GENWiki

Premier IT Outsourcing and Support Services within the UK

User Tools

Site Tools


rfc:rfc1343
          Network Working Group               N. Borenstein, Bellcore
          Request for Comments: 1343                        June 1992
                      A User Agent Configuration Mechanism
                     For Multimedia Mail Format Information
        Status of This Memo
          This is an informational memo for  the  Internet  community,
          and  requests  discussion  and suggestions for improvements.
          This  memo  does   not   specify   an   Internet   standard.
          Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
        Abstract
          This memo suggests a  file  format  to  be  used  to  inform
          multiple   mail   reading  user  agent  programs  about  the
          locally-installed facilities for handling  mail  in  various
          formats.  The  mechanism is explicitly designed to work with
          mail systems based Internet mail as defined  by  RFC's  821,
          822,  934,  1049,  1113,  and the Multipurpose Internet Mail
          Extensions, known as MIME.  However, with some extensions it
          could  probably be made to work for X.400-based mail systems
          as well.  The format and mechanism are proposed in a  manner
          that  is  generally  operating-system independent.  However,
          certain  implementation  details  will  inevitably   reflect
          operating  system differences, some of which will have to be
          handled in a uniform manner for each operating system.  This
          memo  makes  such  situations explicit, and, in an appendix,
          suggests  a  standard  behavior  under  the  UNIX  operating
          system.
        Introduction
          The electronic mail world is in the midst  of  a  transition
          from  single-part  text-only mail to multi-part, multi-media
          mail.  In support of this transition, various extensions  to
          RFC  821  and  RFC  822  have  been proposed and/or adopted,
          notably including  MIME  [RFC-1341].  Various  parties  have
          demonstrated  extremely  high-functionality multimedia mail,
          but the problem of mail interchange between  different  user
          agents has been severe.  In general, only text messages have
          been shared between user agents  that  were  not  explicitly
          designed   to   work   together.   This  limitation  is  not
          compatible with a smooth transition to  a  multi-media  mail
          world.
          One approach to this transition is to modify diverse sets of
          mail  reading user agents so that, when they need to display
          mail of an  unfamiliar  (non-text)  type,  they  consult  an
          external  file  for information on how to display that file.
          That file might say, for example, that if  the  content-type
          Borenstein                                          [Page 1]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
          of  a  message  is "foo" it can be displayed to the user via
          the "displayfoo" program.
          This approach means that, with a  one-time  modification,  a
          wide  variety  of  mail  reading  programs  can be given the
          ability to display a  wide  variety  of  types  of  message.
          Moreover,  extending  the  set of media types supported at a
          site becomes a simple matter  of  installing  a  binary  and
          adding  a  single  line to a configuration file.  Crucial to
          this scheme, however, is that all of the user  agents  agree
          on  a common representation and source for the configuration
          file.  This memo proposes such a common representation.
        Location of Configuration Information
          Each  user  agent  must  clearly  obtain  the  configuration
          information  from a common location, if the same information
          is to be  used  to  configure  all  user  agents.   However,
          individual  users  should  be  able to override or augment a
          site's configuration.  The configuration information  should
          therefore  be  obtained  from a designated set of locations.
          The overall  configuration  will  be  obtained  through  the
          virtual  concatenation  of  several individual configuration
          files known as mailcap files.  The configuration information
          will  be obtained from the FIRST matching entry in a mailcap
          file, where "matching" depends on both a  matching  content-
          type   specification,   an   entry   containing   sufficient
          information for the purposes of the  application  doing  the
          searching, and the success of any test in the "test=" field,
          if present.
          The precise location of  the  mailcap  files  is  operating-
          system dependent.  A standard location for UNIX is specified
          in Appendix A.
        Overall Format of a Mailcap File
          Each mailcap file consists of a set of entries that describe
          the  proper  handling  of  one media type at the local site.
          For example, one line might tell how to display a message in
          Group III fax format.  A mailcap file consists of a sequence
          of such individual entries, separated by newlines (according
          to  the operating system's newline conventions). Blank lines
          and lines that start with the "#" character (ASCII  35)  are
          considered  comments,  and are ignored.  Long entries may be
          continued on multiple lines if each non-terminal  line  ends
          with  a  backslash  character ('\', ASCII 92), in which case
          the multiple lines are to be treated  as  a  single  mailcap
          entry.   Note that for such "continued" lines, the backslash
          must be the last character on the line to be continued.
          Thus the overall format of a mailcap file is given,  in  the
          modified BNF of RFC 822, as:
          Borenstein                                          [Page 2]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
               Mailcap-File = *Mailcap-Line
               Mailcap-Line = Comment / Mailcap-Entry
               Comment = NEWLINE  /  "#" *CHAR NEWLINE
               NEWLINE = <newline as defined by OS convention>
          Note that the above specification implies that comments must
          appear  on  lines all to themselves, with a "#" character as
          the first character on each comment line.
        Format of a Mailcap Entry
          Each mailcap entry consists of a number of fields, separated
          by semi-colons.  The first two fields are required, and must
          occur in the specified  order.   The  remaining  fields  are
          optional, and may appear in any order.
          The first field is the  content-type,  which  indicates  the
          type of data this mailcap entry describes how to handle.  It
          is to be matched against the type/subtype  specification  in
          the "Content-Type" header field of an Internet mail message.
          If the subtype is specified as "*", it is intended to  match
          all subtypes of the named content-type.
          The second field, view-command, is a  specification  of  how
          the  message  or  body part can be viewed at the local site.
          Although the syntax of this field is  fully  specified,  the
          semantics  of  program  execution  are  necessarily somewhat
          operating system dependent.  UNIX  semantics  are  given  in
          Appendix A.
          The optional fields, which may be given in any order, are as
          follows:
  1. - The "compose" field may be used to specify a program that

