Internet DRAFT - draft-santos-smtpgrey
draft-santos-smtpgrey
Network Working Group H. Santos, Ed.
Internet-Draft Santronics Software, Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track E. Harris
Expires: October 28, 2012 puremagic.com
April 26, 2012
SMTP Service Extension for Greylisting Operations
draft-santos-smtpgrey-02
Abstract
GREYLIST is a SMTP extension to formalize the widely supported
Greylisting mail filtering method and to help support SMTP rejected
transports by following a new formal structured 4yz server temporary
rejection response by including a "retry=time-delay" tag string which
SMTP clients can use to optimize the rescheduling of the mail
delivery attempts. With adoption, network overhead reduction in
wasteful mail delivery attempts will be realized.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on October 28, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Document Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3. Definitions and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4. Syntactic Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5. Out of Scope Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Greylisting Basic Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1. Greylist Recording Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2. Recording Sender Information (Triplet) . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3. SMTP Server Rejection Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.1. Connection Greeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.2. EHLO/HELO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.3. MAIL FROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.4. RCPT TO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3.5. DATA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4. 4yz Format Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4.1. 421 vs 45z Reply Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5. Recommended Blocking Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3. SMTP Service Keyword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1. SMTP Client/Server Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1.1. SMTP Server Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1.2. SMTP Client Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Appendix A. Additional Greylist Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Appendix B. Augmenting Other Standard Email Filters Methods . . . 19
Appendix C. TO DO LIST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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1. Introduction
In 2003, a non-IETF technology called GreyListing was invented by
Evan Harris [HARRIS] as a very effective method of enhancing the
abilities of SMTP [RFC5321] mail systems to limit the amount of
unwanted, abusive mail that they receive and deliver to their users.
Mail systems supporting GreyListing has grown over the years to
become a "pseudo standard" among many SMTP operations.
This specification provides a formal IETF specification to the
Greylisting framework, learned practices and introduces a SMTP
extension to reduce the network, traffic overheads and mail delivery
delays associated with SMTP Greylisting operations.
1.1. Background
Greylisting was originally tested on a few small scale mail hosts
(less than 100 users, though with a fairly diverse set of senders
from all over the world, and volumes over 10,000 email attempts a
day). Currently, Greylisting is in use on many mail servers,
including ones processing several millions of messages per day. It
was designed to be scalable and marginal impact to both
administrators and users, and should be acceptable for use on a wide
range of systems. Of course, performance issues are very dependent
on implementation details.
_How does Greylisting work?_
Greylisting works by leveraging the standard SMTP client design
expectation to retry sending mail after an initial 4yz temporary
rejection response is issued by the server. When the greylisted
recorded SMTP client reschedules and retries the same transaction,
the GreyListing server will allow the greylisted recorded sender to
continue with the transaction.
While the idea of using an intentional 4yz rejection to force SMTP
clients to retry sending mail would naturally be considered a radical
concept for the IETF purist and most likely would not have been
endorsed as an IETF standard protocol, the proof of concept has long
been established as a very effective means to control certain types
of malicious and abusive mail senders and today, Greylisting is a
widely recognized mail filtering method and Greylisting SMTP Servers
are widely implemented by many in the IETF mail community.
_What sort of mail senders does Greylisting address?_
By leveraging the SMTP retry expectation for clients, Greylisting is
very effective against mail senders who anonymously and randomly
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perform a "Single Shot" mail sending attempt and will never repeat
the same transaction after the sender has been initially rejected.
The high payoff has been the nearly 100% of all mail senders behaving
as "single shot" mail senders are abusive and/or malicious in nature.
Greylisting can not address abusive mail senders using compliant SMTP
mail clients. However, it has been observed that many abusive mail
senders will retry again and often immediately within a short time
delay. Hence, the Greylisting concept includes the idea of using a
"Blocking Time" factor where a greylisted recorded mail sender is
blocked for a certain time period. Only when the blocking time has
expired, will the GreyListing server finally allow the mail sender to
continue with the transaction.
_What sort of impact has Greylisting had with Mail Delivery?_
Greylisting has been designed since its conception to satisfy certain
criteria:
o Enforce SMTP compliance with expected SMTP retry strategies,
o Limit abusive mail senders ability to circumvent the blocking,
o Have minimal impact on users, and
o Require minimal maintenance at both the user and administrator
level.
