Lemonade E. Burger, Ed. Internet-Draft BEA Systems, Inc. Updates: RFC 3501 June 1, 2007 (if approved) Intended status: Standards Track Expires: December 3, 2007 WITHIN Search extension to the IMAP Protocol draft-ietf-lemonade-search-within-05 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 December 3, 2007. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). Abstract This document describes the WITHIN extension to IMAP SEARCH. IMAP SEARCH returns messages whose internal date is within or outside a specified interval. The mechanism described here, OLDER and YOUNGER, differs from BEFORE and SINCE in that the client specifies an interval, rather than a date. WITHIN is useful for persistent searches where either the device does not have the capacity to Burger Expires December 3, 2007 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Search Within June 2007 perform the search at regular intervals or the network is of limited bandwidth and thus there is a desire to reduce network traffic from sending repeated requests and redundant responses. Conventions Used in this Document In examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client and server respectively. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [1]. When describing the general syntax, we omit some definitions as RFC 3501 [2] defines them. 1. Introduction This extension exposes two new search keys, OLDER and YOUNGER, each of which takes a non-zero integer argument corresponding to a time interval in seconds. The server calculates the time of interest by subtracting the time interval the client presents. The server then either returnings messages older or younger than the resultant time and date, depending on the search key used. 2. Protocol Operation An IMAP4 server that supports the capability described here MUST return "WITHIN" as one of the server supported capabilities in the CAPABILITY command. For both the OLDER and YOUNGER search keys, the server calculates a target date and time by subtracting the interval, specified in seconds, from the current date and time of the server. The server then compares the target time with the INTERNALDATE of the message, as specified in IMAP [2]. For OLDER, messages match if the INTERNALDATE is less recent than or equal to the target time. For YOUNGER, messages match if the INTERNALDATE is more recent than, or equal to, the target time. Both OLDER and YOUNGER searches always result in exact matching, to the resolution of a second. However, if one is doing a dynamic evaluation, for example, in a context [4], one needs to be aware the server might perform the evaluation periodically. Thus, the server may delay the updates. Clients MUST be aware that dynamic search results may not reflect the current state of the mailbox. If the Burger Expires December 3, 2007 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Search Within June 2007 client needs a search result that reflects the current state of the mailbox, we RECOMMEND the client issues a new search. 3. Formal Syntax The following syntax specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) notation. Elements not defined here can be found in the formal syntax of ABNF [1], IMAP [2], and IMAP Extended ABNF [3] This document extends RFC 3501 [2] with two new search keys: OLDER and YOUNGER . search-key =/ ( "OLDER" / "YOUNGER" ) SP nz-number ; search-key defined in RFC 3501 4. Example C: a1 SEARCH UNSEEN YOUNGER 259200 S: a1 * SEARCH 4 8 15 16 23 42 Search for all unseen messages within the past 3 days, or 259200 seconds, according to the server's current time. 5. Security Considerations The WITHIN extension does not raise any security considerations which are not present in the base protocol. Considerations are the same as for IMAP [2]. 6. IANA Considerations Per the IMAP RFC [2], registration of a new IMAP capablity in the IMAP Capability registry requires the publication of a standards track RFC or an IESG approved experimental RFC. The registry is currently located at . This standards track document defines the WITHIN IMAP capability. We request IANA to add this extension to the IANA IMAP Capability registry. 7. References 7.1. Normative References [1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, BCP 14, March 1997. Burger Expires December 3, 2007 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Search Within June 2007 [2] Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol - Version 4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003. [3] Melnikov, A. and C. Daboo, "Collected Extensions to IMAP4 ABNF", RFC 4466, April 2006. 7.2. Informative References [4] Melnikov, D. and C. Daboo, "Contexts for IMAP4", draft-cridland-imap-context-02 (work in progress), May 2006. Appendix A. Contributors Stephane Maes and Ray Cromwell wrote the original version of this document as part of P-IMAP as well as the first drafts for the IETF. From an attribution perspective, they are clearly authors. Appendix B. Acknowledgements The authors want to thank all who have contributed key insight and extensively reviewed and discussed the concepts of LPSEARCH and the authors of its early introduction in P-IMAP. We also want to give a special thanks to Arnt Gilbrandsen, Ken Murchison, Zoltan Ordogh, and most especially Dave Cridland for their review and suggestions. A special thank you goes to Alexey Melnikov for his choice submission of text. Author's Address Eric W. Burger (editor) BEA Systems, Inc. USA Phone: Fax: Email: eric.burger@bea.com URI: http://www.standardstrack.com Burger Expires December 3, 2007 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Search Within June 2007 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). 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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). Burger Expires December 3, 2007 [Page 5]