IMAP Access to IETF Email List Archives
draft-sparks-genarea-imaparch-05

Abstract

The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work. This often involves accessing the archived history of those email lists. Participants would like to have the ability to browse and search those archives using standard IMAP clients. This memo captures the requirements for providing a service that would allow such browsing and searching.

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 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 27, 2013.

Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Requirements for IMAP access to archived IETF lists
• 3. Security Considerations
• 4. IANA Considerations
• 5. Acknowledgements
• 6. Changelog
• 6.1. 04 to 05
• 6.2. 03 to 04
• 6.3. 02 to 03
• 6.4. 01 to 02
• 6.5. 00 to 01
• 6.6. 00
• 7. Informative References
• Author's Address

1. Introduction

The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work. This often involves accessing the archived history of those email lists. Requirements for improved web-based browsing and searching of these archives are captured in [RFC6778]. Participants would like to have the ability to browse and search those archives using standard IMAP clients. This memo captures the requirements for providing a service that would allow such browsing and searching.

Discussion of this memo should take place on the ietf@ietf.org mailing list.

2. Requirements for IMAP access to archived IETF lists

Many participants would prefer to access the list archives using IMAP [RFC3501]. Providing this access while meeting the following requirements will likely require an IMAP server with specialized capabilities.

o

The system should expose the archive using an IMAP interface, with each list represented as a mailbox.

o

This interface must work with standard IMAP clients.

o

The interface should allow users that have provided credentials to each have their own read/unread marks for messages. Allowing other annotation is desirable. The implementation should consider taking advantage of the IMAP extensions for ANNOTATE [RFC5257] and METADATA [RFC5464].

o

The interface must have server-side searching enabled, and should support multiple simultaneous extensive searches. The server should facilitate the enhanced search capabilities described in [RFC6778]. The implementation should consider taking advantage of the extensions defined for IMAP SORT and THREAD [RFC5256], multimailbox search [RFC6237], and fuzzy search [RFC6203].

o

When the system requires credentials, it must use the datatracker's authentication system

-

While the vast majority of archived lists have an open access policy, some archived lists have restricted archives. The system must make it possible to limit access to a restricted archive based on login credentials.

-

The system must not require credentials for accessing lists with open archives. (But it is acceptable for a user to access such archives while providing credentials).

3. Security Considerations

Allowing IMAP as an interface for browsing and searching the archives of IETF email lists does not affect the security of the Internet in any significant fashion.

4. IANA Considerations

This document has no actions for IANA.

5. Acknowledgements

This text was derived directly from an early version of the Internet Draft that became [RFC6778] which incorporated text suggestions from Alexey Melnikov, Pete Resnick, and S. Moonesamy. Barry Leiba suggested several references to IMAP extensions for an implementation to consider.

6. Changelog

6.1. 04 to 05

• Adapted text from RFC6778 to make it more clear that both authenticated and unauthenticated access should be supported.

6.2. 03 to 04

• Incorporated suggestions from Pete Resnick and Barry Leiba.

6.3. 02 to 03

• None - expiry refresh

6.4. 01 to 02

• Minor editorial changes

6.5. 00 to 01

• Added requirements to enable controlled access to restricted archives based on credentials
• Generalized the requirement to use the datatracker's credentials.

6.6. 00

• Split this set of requirements out from the mailarch doc so that this project could be pursued separately

7. Informative References

Author's Address