The first immediate impact are the increasing delays in mail delivery
due to the wide range in Greylisting blocking time values which can
be seconds, minutes to hours. Since SMTP has a standard
recommendation to implement a Progressive Retry queuing strategy (see
section 4.5.4.1 in RFC5321 [RFC5321]) where the first few attempts
have short delays (i.e. two attempts within the first hour) with a
progressive back off longer delay before the maximum attempts (i.e.
over 4-5 days) are exhausted, there are increasing wasted attempts
and foremost higher delays in delivering mail. When a SMTP client
implements an initial retry lower than the remote GreyListing Server
blocking time, the SMTP client will have increasing wasted attempts
overhead. When the SMTP client implements an initial retry delay
higher than the remote GreyListing Server blocking time, the SMTP
client will have unnecessary wasted mail delays in delivering mail.
With the increasing deployment of Greylisting mail servers, the
second impact is such that even the SMTP server who does not employ
Greylisting, will more than likely increasingly connect to a remote
mail server that does employ Greylisting and will experience the
temporary rejection overhead requiring additional mail sending
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retries.
The third impact is that many GreyListing servers now use the
rejection idea at the connection level using a 421 greeting response
which may be a different retry condition than a 45z rejection
response issued at the MAIL FROM or DATA state. Since many MTA
clients see a 421 as a possible loading limit, it may use this to
immediately reschedule a retry using a different MX/IP host..
Overall, Greylisting was designed to address the high abuse of
"single shot" anonymous mail senders, however it was done at the
expense of legitimate mail senders experiencing wasted mail attempts
and increasing delivery delays and with improper GreyListing server
and client settings, SMTP clients may now have to revisit their
queuing strategies to address the Greylisting overhead related
issues.
This specification provides insights into preparing a low impact
Greylisting Server by providing some recommendations for blocking
delays and defining a formal structure GreyListing server to
optionally include a suggested "retry=time-delay" information in the
server's 4yz temporary text responses.
This specification does not attempt to alter existing IETF standard
SMTP and non-IETF standard Greylisting protocols other than to
provide augmented Greylisting techniques to help alleviate the
overhead associated with Greylisting in the client/server SMTP
transport process. SMTP servers supporting this extension will only
be altering 4yz greylisting responses which is out of scope in
RFC5321. Greylisting is not part of SMTP and is implemented as an
"add-on" component. SMTP clients supporting this extension will only
be factoring in a new time factor for their existing retry and
queuing method where the exact retry and queuing methods in placed is
also out of scope in RFC5321.
The Greylisting method specified in this document is a complementary
method to any other existing mail filtering control systems, and is
not intended as a replacement for those other methods. In fact, it
is expected that abusive mail senders will eventually try to minimize
the effectiveness of this method of blocking, and Greylisting is
designed to limit options available to the mail senders when
attempting to do so. The positive outcome of Greylisting is that the
only methods of circumventing it will tend to make other mail
filtering control techniques just that much more effective (primarily
DNS and other methods of blacklisting based on IP address) even after
any adaptation by the abusive mail senders has occurred.
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1.2. Document Conventions
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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
1.3. Definitions and Acronyms
MTA Mail Transfer Agent. Sender or Receiver of mail. Generally
viewed as a router within a MSA intra-network where there is a
inherent authentication.
MUA Mail User Agent. Online or offline mail reader/writer software.
Typically has its own MTA component for sending mail.
MSA Mail Submission Agent. Generally associated with a MUA sending
message to a ISP or ESP where there is an authorized or
authenticated association with the MUA.
MDA Mail Destination Agent. Generally associated as the final
destination of the message where the message is typically
targeted for a local user. If the MDA is going to route the
mail, then its behaving more as a MSA or MTA.
1.4. Syntactic Notation
This specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF
[RFC5234]) notation for the formal definition of the syntax for the
"retry=time-delay" hint.
