RFC 976 (rfc976) - Page 1 of 12

UUCP mail interchange format standard

Network Working Group                                    Mark. R. Horton
Request for Comments: 976                              Bell Laboratories
                                                           February 1986

                 UUCP Mail Interchange Format Standard


Status of This Memo

   In response to the need for maintenance of current information about
   the status and progress of various projects in the ARPA-Internet
   community, this RFC is issued for the benefit of community members.
   The information contained in this document is accurate as of the date
   of publication, but is subject to change. Subsequent RFCs will
   reflect such changes.

   This document defines the standard format for the transmission of
   mail messages between machines in the UUCP Project.  It does not
   address the format for storage of messages on one machine, nor the
   lower level transport mechanisms used to get the data from one
   machine to the next.  It represents a standard for conformance by
   hosts in the UUCP zone.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

1.  Introduction

   This document is intended to define the standard format for the
   transmission of mail messages between machines in the UUCP Project.
   It does not address the format for storage of messages on one
   machine, nor the lower level transport mechanisms used to get the
   data from one machine to the next.  We assume remote execution of the
   rmail command (or equivalent) as the UUCP network primitive
   operation.

   The general philosophy is that, if we were to invent a new standard,
   we would make ourselves incompatible with existing systems.  There
   are already too many (incompatible) standards in the world, resulting
   in ambiguities such as [email protected] which is parsed a!([email protected]) in the old
   UUCP world, and (a!b)@c.d in the Internet world.  (Neither standard
   allows parentheses, and in adding them we would be compatible with
   neither.  There would also be serious problems with the shell and
   with the UUCP transport mechanism.)

   Having an established, well documented, and extensible family of
   standards already defined by the ARPA community, we choose to adopt
   these standards for the UUCP zone as well.  (The UUCP zone is that
   subset of the community connected by UUCP which chooses to register
   with the UUCP project.  It represents an administrative entity.)
   While the actual transport mechanism is up to the two hosts to
   arrange, and might include UUCP, SMTP, MMDF, or some other facility,
   we adopt RFC-920 (domains) and RFC-822 (mail format) as UUCP zone
   standards.  All mail transmitted between systems should conform to


Horton