--On Tuesday, March 16, 2021 07:27 -0700 Ned Freed
<ned(_dot_)freed(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com> wrote:
--On Monday, March 15, 2021 14:26 -0700 Ned Freed
<ned(_dot_)freed(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com> wrote:
--On Monday, March 15, 2021 08:58 -0700 Ned Freed
<ned(_dot_)freed(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com> wrote:
SMTP servers have always been able to announce a
limit, in a reply, which means that the client
first needed to issue a command. The mechanism
specified here avoids the overhead of that
interactions, by announcing limits prior to any
substantive interaction.
Nice. Added.
I wonder. Along with the "first digit" rule, SMTP has been
fairly clear that SMTP clients should not depend on trying
to parse or interpret reply text except for VRFY and EXPN
for which syntax is actually given for replies.
Which establishes the precedent for parsing replies given a
signal to do so.
Except that I thought (although I can't find it right now)
that 5321 called that out as an explicit exception.
Even if it did, unless it also said "no subsequent standard
can create similar exceptions", I don't see why it would
matter. RFC 2034 created the the exception for including
enhanced status code on top of RFC 821. And it's been pointed
out that there's a draft that would create another exception.
No problem as long as we are clear about what we are doing.
And, if the exceptions _require_ enhanced status codes, I have
no concern at all.
Certainly they
and the forwarding and "try instead" replies are the only ones
for which an exact syntax is discussed. But I think the key
phrase above is "signal to do so", with which I agree. See
below.
Enhanced status codes provide a pretty powerful signalling
mechanism.
Agreed. See above.
Assuming this is the sort
of announcement you and Dave have in mind, suppose the
client sends
MAIL FROM:<foo(_at_)example(_dot_)com>
and the server responds
250 OK. No more than 20 recipients
would we seriously expect the client to interpret and use
that information?
Of course not, but how about:
250 2.5.314159 RCPTMAX=n
And that gets into a bit of tension between the "first digit"
rule in 5321 and extended codes, perhaps particularly in the
case of MAIL, where the fourth paragraph of Section 3.3 ("This
command tells...") says, apparently very specifically 'If
accepted, the SMTP server returns a "250 OK" reply", not "250
<whatever it feels like> which the client is expected to read
and understand". But if that needs to be addressed at all, it
should be addressed in 5321bis, not in your draft... as long
as the draft does not increase the confusion. See below.
I'm afraid that's actually a bug in RFC 5321, irrespective of
what emerges from this discussion: It's a bug because any
server supporting the ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES extension isn't
going to send that response. And that includes a *lot* of
servers.
Understood. However, there appears to be no requirement in RFC
3463 or anywhere else, including RFC 2034, that a server
advertise ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES before sending them. 3463 (and
1893) seem to imply that such codes can simply be added at the
server's discretion and, fwiw, 3463 does not even reference 2034.
While I think the language about the three-digit code structure
needs work (see prior note to Alessandr on the ietf-smtp list
today), I'm not sure how to address the bug you see in 5321bis
without getting into the "scope" territory that has been under
discussion in conjunction with verification of return paths and
removing the SPF and DKIM references. Perhaps the right
solution would be to put a section into the A/S discussing
extended codes and, in the process, strongly recommending that
servers that intend to send such codes advertise the extension.
Other suggestions welcome.
As for the "first digit" rule being in tension, I don't think
it is. The first digit rule doesn't say "never ever attach
semantics to the rest of the reply". Rather, it's about the
immediate effect of a reply on the SMTP client's behavior not
being based on anything more than the first digit.
Right. See above about trying to clarify that.
The obvious example of deep analysis of SMTP replies is
mailing list managers, which have to decide whether or not a
failure should cause the address to be removed from the list.
This "hard" or "soft" bounce determination can be quite
sophisticated - take a look at Sisimai sometime.
Ack.
...
The server could equally respond to a MAIL command with "250
Is it not a lovely day?". That would constitute an
announcement of sorts, but the expectation that it would be
acted on would be the same: in the absence of some spec that
goes beyond 5321, both are really comments, not
announcements. Now, if the paragraph had said, e.g.,
"...limit, in a reply with an enhanced status code,..." I
probably would not have batted an eyelash because, at that
point, it would be clear that the server was asking the
client to do something different than "get as far as 250 and
then move on". But...
I think this can be addressed by making it clear that a special
syntax would have had to have been defined.
Yes. That would work. Does that text need to be in 5321bis?
Perhaps as part of clarifying the first digit rule and code
structure?
I guess I could write all these reasons down, but at some
point text about design choices becomes a hindrance to
understanding the acutal protocol. I think all this cross
that line, whereas Dave's text did not.
We are in complete agreement with your first sentence. All
I've suggesting is that, absent some additional words, Dave's
text could add confusion and become a hindrance. I am
agnostic as to whether it would be better to add the words
(few of them and perhaps using the example above) or to drop
the text. The key design choice, IMO, is to have a facility
for announcing these limits that is precisely defined (which
you have, IMO, done) and that a client that is aware of and
interested in that particular extension keyword will know,
rather exactly, now to interpret it. That is what the
extension mechanism is all about.
...
The way RFC 2034 made the appearance of ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
reliable was to announce it in EHLO. There was a
counterproposal at the time, from Dan Bernstein, to just
"sprinkle the codes in replies using a # prefix", but we went
with the EHLO announcement approach. Which admittedly does
make this a bit circular...
Right. And, again, there is no requirement that the extension
be advertised in order to use the codes. If a server returns an
extended code for anything but a three-digit code with an
established syntax [1], a client that responded by dumping the
message back on wherever it got it from because it had no idea
what those digits were doing there would be in clear violation
of the intent, and probably the letter, of 5321.
Even so, it seems to me that calls to explain design choices
over and over are on the rise. This seems to me like one where
a little text helps more than it hurts.
Agreed.
john
[1] That may point to another twitch (or bug) or two in 5321.
Suppose we have a command for which a normal reply has a
specific syntax identified in 5321. Is a server that stuffs an
enhanced reply code after the normal reply code but before the
specified text in conformance? Good sense and RFCs 2034 and
3463 certainly suggest a "yes" answer, but that doesn't seem to
be the answer in 5321. That is further complicated by 5321
apparently not containing any ABNF for those defined/structured
responses. See, for example, the way in which the VRFY
response is defined in Section 3.5.1. Anyone who sees these as
issues should request that tickets be opened. ... And think
about the scope issue mentioned above.
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