1.5. Out of Scope Considerations
The following are out of scope considerations in this specification:
o how Greylisting information is recorded in databases,
o what additional mail information is recorded in databases beyond
the Triplet recording, and
o server reasons for an 4yz response outside a Greylisting reason,
such as SMTP Traffic Control concepts.
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2. Greylisting Basic Framework
The basic idea of GreyListing is:
1. MTA Client initiates a mail delivery attempt to a remote
GreyListing compliant mail receiver (MDA),
2. The GreyListing Server collects first time session information
about the sender such as connection IP, MAIL FROM and RCPT TO
called the Triplet.
3. If the Triplet was never recorded before, the Triplet is recorded
and a 4yz rejection server response with a recommended
"retry=time-delay" hint is issued where the time reflects the
blocking time the sender can attempt again and proceed with the
transaction.
4. If the Triplet was recorded, a check is performed to determine if
the blocking time has expired. If not, another 4yz rejection
response with a new "retry=time-delay" hint reflecting the new
blocking time is issued.
5. When the sender tries again with the same recorded information
after the blocking time has expired, then the sender has passed
the server's greylist test and is allowed to proceed to send the
mail.
One of the essential goals of this specification is to reduce the
network and communications overhead in sender attempts and to reduce
mail delivery delays by implementing the server "retry=time-delay"
hints in the 4yz greylist responses.
2.1. Greylist Recording Parameters
Greylisting Server implementations vary in ways which may include
many factors including how senders are traced, accepted, how record
expires, the history of sender transactions and including but not
limited to how senders are temporarily or permanently white listed.
The original Harris [HARRIS] Greylisting specifications offers a
range of ideas that are considered.
This specification concentrate on the three principle parameters that
make up the fundamental backgound of a Greylist system:
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Sender Triplet
Blocking Time Delay
Triplet Expiration Time
2.2. Recording Sender Information (Triplet)
In the classic Greylisting protocol described in HARRIS [HARRIS], a
Triplet is the unique combination of connection IP, the reverse
address (MAIL FROM) and the forwarding address (RCPT TO) used to
track the sender. When the sender retries with the same triplet, a
lookup can be perform to determine its Greylist status. However,
depending on the Greylist server implementation, it can reject at
different points in the SMTP state machine and may not collect the
entire triplet information.
While it is out of scope how a SMTP session Triplet is collected and
what SMTP session data points it contains, the key point is a
specific Triplet used to track the MTA for an initial transaction
attempt and subsequent retries in order to control it during the
Greylisting Server blocking time.
The following is an implementation example for triplet recording:
Sender-Triplet = triplet-alg(CIP, RPATH, FPATH)
where
CIP is the connection IP address of the client,
RPATH is the MAIL FROM reverse-address or domain,
FPATH is the RCPT TO forwarding address
triplet-alg is the algorithm used to generate a database
tracking key.
One example of a triplet-alg is using a standard hashing algorithm as
such SHA1 with BASE64 encoding.
BASE64(SHA1(CIP, RPATH, FPATH))
Other tracking methods such as index keys in SQL database tables are
often common with Greylisting server implementations. This
specification does not define an formal triple-alg method. Any SMTP
data can be used as long as it represents Greylisting servers method
for consistent tracking transactions , its initial rejection and
subsequent acceptance with expected retries.
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2.3. SMTP Server Rejection Points
Greylisting assumes a triplet recording (IP, FROM and TO), however a
Greylisting server can reject at any point in the SMTP state machine
by recording less information about the sender. This specification
hopes to assist the MTA to determine when a temporary rejection is
greylist related apart from other reasons which can be a factor in
how an MTA client will reschedule new attempts.
2.3.1. Connection Greeting
Many SMTP servers will use a 421 response during the greeting as a
way to limit connections and control load.
A GreyListing server deciding to greylist a client at the connection
greeting MUST use a 421 reply code and SHOULD include a "retry=time-
delay" hint as part of the text response.
The "retry=time-delay" hint will help the MTA decide what sort of
rejection was imposed by distinguishing between loading limit or
greylist rejection. Without the "retry=time-delay" hint, a MTA can
try an alternative MX immediately (without delay) and the rejection
may still occur. Including the "retry=time-delay" hint will assist
the MTA to better reschedule the retry.
