Internet DRAFT - draft-crocker-edi
draft-crocker-edi
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Network Working Group D. Crocker
Internet-Draft: DRAFT-EDI-MIME-02.{txt,ps} Brandenburg Consulting
Expiration <6/95> 13 December 1994
MIME Encapsulation of EDI Objects
STATUS OF THIS MEMO
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Application/EDI-X12 specification
3. Application/EDIFACT specification
4. Application/EDI-Consent specification
5. Sample EDI usage in MIME-based email
6. References
7. Security considerations
8. Acknowledgments
9. Contact
A. Appendix - MIME for EDI users
1. Introduction
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) provides a means of conducting
structured transactions between trading partners. The delivery
mechanism for these types of transactions in a paper world has
been the postal system, so it is to be expected that electronic
mail would serve as a natural delivery mechanism for electronic
transactions. This specification permits formatted electronic
business interchanges to be encapsulated within MIME messages
[Bore92]. For the specification effort, the basic building block
from EDI is an interchange.
This specification pertains only to the encapsulation of EDI
objects within the MIME environment. It intends no changes in
those objects from the primary specifications that define the
syntax and semantics of them. EDI transactions take place
through a variety of carriage and exchange mechanisms. This
specification adds to that repertoire, by permitting convenient
carriage through Internet email.
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Since there are many different EDI specifications, the current
document defines three distinct categories as three different
MIME content-types. One is Application/EDI-X12, indicating that
the contents conform to the range of specifications developed
through the X12 standards organization [X125, X126, X12V].
Another is Application/EDIFACT, indicating that the contents
conform to the range of specifications developed by the United
Nations Working Party 4 Group of Experts 1 EDIFACT boards [FACT,
FACV]. The last category covers all other specifications; it is
Application/EDI-consent.
2. APPLICATION/EDI-X12 SPECIFICATION
The Application/EDI-X12 MIME body-part contains data as specified
for electronic data interchange by [X125, X12.6, EDIV].
Within MIME, EDI-X12 information is specified by:
MIME type name: Application
MIME subtype name: EDI-X12
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: CHARSET, as defined for MIME
Encoding considerations: May need BASE64 or QUOTED-PRINTABLE
transfer encoding
Security considerations: See separate section in the
document.
Published specification: Contained in the following section.
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Rationale: The ASC X12 EDI specifications are
accepted standards for a class of
inter-organization transactions;
this permits their transmission
over the Internet, via email.
Contact-info: See Contact section, below.
Detail specific to MIME-based usage:
This is a generic mechanism for sending any ASC X12
interchange. The object is self-defining, in terms of
indicating which specific EDI objects are included. Most
EDI data is textual, but special characters such as some
delimiters may be non-printable ASCII or some data may be
pure binary. For EDI objects containing such data, the MIME
transfer mechanism may need to encode the object in Content-
Transfer-Encoding:quoted-printable or base64.
3. APPLICATION/EDIFACT SPECIFICATION
The Application/EDIFACT MIME body-part contains data as specified
for electronic data interchange by [FACT, FACV].
Within EDIFACT, information is specified by:
MIME type name: Application
MIME subtype name: EDIFACT
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: CHARSET, as defined for MIME
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Encoding considerations: May need BASE64 or QUOTED-PRINTABLE
transfer encoding
Security considerations: See separate section in the
document.
Published specification: Contained in the following section.
Rationale: The EDIFACT specifications are
accepted standards for a class of
inter-organization transactions;
this permits their transmission
over the Internet, via email.
Contact-info: See Contact section, below.
Detail specific to MIME-based usage:
This is a generic mechanism for sending any EDIFACT
interchange. The object is self-defining, in terms of
indicating which specific EDI objects are included. Most
EDI data is textual, but special characters such as some
delimiters may be non-printable ASCII or some data may be
pure binary. For EDI objects containing such data, the MIME
transfer mechanism may need to encode the object in Content-
Transfer-Encoding:quoted-printable or base64.
4. APPLICATION/EDI-CONSENT SPECIFICATION
The Application/EDI-consent MIME body-part contains data as
specified for electronic data interchange with the consent of
explicit, bilateral trading partner agreement exchanging the EDI-
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consent traffic. As such, use of EDI-consent only provides a
standard mechanism for "wrapping" the EDI objects but does not
specify any of the details about those objects.
Within MIME, EDI-consent information is specified by:
MIME type name: Application
MIME subtype name: EDI-consent
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: CHARSET, as defined for MIME
Encoding considerations: May need BASE64 or QUOTED-PRINTABLE
transfer encoding
Security considerations: See separate section in the
document.
Published specification: Contained in the following section.
Rationale: Existing practice for exchanging
EDI includes a very wide range of
specifications which are not part
of the usual, accredited standards
world. Nevertheless, this traffic
is substantial and well-
established. This content type
provides a means of delimiting such
content in a standard fashion.
Contact-info: See Contact section, below.
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Detail specific to MIME-based usage:
This is a generic mechanism for sending any EDI object
explicitly agreed to by the trading partners. X12 and
EDIFACT object must be sent using their assigned MIME
content type. EDI-consent is for all other EDI objects, but
only according to trading partner agreements between the
originator and the recipient. Most EDI data is textual,
but special characters such as some delimiters may be non-
printable ASCII or some data may be pure binary. For EDI
objects containing such data, the MIME transfer mechanism
may need to encode the object in Content-Transfer-
Encoding:quoted-printable or base64.
5. SAMPLE EDI USAGE IN MIME-BASED EMAIL
Actual use of EDI within MIME-based mechanisms requires attention
to considerable detail. This section is intended as an example
of the gist of the formatting required to encapsulate EDI objects
within Internet mail, using MIME. To send a single X12-EDI
interchange:
To: <<recipient organization EDI email address>>
Subject:
From: <<sending organization EDI email address>>
Date:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: Application/EDI-X12
Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE
<<standard ASC X12 EDI Interchange goes here>>
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6. REFERENCES
[Bore92] Borenstein, N. & Freed, N., "Mime (Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions): Mechanisms for
Specifying and Describing The Format of Internet
Message Bodies". March, 1992, Network Information
Center, RFC 1341.
[Brad89] Braden, R.T., "Requirements for Internet hosts -
application and support". October, 1989, Network
Information Center, RFC 1321.
[Croc82] Crocker, D., "Standard for the Format of Internet
Text Messages". September, 1982, Network
Information Center, RFC 822.
[Rose93] Rose, M., "The Internet Message: Closing the Book
with Electronic Mail". PTR Prentice Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, N.J. (1993)
[Post82] Postel, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol".
October, 1982, Network Information Center, RFC 821.
[X12V] Data Interchange Standards Association; sets of
specific EDI standards are ordered by their version
number; Washington D.C.
[X125] ANSI X12.5 Interchange Control Structure for
Electronic Data Interchange, Washington D.C.: DISA
[X126] ANSI X12.6 Applications Control Structures for
Electronic Data Interchange, Washington D.C.: DISA
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[FACT] United Nations Economic Commission (UN/EC)
Electronic Data Interchange For Administration,
Commerce and Transport (EDIFACT) - Application Level
Syntax Rules (ISO 9735), 1991.
[FACV] Version sets contains the specific syntax documents,
the element and segment dictionaries, and the
transaction/message specifications.
7. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
EDI transactions typically include sensitive data, so that
transmission often needs to attend to authentication, data
integrity, privacy, access control and non-repudiation concerns.
This specification permits transmission of such sensitive data
via Internet mail and other services which support MIME object
encapsulation. For transmission of sensitive data, it is
essential that appropriate security services, such as
authentication, privacy and/or non-repudiation be provided.
This specification does NOT, itself, provide any security-related
mechanisms. As needed and appropriate, such mechanisms MUST be
added, either via Internet MIME-based security services or any
other services which are appropriate to the user requirements,
such as those provided EDI-based standards.
8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Tom Jones offered introductory text and descriptions of candidate
header options. Numerous working group participants provided
review and comment, especially Walt Houser, Gail Jackson, and Jim
Amster.
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9. CONTACT
David H. Crocker
Brandenburg Consulting
675 Spruce Dr.
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA
<dcrocker@mordor.stanford.edu>
Phone: +1 408 246 8253
Fax: +1 408 249 6205
A. APPENDIX - MIME FOR EDI USERS
To assist those familiar with EDI but not with Internet
electronic mail, this Appendix is provided as a very brief
introduction, primarily to give pointers to the relevant
specifications. This section is in no way intended to be a
thorough introduction. An excellent introductory text is
[Rose93].
Internet electronic mail follows the classic user agent/mail
transfer agent model. In this model, user software produces a
standardized object which is transferred via standard exchange
protocols.
An Internet electronic mail object comprises a collection of
headers, followed by a (possibly structured) body. The headers
specify such information as author and recipient addresses,
subject summary, creation date, handling node names, and so on,
and are defined by RFC822 and RFC1123 [Croc82, Brad89]. If the
body is structured, it conforms to the rules of the Multipurpose
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Internet Message Exchange (MIME) [Bore92]. A structured body may
have parts encoded in different text character sets, or even of
entirely different types of data, such as voice or graphics.
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) [Post82, Brad89]
performs the primary task of message transmission. User posting
and delivery interactions, between the user agent and the message
transfer agent, on the same machine, are not standardized and are
platform-specific.
An EDI-related use of Internet Mime email will have (at least)
the following components:
Business Program/Data base -> EDI Translator ->
-> MIME encapsulation -> RFC822 packaging ->
-> mail submission -> SMTP relaying ->
-> mail delivery -> RFC822 & Mime stripping ->
-> EDI Translator -> Business processing
The first and last lines show components normal to all EDI
activities, so that it is only the EDI "transmission" components
that are replaced with Internet modules.