can be used to compose a new body or body part in the given

          format.  Its intended  use  is  to  support  mail  composing
          agents  that  support  the  composition of multiple types of
          mail using external composing  agents.  As  with  the  view-
          command,  the  semantics  of program execution are operating
          system dependent, with UNIX semantics specified in  Appendix
          A.   The result of the composing program may be data that is
          not yet suitable for mail transport -- that is,  a  Content-
          Transfer-Encoding may need to be applied to the data.
  1. - The "composetyped" field is similar to the "compose"

field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to

          specify the Content-type header field to be applied  to  the
          composed  data.   The  "compose"  field  is  simpler, and is
          preferred for use with existing (non-mail-oriented) programs
          for  composing  data  in a given format.  The "composetyped"
          field is necessary when the  Content-type  information  must
          Borenstein                                          [Page 3]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
          include  auxilliary  parameters, and the composition program
          must then know enough about mail formats to  produce  output
          that includes the mail type information.
  1. - The "edit" field may be used to specify a program that

can be used to edit a body or body part in the given format.

          In many cases,  it  may  be  identical  in  content  to  the
          "compose"  field,  and shares the operating-system dependent
          semantics for program execution.
  1. - The "print" field may be used to specify a program that

can be used to print a message or body part in the given

          format.  As with the view-command, the semantics of  program
          execution   are   operating   system  dependent,  with  UNIX
          semantics specified in Appendix A.
  1. - The "test" field may be used to test some external

condition (e.g. the machine architecture, or the window

          system in use) to determine whether or not the mailcap  line
          applies.   It  specifies  a  program  to be run to test some
          condition.  The semantics of  execution  and  of  the  value
          returned by the test program are operating system dependent,
          with UNIX semantics specified in Appendix A.   If  the  test
          fails,   a   subsequent  mailcap  entry  should  be  sought.
          Multiple test fields are not permitted -- since a  test  can
          call a program, it can already be arbitrarily complex.
  1. - The "needsterminal" field indicates that the view-command

must be run on an interactive terminal. This is needed to

          inform  window-oriented  user  agents  that  an  interactive
          terminal  is  needed.  (The decision is not left exclusively
          to the view-command because in some circumstances it may not
          be  possible  for  such programs to tell whether or not they
          are on interactive terminals.)   The  needsterminal  command
          should be assumed to apply to the compose and edit commands,
          too, if they exist.  Note that this is NOT a test -- it is a
          requirement for the environment in which the program will be
          executed, and should  typically  cause  the  creation  of  a
          terminal  window when not executed on either a real terminal
          or a terminal window.
  1. - The "copiousoutput" field indicates that the output from

