responses codes as an indication of when there are no more
pending messages in the queue for that node.
The 458 and 459 result codes should be used to give more information
back to the client host as to why the action was not performed. If
the syntax of the request is not correct, then the 500 and 501 result
codes should be used.
5.2 Client action on receiving response to extended ETRN command
If one of the 500 level error codes (550 or 551) are sent, the client
should assume that the protocol is not supported in the remote host
or that the protocol has not been implemented correctly on either the
client or server host. In this case, multiple ETRN commands (dealing
with the aliases for the system) should not be sent.
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RFC 1985 SMTP Service Extension - ETRN August 1996
If the 250 response is received, then the client host can assume that
the server host found its request to be satisfactory and it will send
any queued messages. This process may involve going through a very
large retry queue, and may take some time.
If the 400 level response is received, then the client can assume
that the server supports the command, but for some local reason does
not want to accept the ETRN command as is. In most cases, it will
mean that there is a list of nodes that it will accept the command
from and the current client is not on that list. The 459 response
code is presented to allow for a more in-depth reason as to why the
remote queuing cannot be started.
5.3 Use Of ETRN to release mail for a subdomain or queue
If the requesting server wishes to release all of the mail for a
given subdomain, a variation on the ETRN command can be used. To
perform this request, the option character '@' should be used in
front of the node name. In this manner, any domain names that are
formed with a suffix of the specified node name are released.
For example, if the command ETRN @foo.com was issued, then any
accumulated mail for fred.foo.com, a.b.c.d.e.f.g.foo.com or foo.com
may be released. It should be noted that the receiving side of the
ETRN command should make a decision based on the client in question
and only allow certain combinations for each of the nodes. This is
more of a security issue than anything else.
In a similar vein, it might be necessary under some circumstances to
release a certain queue, where that queue does not correspond to a
given domain name. To this end, the option character '#' can be used
to force the processing of a given queue. In this case, the node
name would be used as a queue name instead, and its syntactical
structure would be dependant on the receiving server. An example of
this would be using the command ETRN #uucp to force the flush of a
UUCP queue. Note that the use of this option is entirely a local
matter and there is no way for a client to find a list of any such
queues that exist.
6. Minimal usage
A "minimal" client may use this extension with its host name to start
the queues on the server host. This minimal usage will not handle
cases where mail for 'x.y' is sent to 's.x.y'.
A minimal server may use this extensions to start the processing of
the queues for all remote sites. In this case, the 458 error
response will not be seen, and it should always return the 250
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RFC 1985 SMTP Service Extension - ETRN August 1996
response as it will always try and start the processing for any
request.
7. Example
The following example illustrates the use of remote queue processing
with some permanent and temporary failures.
S: <wait for connection on TCP port 25>
C: <open connection to server>
S: 220 sigurd.innosoft.com -- Server SMTP (PMDF V4.2-6 #1992)
C: EHLO ymir.claremont.edu
S: 250-sigurd.innosoft.com
S: 250-EXPN
S: 250-HELP
S: 250 ETRN
C: ETRN
S: 500 Syntax Error
C: ETRN localname
S: 501 Syntax Error in Parameters
C: ETRN uu.net
S: 458 Unable to queue messages for node uu.net
...
C: ETRN sigurd.innosoft.com
S: 250 OK, queuing for node sigurd.innosoft.com started
C: ETRN innosoft.com
S: 250 OK, queuing for node innosoft.com started
OR
C: ETRN sigurd.innosoft.com
S: 251 OK, no messages waiting for node sigurd.innosoft.com
C: ETRN innosoft.com
S: 252 OK, pending messages for node innosoft.com started
C: ETRN mysoft.com
S: 253 OK, 14 pending messages for node mysoft.com started
...
C: ETRN foo.bar
S: 459 Node foo.bar not allowed: Unable to resolve name.
...
C: QUIT
S: 250 Goodbye
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RFC 1985 SMTP Service Extension - ETRN August 1996
8. Security Considerations
This command does not compromise any security considerations of any
existing SMTP or ESMTP protocols as it merely shortens the time that
a client needs to wait before their messages are retried.
Precautions should be taken to make sure that any client server can
only use the @ and # option characters for systems that make sense.
Failure to implement some kind of sanity checking on the parameters
could lead to congestion. This would be evident if a person asking
to release @com, which would release mail for any address that ended
with com.
9. Acknowledgements
This document was created with lots of support from the users of our
products, who have given some input to the functionality that they
would like to see in the software that they bought.
10. References
[1] Postel, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", STD 10, RFC
821, August 1982.
[2] Klensin, J., WG Chair, Freed, N., Editor, Rose, M., Stefferud,
E., and D. Crocker, "SMTP Service Extensions" RFC 1425, United
Nations University, Innosoft International, Inc., Dover Beach
Consulting, Inc., Network Management Associates, Inc., The Branch
Office, February 1993.
11. Author's Address
Jack De Winter
Wildbear Consulting, Inc.
17 Brock Street
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
N2M 1X2
Phone: +1 519 576 3873
EMail: jack@wildbear.on.ca
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