A GreyListing Server rejecting at the connection level is recording
only the connection IP to track the sender.
2.3.2. EHLO/HELO
A GreyListing server deciding to greylist a client as a response to
the EHLO or HELO command SHOULD use a 451 reply code and SHOULD
include a "retry=time-delay" hint as part of the text response. The
hint will help the MTA decide when a new attempt should be attempted.
A GreyListing Server rejecting at the EHLO is recording the
connection IP and EHLO/HELO machine host name.
Note: The editor has no information on the existence of Greylisting
servers that perform a 4yz rejection at the EHLO or HELO command for
greylisting reasons.
2.3.3. MAIL FROM
A GreyListing server deciding to greylist a client as a response to
the MAIL FROM command SHOULD use a 451 reply code and SHOULD include
a "retry=time-delay" hint as part of the text response. The hint
will help the MTA decide when a new attempt should be attempted.
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A GreyListing Server rejecting at the MAIL FROM is recording the
connection IP and MAIL FROM sender address.
2.3.4. RCPT TO
A GreyListing server deciding to greylist a client as a response to
the RCPT TO command SHOULD use a 451 reply code and SHOULD include a
"retry=time-delay" hint as part of the text response. The hint will
help the MTA decide when a new attempt should be attempted.
A GreyListing Server rejecting at the RCPT TO is recording the
connection IP, MAIL FROM and RCPT TO addresses.
2.3.5. DATA
A GreyListing server deciding to greylist a client as a response to
the DATA End of Data (EOD) SHOULD use a 451 reply code and SHOULD
include a "retry=time-delay" hint as part of the text response. The
hint will help the MTA decide when a new attempt should be attempted.
Generally, a GreyListing server will allow the DATA command in order
to capture the actual RFC5322 [RFC5322] message before a greylist
response is issued. The reasons are beyond the scope of this
specification.
A GreyListing Server rejecting at the DATA may be recording more
information besides the triplet information, i.e. Message-Id header.
2.4. 4yz Format Structure
Many current Greylisting Servers use varying text responses with
informal language try again time text information. The following are
known forms of existing Greylisting Servers which expose a form of
time hints within the text response:
421 This server implements greylisting, please try again in #
seconds
450 4.7.1 <RCPT>: Recipient address rejected: Greylisted for #
minutes
450 4.7.1 <RCPT>: Recipient address rejected: Greylisted for #
seconds
451 4.7.1 Greylisting in action, please come back in HH:MM:SS
451 Greylisted for # seconds
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451 Greylisted, please try again in # seconds
451 Greylisting enabled, try again in # minutes
It is possible for existing MTA clients currently supporting the
parsing and extraction of the time factor with the known informal
responses from existing Greylisting servers and this specification
does not attempt to limit specific MTA client implementations which
may already exist.
This specification offers a formal structure the Greylisting Server
MAY use within their 4yz responses and the MTA client MAY use to
detect and extract the retry information consistently without error
using a single format within the 4yz response containing the
following structured "retry=time-delay" tag:
retry=[DD-]HH:MM:SS
The [DD-]HH:MM:SS part is the time delay the MTA SHOULD wait before
attempting to send the mail again. It is not a specific time of day,
but rather the amount of GreyListing Server blocking time expected by
the server before the client SHOULD try again. An MTA client
ignoring this information, attempting again before the blocking time
has expired, is a wasted attempt and can delay the mail delivery well
beyond the GreyListing server blocking time.
In ABNF [RFC5234], GreyListing server response syntax is:
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Reply-Line = ( Reply-Code [ SP textstring ] CRLF ) /
( Reply-Code "-" [ SP textstring ] CRLF
*( Reply-Code "-" [ textstring ] CRLF )
Reply-Code [ SP textstring ] CRLF )
Reply-Code = "421" / "450" / "451"
textstring = 1*(%x09 / %x20-7E) [SP retryhint [ SP expirehint ] ]
retryhint = "retry=" time-delay
expirehint = "expire=" time-expire
time-delay = ( [days "-"] hours ":" minutes ":" seconds) / totalsecs
time-expire = ( [days "-"] hours ":" minutes ":" seconds) / totalsecs
days = 2DIGIT ; 00-99
hours = 2DIGIT ; 00-23
minutes = 2DIGIT ; 00-59
seconds = 2DIGIT ; 00-59
totalsecs = 6*DIGIT ; 0-999999
Examples:
Single line responses:
450 4.7.1. Greylist enabled. retry=00:02:00
451 Temporary rejection. retry=00:00:30
450 4.7.1. Temporary Greylist rejection. retry=01-00:10:00
451 TempFail Retry=00:00:55
421 Your connection is greylisted. Please try again later (retry=00:01:00)
Multiple lines response:
451-Greylisted. See policy http://example.com/GreyList-Policy
451 Retry=00:02:00
For multiple lines responses, the retryhint MUST be provided in the
last line of the response.