the view-command will be an extended stream of output, and

          is to be interpreted as advice to the UA (User  Agent  mail-
          reading  program)  that the output should be either paged or
          made scrollable. Note that  it  is  probably  a  mistake  if
          needsterminal and copiousoutput are both specified.
  1. - The "description" field simply provides a textual

description, optionally quoted, that describes the type of

          data, to be used optionally by mail  readers  that  wish  to
          describe the data before offering to display it.
          Borenstein                                          [Page 4]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
  1. - The "x11-bitmap" field names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm)

format, which points to an appropriate icon to be used to

          visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
  1. - Any other fields beginning with "x-" may be included for

local or mailer-specific extensions of this format.

          Implementations should simply ignore all  such  unrecognized
          fields  to  permit  such  extensions, some of which might be
          standardized in a future version of this document.
          Some of the fields above, such as "needsterminal", apply  to
          the  actions of the view-command, edit-command, and compose-
          command, alike.  In some unusual  cases,  this  may  not  be
          desirable,  but  differentiation  can  be  accomplished  via
          separate mailcap entries, taking advantage of the fact  that
          subsequent  mailcap  entries  are  searched  if  an  earlier
          mailcap entry does not provide enough information:
               application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; \
                   needsterminal
               application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; \
                   compose=idraw %s
          In RFC 822 modified BNF, the following grammar  describes  a
          mailcap entry:
               Mailcap-Entry = typefield ; view-command
                                   [";" 1#field]
               typefield = propertype / implicit-wild
               propertype = type "/" wildsubtype
               implicitwild = type
               wildsubtype = subtype / "*"
               view-command = mtext
               mtext = *mchar
               mchar = schar / qchar
               schar = * <any CHAR except
                          ";", "\", and CTLS>
               qchar = "\" CHAR ; may quote any char
               field = flag / namedfield
               namedfield = fieldname "=" mtext
               flag = "needsterminal"   ; All these literals are to
          Borenstein                                          [Page 5]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
                    / "copiousoutput"   ; be interpreted as
                    / x-token           ; case-insensitive
               fieldname =    / "compose"      ;Also all of these
                              / "composetyped" ;are case-insensitive.
                              / "print"
                              / "edit"
                              / "test"
                              / "x11-bitmap"
                              / "description"
                              / x-token
          Note that  "type",  "subtype", and "x-token" are defined  in
          MIME.   Note  also  that  while  the  definition  of "schar"
          includes the percent sign, "%", this character has a special
          meaning  in  at least the UNIX semantics, and will therefore
          need to be quoted as a qchar to be used literally.
        Appendix A:  Implementation Details for UNIX
          Although this memo fully specifies a  syntax  for  "mailcap"
          files,  the  semantics  of the mailcap file are of necessity
          operating-system dependent in four respects.   In  order  to
          clarify  the  intent,  and to promote a standard usage, this
          appendix proposes a UNIX semantics for these four cases.  If
          a  mailcap  mechanism  is  implemented  on non-UNIX systems,
          similar semantic decisions should be made and published.
          Location of the Mailcap File(s)
          For UNIX, a path search of mailcap files is specified.   The
          default  path  search is specified as including at least the
          following:
          $HOME/.mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap
          However,  this  path  may  itself  be  overridden  by a path
          specified by the MAILCAPS environment variable.
          Semantics of executable commands
          Several portions of a mailcap entry specify commands  to  be
          executed.   In  particular,  the mandatory second field, the
          view-command, takes a command to  be  executed,  as  do  the
          optional print, edit, test, and compose fields.
          On a UNIX system, such commands will each be  a  full  shell
          command  line, including the path name for a program and its
          arguments.   (Because  of  differences  in  shells  and  the
          implementation  and  behavior  of  the  same  shell from one
          system to another, it is specified that the command line  be
          intended  as  input  to  the  Bourne  shell, i.e. that it is
          implicitly preceded by "/bin/sh -c " on the command line.)
          Borenstein                                          [Page 6]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
