IMAP4 non-synchronizing literals
draft-melnikov-rfc2088bis-00.txt

Abstract

The Internet Message Access Protocol (RFC 3501) contains the "literal" syntactic construct for communicating strings. When sending a literal from client to server, IMAP requires the client to wait for the server to send a command continuation request between sending the octet count and the string data. This document specifies an alternate form of literal which does not require this network round trip.

Status of This Memo

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This Internet-Draft will expire on October 25, 2013.

Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

• 1. Specification
• 2. Requirements Notation
• 3. Considerations on when to use and not to use synchronizing literals
• 4. Formal Syntax
• 5. Security Considerations
• 6. IANA Considerations
• 7. To Do
• 8. Acknowledgments
• 9. Normative References
• Appendix A. Changes since RFC 2088
• Authors' Addresses

1. Specification

The non-synchronizing literal is added an alternate form of literal, and may appear in communication from client to server instead of the IMAP [RFC3501] form of literal. The IMAP form of literal, used in communication from client to server, is referred to as a synchronizing literal. The non-synchronizing literal form MUST NOT be sent from server to client.

Non-synchronizing literals may be used with any IMAP server implementation which returns "LITERAL+" as one of the supported capabilities to the CAPABILITY command. If the server does not advertise the LITERAL+ capability, the client must use synchronizing literals instead.

The non-synchronizing literal is distinguished from the original synchronizing literal by having a plus ('+') between the octet count and the closing brace ('}'). The server does not generate a command continuation request in response to a non-synchronizing literal, and clients are not required to wait before sending the octets of a non- synchronizing literal.

The protocol receiver of an IMAP server must check the end of every received line for an open brace ('{') followed by an octet count, a plus ('+'), and a close brace ('}') immediately preceeding the CRLF. If it finds this sequence, it is the octet count of a non- synchronizing literal and the server MUST treat the specified number of following octets and the following line as part of the same command. A server MAY still process commands and reject errors on a line-by-line basis, as long as it checks for non-synchronizing literals at the end of each line.

Example:

C: A001 LOGIN {11+}
C: FRED FOOBAR {7+}
C: fat man
S: A001 OK LOGIN completed

2. Requirements Notation

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].

In examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client and server respectively. If a single "C:" or "S:" label applies to multiple lines, then the line breaks between those lines are for editorial clarity only and are not part of the actual protocol exchange.

3. Considerations on when to use and not to use synchronizing literals

This section is important to understand for both client and server developers of this IMAP extension.

While non-synchronizing literals have clear advantages for clients, such as simplicity of use, they might be more difficilt to handle on the server side. When a non synchronizing literal is used by a client which is too big for the server to accept, a compliant LITERAL+ server implementation has to make a choice between several non optimal choices:

1. Read the number of bytes specified in the non synchronizing literal and reject the command that included the literal anyway. (The server is allowed to send the tagged BAD/NO response before reading the whole non synchronizing literal.) This is quite wasteful on bandwidth if the literal size is big.
2. Send the untagged BYE response explaining the reason for rejecting the literal and close the connection. This will force the client to reconnect or report the error to the user. In the latter case the error is unlikely to be understandable to the user. Additionally, some naive clients are known to blindly reconnect in this case and repeat the operation that caused the problem.

4. Formal Syntax

The following syntax specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) notation as specified in [ABNF].

Non-terminals referenced but not defined below are as defined by [RFC3501].

  literal = "{" number ["+"] "}" CRLF *CHAR8
             ; Number represents the number of CHAR8 octets

  CHAR8   = <defined in RFC 3501>

5. Security Considerations

This document doesn't raise any new security concerns not already raised by [RFC3501].

6. IANA Considerations

IMAP4 capabilities are registered by publishing a standards track or IESG approved experimental RFC. The registry is currently located at:

   http://www.iana.org/assignments/imap4-capabilities
    

This document requests that IANA updated the above registry to include the entry for LITERAL+ capability pointing to this document.

7. To Do

Advertise a limit for APPEND command?

8. Acknowledgments

9. Normative References

Appendix A. Changes since RFC 2088

Added IANA registration.

Updated references.

Additional implementation considerations based on the IMAP mailing list discussions.

Authors' Addresses