More features of e-mail
Last Update 2001-09-16
ESMTP is Extended SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).
Here are some RFCs which are of interest for me.
- RFC 1985
describes the new
ETRN
command,
which is a safer version of the old
TURN
command,
to start sending messages to rarely connected hosts.
-
RFC 1893
G. Vaudreuil: Enhanced Mail System Status Codes (15 pages)
describes more detailed error/warning return codes for an MTA.
-
RFC 1894
K. Moore: An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status Notifications
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
is a standard to send stuff other than 7Bit ASCII by e-mail.
RFC 2554
defines
SMTP Service Extension for Authentication
which is based on
SASL
as defined in
RFC 2222.
sendmail 8.10
implements
SMTP AUTH,
sendmail 8.11
implements
SMTP STARTTLS.
BTW: please don't use
PLAIN
as an authentication mechanism,
unless a strong encryption layer, such as
SSL or TLS,
is active.
Quoting
RFC 2595
6. PLAIN SASL mechanism
Clear-text passwords are simple, interoperate with almost all
existing operating system authentication databases, and are useful
for a smooth transition to a more secure password-based
authentication mechanism. The drawback is that they are unacceptable
for use over an unencrypted network connection.
TLS
can be used to authenticate clients and servers
and to encrypt e-mail when ESMTP is used.
RFC 2487
defines
STARTTLS.
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Copyright ©
Claus Aßmann
Please send comments to:
<ca at sendmail.org>
Disclaimer: the information provided may be inaccurate or outdated
or incomplete.
Please
contact me
if you find an error.