          The two characters "%s", if used, will be  replaced  by  the
          name  of  a file for the actual mail body data.  In the case
          of the edit adn view-command, the body part will  be  passed
          to  this  command  as  standard  input  unless  one  or more
          instances of "%s" appear in the view-command, in which  case
          %s  will  be  replaced  by the name of a file containing the
          body part, a file which may have to be  created  before  the
          view-command  program  is  executed.  (Such  files cannot be
          presumed to continue to exist after the view-command program
          exits.  Thus a view-command that wishes to exit and continue
          processing in the background should take care  to  save  the
          data  first.)   In  the case of the compose and composetyped
          commands, %s should be replaced by the name  of  a  file  to
          which  the  composed  data should be written by the programs
          named in the compose or composedtyped commands.   Thus,  the
          calling  program  will  look  in that file later in order to
          retrieve the composed data. If %s does  not  appear  in  the
          compose  or  composetyped  commands,  then the composed data
          will be assumed to be written by the composing  programs  to
          standard output.
          Furthermore, any occurrence of "%t" will be replaced by  the
          content-type  and  subtype  specification.  (That is, if the
          content-type is "text/plain", then %t will  be  replaced  by
          "text/plain".)   A  literal % character may be quoted as \%.
          Finally, named parameters from the Content-type field may be
          placed  in the command execution line using "%{" followed by
          the parameter name and a closing "}" character.  The  entire
          parameter  should  appear as a single command line argument,
          regardless of embedded spaces.  Thus, if the message  has  a
          Content-type line of:
               Content-type:  multipart/mixed; boundary=42
          and the mailcap file has a line of:
               multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \
                 %t %{boundary}
          then the equivalent  of  the  following  command  should  be
          executed:
               /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
          Semantics of the "test" field
          The "test" field specifies a program  to  be  used  to  test
          whether  or  not the current mailcap line applies.  This can
          be used, for example, to  have  a  mailcap  line  that  only
          applies if the X window system is running, or if the user is
          running on a SPARCstation with a /dev/audio.  The  value  of
          the  "test"  field  is  a  program  to  run  to  test such a
          condition.  The precise program to run and arguments to give
          it are determined as specified in the previous section.  The
          Borenstein                                          [Page 7]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
          test program should return an  exit  code  of  zero  if  the
          condition is true, and a non-zero code otherwise.
          Semantics of the "compose" field
          On UNIX, the composing program is expected to produce a data
          stream  for  such  a  body part as its standard output.  The
          program will be executed with  the  command  line  arguments
          determined  as  specified  above.  The data returned via its
          standard output will be given a Content-Type field that  has
          no  supplementary  parameters.   For  example, the following
          mailcap entry:
               audio/basic; /usr/local/bin/showaudio %t
                compose = /usr/local/bin/recordaudio
          would  result  in  tagging  the   data   composed   by   the
          "recordaudio" program as:
               Content-Type: audio/basic
          If this is unacceptable --  for  example,  in  the  case  of
          multipart  mail  a  "boundary" parameter is required -- then
          the  "compose"  field  cannot   be   used.    Instead,   the
          "composetyped" field should be used in the mailcap file.
          Semantics of the "composetyped" field
          The "composetyped" filed is much like the  "compose"  field,
          except  that  it  names a composition program that produces,
          not raw data, but data that includes a MIME-conformant  type
          specification.   The  program  will  be  executed  with  the
          command line arguments determined as specified  above.   The
          data  returned  via  its  standard  output must begin with a
          Content-Type header, followed optionally by other  Content-*
          headers,  and  then  by  a  blank  line  and  the data.  For
          example, the following mailcap entry:
               multipart/mixed; /usr/local/bin/showmulti %t \
                 %{boundary}; \
                 composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
          would result in executing  the  "makemulti"  program,  which
          would  be  expected  to  begin its output with a line of the
          form:
               Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=foobar
          Note that a composition program need not encode binary  data
          in base64 or quoted-printable. It remains the responsibility
          of the software calling the composition  program  to  encode
          such  data  as  necessary.   However, if a composing program
          does  encode  data,  which  is  not  encouraged,  it  should
          announce  that fact using a Content-Transfer-Encoding header
          Borenstein                                          [Page 8]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
          in the  standard  manner  defined  by  MIME.   Because  such
          encodings  must  be  announced by such a header, they are an
          option only  for  composetyped  programs,  not  for  compose
          programs.
        Appendix B: Sample Mailcap File
          The following is an example of a mailcap file for UNIX  that
          demonstrates  most  of  the  syntax  above.     It  contains
          explanatory comments where necessary.
               # Mailcap file for Bellcore lab 214.
               #
               # The next line sends "richtext" to the richtext
               program
               text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
               #
               # Next, basic u-law audio
               audio/*; showaudio; test=/usr/local/bin/hasaudio
               #
               # Next, use the xview program to handle several image
               formats
               image/*; xview %s; test=/usr/local/bin/RunningX
               #
               # The ATOMICMAIL interpreter uses curses, so needs a
               terminal
               application/atomicmail; /usr/local/bin/atomicmail %s; \
                   needsterminal
               #
               # The next line handles Andrew format,
               #   if ez and ezview are installed
               x-be2; /usr/andrew/bin/ezview %s; \
                  print=/usr/andrew/bin/ezprint %s ; \
                  compose=/usr/andrew/bin/ez -d %s \;
                  edit=/usr/andrew/bin/ez -d %s; \;
                  copiousoutput
               #
               # The next silly example demonstrates the use of
               quoting
               application/*; echo "This is \\"%t\\" but \
                  is 50 \% Greek to me" \; cat %s; copiousoutput
        Appendix C:  A Note on Format Translation
          It has been suggested that another function  of  a  mailcap-
          like  mechanism  might  be  to specify the locally available
          tools for document format translation.    For  example,  the
          file could designate a program for translating from format A
          to format B, another for translating from format B to format
          C,   and  finally  a  mechanism  for  displaying  format  C.
          Although this mechanism would be somewhat  richer  than  the
          current  mailcap  file,  and  might  conceivably  also  have
          utility at the message  transport  layer,  it  significantly
          Borenstein                                          [Page 9]
          RFC 1343       Multimedia Mail Configuration       June 1992
          complicates the processing effort necessary for a user agent
          that simply wants to display a message in format  A.   Using
          the  current,  simpler,  mailcap scheme, a single line could
          tell such a user agent to  display  A-format  mail  using  a
          pipeline  of translators and the C-format viewer.  This memo
          resists  the  temptation   to   complicate   the   necessary
          processing  for a user agent to accomplish this task.  Using
          the mailcap format defined here, it  is  only  necessary  to
          find  the  correct  single  line  in  a mailcap file, and to
          execute the command given in that line.
        References
          [RFC 822]  Crocker, D.,  "Standard for the  format  of  ARPA
          Internet   text  messages", RFC  822,  UDEL, August, 1982.
          [RFC  1341]   Borenstein,   N.,   and   N.   Freed,    "MIME
          (Multipurpose  Internet  Mail  Extensions):  Mechanisms  for
          Specifying and Describing the  Format  of  Internet  Message
          Bodies", RFC 1341, Bellcore, June, 1992.
        Acknowledgements
          The author  wishes  to  thank  Malcolm  Bjorn  Gillies,  Dan
          Heller,  Olle  Jaernefors, Keith Moore, Luc Rooijakkers, and
          the other members of the IETF task force on mail  extensions
          for  their comments on earlier versions of this draft.    If
          other acknowledgements were neglected, please let  me  know,
          as it was surely accidental.
        Security Considerations
          Security issues are not  discussed in this memo.    However,
          the  use  of  the mechanisms described in this memo can make
          it easier for implementations to  slip  into  the   kind  of
          security   problems   discussed   in   the   MIME  document.
          Implementors and mailcap administrators should be  aware  of
          these  security  considerations,  and  in particular  should
          exercise caution in the choice of programs to be listed in a
          mailcap file for  automatic execution.
        Author's Address
          Nathaniel S. Borenstein
          MRE 2D-296, Bellcore
          445 South St.
          Morristown, NJ 07962-1910
          Email: nsb@bellcore.com
          Phone: +1 201 829 4270
          Fax:  +1 201 829 7019
          Borenstein                                         [Page 10]
/data/webs/external/dokuwiki/data/pages/rfc/rfc1343.txt · Last modified: 1992/06/10 20:37 by 127.0.0.1

Donate Powered by PHP Valid HTML5 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki