GENWiki

Premier IT Outsourcing and Support Services within the UK

User Tools

Site Tools


rfc:rfc8438

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Bosch Request for Comments: 8438 Dovecot Oy Category: Standards Track August 2018 ISSN: 2070-1721

                   IMAP Extension for STATUS=SIZE

Abstract

 This document adds a new capability called "STATUS=SIZE" to the
 Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).  It allows retrieving the
 total storage size of a mailbox with a single STATUS command rather
 than retrieving and summing the sizes of all individual messages in
 that mailbox.

Status of This Memo

 This is an Internet Standards Track document.
 This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
 (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
 received public review and has been approved for publication by the
 Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
 Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
 Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
 and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
 https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8438.

Copyright Notice

 Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
 document authors.  All rights reserved.
 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
 (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
 publication of this document.  Please review these documents
 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
 to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
 described in the Simplified BSD License.

Bosch Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 8438 IMAP STATUS=SIZE Extension August 2018

Table of Contents

 1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
 2.  Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
 3.  STATUS Command and Response Extensions  . . . . . . . . . . .   3
 4.  Formal Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
 5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
 6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
 7.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
 Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
 Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1. Introduction

 This document extends the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
 [IMAP4rev1] with a new capability called "STATUS=SIZE".  To determine
 the total storage size of a mailbox, an IMAP client currently needs
 to retrieve all message sizes individually using the FETCH command
 with the RFC822.SIZE data item.  The STATUS=SIZE capability provides
 a more efficient means of achieving this.  It extends the STATUS
 command with a new "SIZE" data item, which indicates the total size
 of all messages in the target mailbox.  This way, this information
 can be queried with just one STATUS command.  When the LIST-STATUS
 IMAP capability [LIST-STATUS] is also available, the SIZE data item
 can be queried for many mailboxes at once using just one LIST
 command.
 This capability is particularly useful for IMAP clients that do not
 cache the state of the message store, such as most webmail clients.
 Without the "STATUS=SIZE" capability, such clients need to fetch all
 message sizes from the server when the size of an individual mailbox
 needs to be determined.  For example, a user may request detailed
 quota usage information for each mailbox to find out which specific
 mailboxes consume most of the available storage resources.  Using
 this information, the user can get an overview of which mailboxes
 need to be cleaned up to reduce quota usage.  The QUOTA capability
 [QUOTA] is no help in that scenario, since the provided QUOTAROOT
 command can only yield the STORAGE resource usage of a whole quota
 root, not each individual mailbox within that root.

Bosch Standards Track [Page 2] RFC 8438 IMAP STATUS=SIZE Extension August 2018

2. 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 key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
 "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
 BCP 14 [KEYWORDS] [KEYWORDS2] when, and only when, they appear in all
 capitals, as shown here.

3. STATUS Command and Response Extensions

 This extension defines one new status data item for the STATUS
 command and response:
 SIZE
    The total size of the mailbox in octets.  This is not strictly
    required to be an exact value, but it MUST be equal to or greater
    than the sum of the values of the RFC822.SIZE FETCH message data
    item [IMAP4rev1] of all messages in the mailbox.  When the QUOTA
    capability [QUOTA] is also supported, this value SHOULD be equal
    to the storage usage value used to enforce the STORAGE resource
    limit for this mailbox.  This way, the client can directly infer
    the quota usage.
 Since the total storage size of a mailbox can easily exceed 4 GB,
 clients MUST be capable of receiving 63-bit SIZE data item values.
 The message size is chosen to be at most 63 bits wide rather than 64
 bits to make implementations on various platforms (such as Java)
 easier.
 Example:
 C: A01 STATUS frop (MESSAGES SIZE UIDNEXT)
 S: * STATUS frop (MESSAGES 8 SIZE 44421 UIDNEXT 242344)
 S: A01 OK STATUS completed

