IMAP Extensions Working Group B. Leiba
Internet-Draft IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Obsoletes: 3348 (if approved) A. Melnikov
Updates: 2193 (if approved) Isode Limited
Intended status: Standards Track September 29, 2006
Expires: April 2, 2007
IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension
draft-melnikov-imapext-multimailbox-search-01
Status of this Memo
By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This Internet-Draft will expire on April 2, 2007.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
Abstract
The IMAP4 specification allows the searching only of the selected
mailbox. A user often wants to search multiple mailboxes, and a
client that wishes to support this must issue a series of SELECT and
SEARCH commands, waiting for each to complete before moving on to the
next. This extension allows a client to search multiple mailboxes
with one command, limiting the round-trips and waiting for various
searches to complete. This also introduces mailbox field in ESEARCH
responses, allowing a client to pipeline the searches if it chooses.
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
Note
A revised version of this draft document will be submitted to the RFC
editor as a Proposed Standard for the Internet Community. Discussion
and suggestions for improvement are requested, and should be sent to
ietf-imapext@imc.org.
Table of Contents
1. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Extended SEARCH/UID SEARCH command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Formal Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 15
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
1. Conventions used in this document
In examples, "C:" indicates lines sent by a client that is connected
to a server. "S:" indicates lines sent by the server to the client.
The words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", and "MAY" are
used in this document as specified in RFC 2119 [Kwds].
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
2. Extended SEARCH/UID SEARCH command
Arguments: OPTIONAL source options
OPTIONAL result options
OPTIONAL [CHARSET] specification
searching criteria (one or more)
Responses: REQUIRED untagged response: SEARCH or ESEARCH
Result: OK - search completed
NO - search error: cannot search that [CHARSET]
or criteria
BAD - command unknown or arguments invalid
This section further updates definition of the SEARCH command
described in section 2.6.1 of [IMAPABNF] (initially described in
section 6.4.4 of [RFC3501].
The SEARCH command is extended to allow for optional source and
result options. [[anchor3: What about ALL referenced below?]] This
document does not define any result options.
Unless specified otherwise by a description of a result option,
presence of a search source option REQUIREs that the server returns
ESEARCH responses instead of the corresponding SEARCH responses.
Also, an extended UID SEARCH command MUST cause a ESEARCH response
with the UID indicator present.
Presence of a source option in absence of a result option implies
"ALL" result option (see [ESEARCH]).
[[anchor4: SEARCH with source options is allowed in authenticated
state (and not just "selected")!!!]]
[[anchor5: ACL (add ref) 'r' right is required for each mailbox.]]
Source options describe which mailboxes must be searched for
messages. (Without the source options only the current mailbox is
searched.) Note that a SEARCH/UID SEARCH command with source options
doesn't affect which mailbox is currently selected and doesn't
require any mailbox to be selected. For each mailbox satisfying the
source options, a single ESEARCH response MUST be returned. The
ESEARCH response MUST contain the MAILBOX correlator in addition to
the TAG correlator. Correlators allow clients to issue several
SEARCH/UID SEARCH commands at once (pipelined). The server MAY
perform those searches in parallel; it MAY instead serialize them.
The source options, if present, MUST contain one or more mailbox list
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
pattern, any one of them can contain the IMAP mailbox wildcard
characters. The patterns can be optionally followed by other search
source options. Only one such option is defined by this document:
"DEPTH". The option "depth <n>" causes the SEARCH command to
traverse the hierarchy "n" levels down (including the current level).
Thus, mailbox pattern "xyz*" with "depth 2" and mailbox pattern
"xyz/*" with "depth 1" will both match child mailboxes of "xyz", but
will not match child mailboxes of those children (of course, the
former will also match "xyzabc", while the latter will not).
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
3. Example
[[anchor7: Clarify that returning message numbers for not currently
opened mailbox is *silly*!]]
C: tag1 SEARCH IN (("folder1" "folder2/*") (depth 1)) unseen
C: tag2 SEARCH IN (("folder1" "folder2/*")) subject "chad"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "tag1" mailbox "folder1") ALL 1,3,5,7,9
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "tag1" mailbox "folder1") ALL 1:4,8
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "tag1" mailbox "folder2/banana") ALL 2,4
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "tag1" mailbox "folder2/peach") ALL 691
S: tag1 OK done
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "tag2" mailbox "folder2/dubya") ALL 3,6,9,12
S: tag2 OK done
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
4. Formal Syntax
The following syntax specification uses the augmented Backus-Naur
Form (BNF) as described in [ABNF]. Terms not defined here are taken
from [RFC3501], [LISTEXT] or [IMAPABNF].
[[anchor8: Updates definition in RFC 4466 (added
"[search-opts]"):]]
search = "SEARCH" [search-source-opts]
[search-return-opts] SP search-program
[[anchor9: Defined in RFC 4466 (updated to reference
search-criteria):]]
search-program = ["CHARSET" SP charset SP]
search-criteria
;; CHARSET argument to SEARCH MUST be
;; registered with IANA.
search-source-opts = SP "IN" SP "(" patterns [SP "(" scope-options
")"] ")"
scope-option = "DEPTH" SP number /
scope-option-ext
scope-options = scope-option *(SP scope-option)
;; a given option may only appear once
scope-option-name = tagged-ext-label
scope-option-ext = scope-option-name [SP scope-option-value]
scope-option-value= tagged-ext-val
;; This non-terminal shows recommended syntax
;; for future extensions.
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
[[anchor10: Also defined in FILTERS:]]
search-criteria = search-key *(SP search-key)
[[anchor11: Redefining search-correlator from RFC 4466:]]
search-correlator = SP "(" single-correlator *(SP single-correlator)
")"
[[anchor12: This is a new non-terminal:]]
single-correlator = "TAG" SP tag-string /
"MAILBOX" SP astring
[[anchor13: The following 2 are borrowed from LISTEXT:]]
[[anchor14: Is this one used?]]
mbox-or-pat = list-mailbox / patterns
patterns = "(" list-mailbox *(SP list-mailbox) ")"
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
5. Security Considerations
[[anchor15: TBD]]
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
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 defines the X-DRAFT-I00-MMBX [[anchor16: Note to RFC
Editor: fix before publication]] IMAP capability. IANA is requested
to add it to the registry.
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
7. Acknowledgements
[[anchor18: TBD]]
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
8. Normative References
[ABNF] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", RFC 4234, October 2005.
[CHARSET] Freed, N. and J. Postel, "IANA Charset Registration
Procedures", RFC 2978, October 2000.
[ESEARCH] Melnikov, A. and D. Cridland, "IMAP4 extension to SEARCH
command for controlling what kind of information is
returned", draft-melnikov-imap-search-ret-03 (work in
progress), June 2006.
[IMAPABNF]
Melnikov, A. and C. Daboo, "Collected Extensions to IMAP4
ABNF", RFC 4466, April 2006.
[Kwds] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997.
[LISTEXT] Leiba, B. and A. Melnikov, "IMAP4 LIST Command
Extensions", draft-ietf-imapext-list-extensions-17 (work
in progress), 2006.
[RFC3501] Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
Authors' Addresses
Barry Leiba
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
19 Skyline Drive
Hawthorne, NY 10532
US
Phone: +1 914 784 7941
Email: leiba@watson.ibm.com
Alexey Melnikov
Isode Limited
5 Castle Business Village
36 Station Road
Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2BX
UK
Email: Alexey.Melnikov@isode.com
URI: http://www.melnikov.ca/
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft IMAP4 Multimailbox SEARCH Extension September 2006
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Intellectual Property
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
Acknowledgment
Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF
Administrative Support Activity (IASA).
Leiba & Melnikov Expires April 2, 2007 [Page 15]