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"More Stuff" in Received header

2005-09-10 19:52:58

John C Klensin <john(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> wrote:
--On Saturday, 10 September, 2005 11:01 +0200 Arnt Gulbrandsen
<arnt(_at_)gulbrandsen(_dot_)priv(_dot_)no> wrote:

Could an optional 'length <nonzero>' clause be added to the
received field without restarting the standards clock?

(1) It isn't clear.  In retrospect, we probably should have
tried to more nearly match existing practice (in which all sorts
of commentary get put into Received fields) by making 
  Opt-info = [Via] [With] [ID] [For] [More-stuff]

where More-stuff would be something like 
  More-stuff = Keyword-atom String
and with some syntax or handwaving about Keyword-Atom

   Yes, we should have.

But we didn't.  Whether we could now make that change on the
basis that it was really an error in 2821 to not provide this
additional syntax, that it reflects at least some existing
practice, and the practice is, at worst, harmless would require
a discussion with the ADs and the community, but it seems
plausible to me.

   It seems essential to me.

   We cannot claim to know everything about the action of receiving
an email at a SMTP server which may need to be recorded: thus we
need some mechanism for expanding what may be recorded.

   (Exactly how open-ended this mechanism needs to be is an area
for discussion.)

(2) I am not at all persuaded that adding explicit provision for
a "length when it got to me" clause would justify the energy
that would be needed to even ask the question above.

   Other than to make it possible to record this in John Klensin's
"More Stuff" syntax, I don't think we should expend any effort in
that direction. (In particular, I don't think we should try to
settle -- as part of 2821bis -- what such a number might mean.
If such an idea happens at all, it deserves to be in a separate
RFC.)

--
John Leslie <john(_at_)jlc(_dot_)net>

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