Bosch Standards Track [Page 3] RFC 8438 IMAP STATUS=SIZE Extension August 2018

 The same information can be obtained by using the following commands,
 albeit less efficiently:
 C: A02 SELECT "frop"
 S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
 S: * 8 EXISTS
 S: * 1 RECENT
 S: * OK [UNSEEN 7] First unseen.
 S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 1364851417] UIDs valid
 S: * OK [UIDNEXT 242344] Predicted next UID
 S: * OK [HIGHESTMODSEQ 3914] Highest
 S: A02 OK [READ-WRITE] Select completed.
 C: A03 FETCH 1:* (RFC822.SIZE)
 S: * 1 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 3224)
 S: * 2 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 1222)
 S: * 3 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 444)
 S: * 4 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 4516)
 S: * 5 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 544)
 S: * 6 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 922)
 S: * 7 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 31126)
 S: * 8 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 2423)
 S: A03 OK Fetch completed.
 When the LIST-STATUS IMAP capability [LIST-STATUS] is also available,
 the STATUS command can be combined with the LIST command to further
 improve efficiency.  This way, the sizes of many mailboxes can be
 queried with just one LIST command.
 Example:
 C: A04 LIST "" % RETURN (STATUS (MESSAGES SIZE))
 S: * LIST () "." "INBOX"
 S: * STATUS "INBOX" (MESSAGES 17 SIZE 16234)
 S: * LIST () "." "frop"
 S: * STATUS "frop" (MESSAGES 8 SIZE 44421)
 S: A04 OK List completed.

Bosch Standards Track [Page 4] RFC 8438 IMAP STATUS=SIZE Extension August 2018

4. Formal Syntax

 The following syntax specification augments the grammar specified in
 [IMAP4rev1] and [IMAP4-ABNF].  It uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form
 (ABNF) notation as specified in [ABNF].  Elements not defined here
 are taken from [IMAP4rev1] and [IMAP4-ABNF].
 capability     =/ "STATUS=SIZE"
 status-att     =/ "SIZE"
 status-att-val =/ "SIZE" SP number64
 number64       = 1*DIGIT
                  ; Unsigned 63-bit integer
                  ; (0 <= n <= 9,223,372,036,854,775,807)

5. Security Considerations

 There are no known additional security issues with this extension
 beyond those described for the base protocol [IMAP4rev1] and the
 LIST-STATUS extension [LIST-STATUS].

6. IANA Considerations

 IANA has added "STATUS=SIZE" to the "IMAP Capabilities" registry
 located at <http://www.iana.org/assignments/imap-capabilities>.

7. Normative References

 [ABNF]     Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
            Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
            DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.
 [IMAP4-ABNF]
            Melnikov, A. and C. Daboo, "Collected Extensions to IMAP4
            ABNF", RFC 4466, DOI 10.17487/RFC4466, April 2006,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4466>.
 [IMAP4rev1]
            Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
            4rev1", RFC 3501, DOI 10.17487/RFC3501, March 2003,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3501>.

Bosch Standards Track [Page 5] RFC 8438 IMAP STATUS=SIZE Extension August 2018

 [KEYWORDS] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
            Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
            DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
 [KEYWORDS2]
            Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
            2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
            May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
 [LIST-STATUS]
            Melnikov, A. and T. Sirainen, "IMAP4 Extension for
            Returning STATUS Information in Extended LIST", RFC 5819,
            DOI 10.17487/RFC5819, March 2010,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5819>.
 [QUOTA]    Myers, J., "IMAP4 QUOTA extension", RFC 2087,
            DOI 10.17487/RFC2087, January 1997,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2087>.

Acknowledgements

 Thanks to Bron Gondwana, Alexey Melnikov, Stan Kalisch, and Michael
 Slusarz for reviews and suggestions.

Author's Address

 Stephan Bosch
 Dovecot Oy
 Lars Sonckin Kaari 12
 Espoo  02600
 Finland
 Email: stephan.bosch@dovecot.fi

Bosch Standards Track [Page 6]

/data/webs/external/dokuwiki/data/pages/rfc/rfc8438.txt · Last modified: 2018/08/24 20:26 by 127.0.0.1

Donate Powered by PHP Valid HTML5 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki