RFC 1426 (rfc1426) - Page 1 of 6

SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport

Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Next >
Network Working Group                               J. Klensin, WG Chair
Request for Comments: 1426                     United Nations University
                                                        N. Freed, Editor
                                            Innosoft International, Inc.
                                                                 M. Rose
                                            Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
                                                            E. Stefferud
                                     Network Management Associates, Inc.
                                                              D. Crocker
                                                       The Branch Office
                                                           February 1993


                         SMTP Service Extension
                         for 8bit-MIMEtransport

Status of this Memo

   This RFC specifies an IAB standards track protocol for the Internet
   community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.
   Please refer to the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol
   Standards" for the standardization state and status of this protocol.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

1.  Abstract

   This memo defines an extension to the SMTP service whereby an SMTP
   content body containing octets outside of the US ASCII octet range
   (hex 00-7F) may be relayed using SMTP.

2.  Introduction

   Although SMTP is widely and robustly deployed, various extensions
   have been requested by parts of the Internet community. In
   particular, a significant portion of the Internet community wishes to
   exchange messages in which the content body consists of a MIME
   message [3] containing arbitrary octet-aligned material. This memo
   uses the mechanism described in [5] to define an extension to the
   SMTP service whereby such contents may be exchanged. Note that this
   extension does NOT eliminate the possibility of an SMTP server
   limiting line length; servers are free to implement this extension
   but nevertheless set a line length limit no lower than 1000 octets.

3.  Framework for the 8bit MIME Transport Extension

   The 8bit MIME transport extension is laid out as follows:





Klensin, Freed, Rose, Stefferud & Crocker
Next >