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2.4.1. 421 vs 45z Reply Codes
GreyListing Servers may issue 421 or 45z responses at any point in
the SMTP session. However, RFC5321 recommends 421 be used at the
greeting and for server interruption events. This specification
recommends keeping with the SMTP RFC5321 recommendations for 421 and
only use 45z for non-Greeting rejections responses. All SMTP
compliant MTA will always follow 4yz for scheduling a retry, but the
difference is a 421 can trigger an immediate retry attempt without
delay at the next MX IP address, if any, where a GreyListing server
will most likely reject the new attempt due to the blocking time.
IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: RFC5321 recommends a specific 450 reply code
for temporary rejections related to local policy reasons. HARRIS
used 451 to make it distinctive as a greylist response. This
specification recommends using 450, however, it is recognized that
many existing Greylisting servers already use 451 as the reply
code. MTA MUST NOT depend on 450 or 451 to make retry decisions.
All 4yz responses MUST be interpreted as a temporary rejection.
When the "retry=time-delay" hint is implemented in the response,
compliant MTA will be able to determine the difference between a load
restriction and a greylisted rejection to appropriately reschedule a
new attempt at the GreyListing server's suggested time hint.
2.5. Recommended Blocking Times
This specification does not impose any specific blocking delay value
when 4yz rejections are issued by servers, other than to suggest that
timely delivery of mail to users remains to be an inherent
expectation by SMTP clients and SMTP servers.
The GreyListing server blocking times vary greatly in practice, but
there is empirical evidence a majority of systems use a 1 to 5 minute
delay. Many use 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Many use less than 1
minute, like 30 to 55 seconds. The latter tend to be systems who
wish to lower impact with immediate and timely mail delivery delays.
However, this can be wasteful attempts when the MTA is operating
blindly with unknown blocking times imposed by Greylisting Servers.
When it comes to a recommendation, there is no GreyListing logic to
suggest that long delays be use when the goal of Greylisting senders
is to address the anonymous random "single shot" senders where their
triplet will never be the same. Delaying good SMTP senders for
extended unreasonable periods defeats the goal of Greylisting.
Since there is no clear recommendation for a blocking time delay
(other than to keep it short as possible), this specification offers
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the "retry=time-delay" hint as a method to alleviate the uncertainty
in the wasted attempts and delays in timely mail delivery.
3. SMTP Service Keyword
GREYLIST is a new ESMTP [RFC1651] service keyword. The GreyListing
Server MAY add this optional keyword as a response to EHLO command.
EHLO response Format:
250-GREYLIST [server-options]
If the GREYLIST keyword is presented as part of the EHLO response, it
means the server has Greylisting implemented and 4yz responses are
possible due to a Greylist decision by the server to impose on the
client. The keyword is not necessary and the server can still
provide 4yz temporary rejections.
The optional server-options provides space separated attributes
reflecting the server Greylisting information the server wishes to
expose. Currently the following optional attributes are defined:
RETRY means that 4yz responses related to GreyListing will have
"retry=time-delay" information. The attribute is optional and not
required to issue 4yz responses with "retry=time-delay" hints.
3.1. SMTP Client/Server Implementation
3.1.1. SMTP Server Implementation
The SMTP server MAY add support for the GREYLIST service keyword in
the EHLO response. If the SMTP server adds the GREYLIST service
keyword without the RETRY attribute, it MAY add the "retry=time-
delay" hint to 4yz responses. If the SMTP server adds the GREYLIST
service keyword with the RETRY attribute, it MUST add the
"retry=time-delay" hint to to 4yz responses.
