RFC 1056 (rfc1056) - Page 1 of 38
PCMAIL: A distributed mail system for personal computers
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group M. Lambert
Request for Comments: 1056 MIT
Obsoletes: RFC-993 June 1988
PCMAIL: A Distributed Mail System for Personal Computers
Table of Contents
1. Status of this Document 1
2. Introduction 2
3. Repository architecture 4
3.1. Management of user mail state 5
3.2. Repository-to-RFC-822 name translation 7
4. Communication between repository and client: DMSP 8
4.1. DMSP commands 8
4.2. DMSP responses 8
4.3. DMSP sessions 11
4.4. General operations 11
4.5. User operations 12
4.6. Client operations 13
4.7. Mailbox operations 14
4.8. Address operations 15
4.9. Subscription operations 15
4.10. Message operations 16
5. Client Architecture 18
5.1. Multiple clients 18
5.2. Synchronization 18
5.3. Batch operation versus interactive operation 20
5.4. Message summaries 20
6. Typical interactive-style client-repository interaction 21
7. A current Pcmail implementation 25
7.1. IBM PC client code 25
7.2. UNIX client code 26
7.3. Repository code 26
8. Conclusions 26
I. DMSP Protocol Specification 28
II. Operations by name 37
III. Responses by number 38
1. Status of this Memo
This RFC is a discussion of the Pcmail workstation based distributed
mail system. It is identical to the discussion in RFC-993, save that
a new, much simpler mail transport protocol is described. The new
transport protocol is the result of continued research into ease of
protocol implementation and use issues. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
Lambert