RFC 2193 (rfc2193) - Page 2 of 9
IMAP4 Mailbox Referrals
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 2193 IMAP4 Mailbox Referrals September 1997
A remote server is a server that contains remote mailboxes.
A shared mailbox, is a mailbox that multiple users have access to.
An IMAP mailbox referral is when the server directs the client to
another IMAP mailbox.
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].
3. Introduction and Overview
IMAP4 servers that support this extension MUST list the keyword
MAILBOX-REFERRALS in their CAPABILITY response. No client action is
needed to invoke the MAILBOX-REFERRALS capability in a server.
A MAILBOX-REFERRALS capable IMAP4 server MUST NOT return referrals
that result in a referrals loop.
A referral response consists of a tagged NO response and a REFERRAL
response code. The REFERRAL response code MUST contain as an
argument a one or more valid URLs separated by a space as defined in
[RFC-1738]. If a server replies with multiple URLs for a particular
object, they MUST all be of the same type. In this case, the URL MUST
be an IMAP URL as defined in [RFC-2192]. A client that supports the
REFERRALS extension MUST be prepared for a URL of any type, but it
need only be able to process IMAP URLs.
A server MAY respond with multiple IMAP mailbox referrals if there is
more than one replica of the mailbox. This allows the implementation
of a load balancing or failover scheme. How a server keeps multiple
replicas of a mailbox in sync is not addressed by this document.
If the server has a preferred order in which the client should
attempt to access the URLs, the preferred URL SHOULD be listed in the
first, with the remaining URLs presented in descending order of
preference. If multiple referrals are given for a mailbox, a server
should be aware that there are synchronization issues for a client if
the UIDVALIDITY of the referred mailboxes are different.
An IMAP mailbox referral may be given in response to an IMAP command
that specifies a mailbox as an argument.
Gahrns Standards Track