3.1.2. SMTP Client Implementation
The SMTP client MAY read the GREYLIST service keyword exposed by the
EHLO response and it MAY support the usage of the "retry=time-delay"
hint in 4yz responses and are not obligated to honor the SMTP servers
recommended retry delay.
If the SMTP server offers the GREYLIST keyword with the RETRY
attribute, the SMTP client SHOULD consider supporting the usage of
the server's recommended retry delay in 4yz responses with
"retry=time-delay" hints.
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If a SMTP client is rejected by the Greylisting Server during the
session, the client SHOULD NOT attempt to start a new transaction
during the same session and SHOULD immediately issue a QUIT command
to end the session. Its been observed that some mail senders will
hold the connection for 1-5 minutes and retry the same mail
transaction or a new transaction. The SMTP server rejecting the
initial transaction MAY stop accepting any new transactions attempts
during the same session.
If a SMTP server offers a "retry=time-delay" hint which results in a
wasted 2nd attempt and requires additional attempts, the SMTP client
MAY begin to ignore the server's "retry=time-delay" hint after the
2nd wasted retry. The SMTP client implementation can decide what
limits to place on honoring "retry=time-delay" hints and wasted
attempts it provides.
4. Examples
Example with no extended codes:
S: serverdomain.com, welcome ESMTP v2.0
C: EHLO mail.clientdomain.com
S: 250-GREYLIST
S: 250-HELP
C: MAIL FROM:<jqpublic@emaildomain.com>
S: 250 User OK
C: RCPT TO:<localuser@serverdomain.com>
S: 451 Greylisted. Please Disconnect now. retry=00:01:00
C: QUIT
S: 221 Goodbye
In the above example, the client can extract the "retry=00:01:00"
information and rechedule a 2nd mail delivery attempt at the current
attempt time plus 1 minute later and not before. It can reschedule
at a later time it if chooses to do so.
Example with extended codes:
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S: serverdomain.com, welcome ESMTP v2.0
C: EHLO mail.clientdomain.com
S: 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
S: 250-GREYLIST
S: 250-HELP
C: MAIL FROM:<jqpublic@emaildomain.com>
S: 250 2.1.0 User OK
C: RCPT TO:<localuser@serverdomain.com>
S: 450 4.7.1 Greylisted. Please Disconnect now. retry=00:10:00 expire=02-00:00:00
C: QUIT
S: 221 2.3.0 Goodbye
In the above example, the client can extract the "retry=00:05:00"
information and rechedule a 2nd mail delivery attempt at the current
attempt time plus 10 minutes and not before. It can reschedule at a
later time, however since a "expire=time-expire" hint was provide, it
should complete the new attempts before the indicated 2 days
expiration. If the attempt is done after 2 days, the server will
greylist reject the MTA again.
Example of connection rejection:
S: 421 4.7.1 Greylist enabled. Try again later. retry=00:10:00
5. IANA Considerations
This document makes no request of IANA.
Note to RFC Editor: this section may be removed on publication as an
RFC.
6. Security Considerations
One possible security concern envisioned is a DoS attack when
"retry=time-delay" information is exposed by the GreyListing server
where by a malicious sender may attempt to overwhelm the server
during the server's retry time exposing a time window when the server
has indicated system availability for mail acceptability. However,
since security measures to mitigate DoS is a required operational
factor, a GreyListing Server will inherently be prepared for DoS
attacks with managed loading limits with or without "retry=time-
delay" Greylist responses, thus there is no expected technical
concern by exposing Greylist "retry=time-delay" hints. With or
without this specification, all SMTP servers SHOULD be prepared for
DoS attacks of all kinds.
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Another arguable security concern is related to the idea a formal
SMTP extension can possibly lower the effectiveness of Greylisting
when abusive mail senders adapt to the server's suggested retry
times. This concern does not seem to have weight since adaptation
can occur with or without the extension simply by complying to SMTP
retry recommendations. Greylisting remains effective because legacy
abusive systems do not adapt. In fact, a "retry=time-delay" hint
implementation provides a means to help avoid abusive redundancy and
reduced random overloading of connections at unmanaged random times
by MTA clients of all flavors. A "retry=time-delay" hint may
actually be purposely calculated to provide a time window when there
is less loading for legitimate and abusive senders.
7. Acknowledgements
The following individuals contributed input and guidance in the
production of this specification:
Claus Assmann, Frank Ellerrman, Tim Kehres, John Klensin, S.
Moonesamy, Keith Moore, Ken Raeburn, Paul Smith.
Please note acknowledgement does not imply any specific endorsement
of this specification other than they have provided important pros
and cons input which helped mold the specification.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC1651] Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., Stefferud, E., and D.
Crocker, "SMTP Service Extensions", RFC 1651, July 1994.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3463] Vaudreuil, G., "Enhanced Mail System Status Codes",
RFC 3463, January 2003.
[RFC4408] Wong, M. and W. Schlitt, "Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
for Authorizing Use of Domains in E-Mail, Version 1",
RFC 4408, April 2006.
[RFC4871] Allman, E., Callas, J., Delany, M., Libbey, M., Fenton,
J., and M. Thomas, "DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
Signatures", RFC 4871, May 2007.
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[RFC5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
[RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321,
October 2008.
[RFC5322] Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 5322,
October 2008.
[RFC5672] Crocker, D., "RFC 4871 DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
Signatures -- Update", RFC 5672, August 2009.
8.2. Informative References
[HARRIS] Harris, E., "The Next Step in the Spam Control War:
Greylisting", 2003, <http://projects.puremagic.com/
greylisting/whitepaper.html>.
Appendix A. Additional Greylist Parameters
Greylisting Server implementations vary in ways which may include
many factors including how senders are traced, accepted, how record
expires, the history of sender transactions and including but not
limited to how senders are temporarily or permanently white listed.
The original Harris [HARRIS] Greylisting specifications offers a
range of ideas that are considered. The following are just of a few
of additional parameters that are considered by servers:
o Whitelist Record Expiration:
Whitelist Record Expiration is used to allow a previous greylisted
sender a time window where it can be temporarily or permanently
whitelisted depending on the implementation. This is a local
policy consideration, however, it should be noted that redundant
greylisting of a common MTA is not considered reasonable. At some
point, the MTA is a trusted source of mail and the MTA SHOULD be
permanently whitelisted. The main idea with a temporary
whitelisting is that its possible a future transaction can be a
compromised user transaction.
o Class C IP Address Tracking:
Class C IP Address Tracking allows a Greylisting server to control
a greylisted MTA who retries using a different class C address.
This is typical in larger outbound farms where many machines are
used to send mail. If Class C is not considered, MTAs using a
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different IP will be unnecessarily rejected after delaying within
a blocked time.
Appendix B. Augmenting Other Standard Email Filters Methods
It is possible for a GreyListing server to combine other mail
filtering techniques, methods and session information to determine if
a sender should be greylisted. While the augmentation of these
additional methods is out of the scope, the following are some
suggestions that may help minimize a GreyListing Server impact. on
MTAs.
SPF SPF (Sender Policy Framework) [RFC4408] can be used to help
validate a sender's IP association with the return path domain.
A SPF SOFTFAIL or FAIL (if not used for rejection) result could
be used to help decide when Greylisting should be employed on
the sender. While a PASS result is not a trusted condition, a
local policy may use a PASS to skip Greylisting mail checks.
DKIM DKIM (Domain Key Identified Mail) [RFC5672] can be used to help
authenticate the transactions from trusted DKIM mail signers.
If the signer is considered is trusted source, this can help
eliminate the need to greylist the sender.
Appendix C. TO DO LIST
1. Possible section showing real proof of concept examples.
2. Review the SMTP Service Keyword and determine how SHOULD|MAY|MUST
is applied.
Authors' Addresses
Hector Santos (editor)
Santronics Software, Inc.
15600 SW 158 ST Suite #306
Homestead, Florida, FL 33033
United States of America
Email: hsantos@santronics.com
URI: http://www.santronics.com
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Evan Harris
puremagic.com
Email: eharris@puremagic.com
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