INTERNET-DRAFT H. Lachman
Intended Category: Informational Netscape Communications Corp.
Filename: draft-lachman-laser-ldap-mail-routing-02.txt G. Shapiro
Sendmail, Inc.
Expires: July 2001 January 2001
LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This draft is being discussed on the Laser mailing list at
<[email protected]>. Subscription requests can be sent to
<[email protected]> (send an email message with the
word "subscribe" in the body). More information on the mailing list
along with an archive of back messages is available at
<http://playground.sun.com/laser/>.
[[Section X will be removed before the document is submitted to the
IESG.]]
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999-2001). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document defines an LDAP [1] object class called
'inetLocalMailRecipient' and associated attributes that provide a way
to designate an LDAP entry as one that represents a local (intra-
organizational) email recipient, to specify the recipient's email
address(es), and to provide routing information pertinent to the
recipient. This is intended to support SMTP [2] message transfer
agents in routing RFC 822-based email [3] within a private enterprise
only, and is not to be used in the process of routing email across
the public Internet.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 1]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
1. Conventions Used in this Document
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 [9].
2. Background and Motivation
LDAP-based directory services are currently being used in many
organizations as a repository of information about users and other
network entities (such as groups of users, network resources, etc.).
In cases where LDAP entries are used to represent entities that are
email recipients (e.g., a mail user or a mailing list), the LDAP
entries provide a convenient place to store per-recipient data, such
as a recipient's email address.
In many organizations, an email recipient may have an email address
(e.g., "[email protected]") that does not specify the host that
receives mail for that recipient (e.g., "host42.example.com"). A
message transfer agent (MTA) responsible for routing mail within the
organization needs some way to determine the appropriate target host
for such a recipient. A common solution is the sendmail "aliases"
database which may contain a record that provides the necessary per-
recipient routing information (e.g., "joe: joe@host42"). A drawback
of this solution is that if the organization hosts more than one DNS
domain (e.g., "example.com" and "example.org", with "joe" in each
domain being different recipients), a more explicit mapping is
desirable. The schema defined in this document provides a way to
represent such mappings in LDAP and X.500 [4] directory services.
An LDAP entry that represents an email recipient could conceivably
contain a variety of attributes related to email, such as disk quota
and delivery preferences. We consider here only attributes that
specify address information and routing information; these attributes
may be useful to multiple MTAs within the organization since one or
more MTAs may be responsible for intra-organizational routing. The
various MTAs in an organization may have been developed by different
implementors, so a common schema is desirable for such attributes.
3. Overview
Email systems deployed in large organizations must scale to support
large numbers of users and email servers. This means using email
addresses that are independent of particular mailbox server hosts;
thus an "email routing server" that receives mail sent to the
host-independent (or high-level or top-level or domain ...) address
and routes it to the appropriate mailbox server. For scalability
there should be many routing servers providing identical service.
A set of such servers and the mailbox servers they route to form an
"email domain".
Lachman, et. al. [Page 2]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
This specification describes the basic function of the routing
server, including data elements to support per-recipient routing
info, and use of LDAP-based directory service to support multiple
servers sharing the routing info data. The routing function is
distinguished from other MTA-transfer operations.
The 'inetLocalMailRecipient' object class and associated attributes
identify an LDAP entry as representing an SMTP mail recipient (in the
sense "recipient" is used in [2]). A recipient may be a mail user, a
mailing list, an auto-responder of some kind (e.g., a mailing list
subscription program), a network device such as a printer or fax
machine, or other recipient type. Address attributes and routing
attributes are provided to aid SMTP MTAs in routing mail within an
organization to the appropriate target MTA for each recipient.
Once on the target MTA, a message is handled according to local
conventions (which may be specified using other auxiliary object
classes and is outside the scope of this document). For example, the
message may be delivered to a user mailbox, or to a program or
network device, and/or forwarded to another recipient. Or, the
target MTA may be a gateway to a non-SMTP mail routing and delivery
system including non-SMTP MTAs. Note that, in this discussion,
"target MTA" refers to the final SMTP destination of messages for the
recipient in question, as we are considering routing of mail only
among the SMTP MTAs within an organization.
Any domain that uses LDAP-based routing MUST support LDAP-based
routing at all MTAs responsible for the domain. All other MTAs that
do not support LDAP-based routing MUST forward mail for that domain
to MTAs that do, using MX records or other local conventions.
The target MTA checks to see if the destination domain of the
recipient address is one that it is responsible for and that uses
LDAP-based routing. If so, the MTA checks for matching e-mail
addresses in LDAP by looking up the envelope recipient address in
LDAP using the object class described in section 4.1 and the
attribute discussed in section 4.2. If an unambiguous match is
returned, the MTA interprets the routing attributes as described in
section 4.3.
Routing of mail between different organizations across the public
Internet is outside the scope of this document, as the mechanism for
this is already standardized [5,6]. An 'inetLocalMailRecipient'
entry represents a mail recipient that is local to the organization
in question, not recipients in other organizations. This means that
the domain names that appear within the 'mailLocalAddress' and
'mailHost' attribute values in an 'inetLocalMailRecipient' entry must
be DNS domain names that are local to the organization. (e.g.,
within the organization's Intranet or by deemed local by other local
conventions outside the scope of this standard). An MTA should not
look for or use 'inetLocalMailRecipient' entries or attributes if
that MTA is not authoritative for the right-hand side of the
recipient address in question.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 3]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
LDAP entries that are not 'inetLocalMailRecipient' entries should be
ignored by MTAs for the purpose of routing. An example is a
conference room whose LDAP entry contains contact information (e.g.,
email address and telephone number) for the person who books
reservations for the room; the conference room is not a mail
recipient, and can safely be ignored by MTAs doing route
determination based on recipient address.
4. Object Class and Attribute Definitions
The 'inetLocalMailRecipient' object class and associated attributes
are defined (using syntaxes given in [7]) as follows.
4.1 The inetLocalMailRecipient Object Class
( 2.16.840.1.113730.3.2.[[TBD]]
NAME 'inetLocalMailRecipient'
SUP top
AUXILIARY
MAY ( mailLocalAddress $
mailHost $ mailRoutingAddress
)
)
The 'inetLocalMailRecipient' object class signifies that the entry
represents an entity within the organization that can receive SMTP
mail, such as a mail user or a mailing list. In any case of an entry
containing the 'inetLocalMailRecipient' object class, attributes
defined in this document MUST be interpreted as specified in this
document.
4.2 Address Attribute
( 2.16.840.1.113730.3.1.13
NAME 'mailLocalAddress'
DESC 'RFC 822 email address of this recipient'
EQUALITY caseIgnoreIA5Match
SYNTAX '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.26{256}'
)
The 'mailLocalAddress' attribute is used to specify email addresses,
for the recipient; for example, "[email protected]". The address
conforms to the syntax of an 'addr-spec' as defined in [3].
The 'mailLocalAddress' attribute MUST contain all local addresses
that represent each recipient of the target MTA. Commonly, the value
of the 'mail' attribute should also be among the addresses listed in
the 'mailLocalAddress' attribute if it is expected to be used for
LDAP mail routing.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 4]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
When determining the disposition of a given message, MTAs using LDAP
(directly or indirectly) to route mail MUST search for an entry with
object class 'inetLocalMailRecipient' and a 'mailLocalAddress'
attribute matching the message's recipient address. If exactly one
matching entry is found, MTAs MUST regard the message as being
addressed to the entity that is represented by the directory entry.
If multiple entries are found, the results of the lookup MUST be
treated as unsuccessful and should be handled by the MTA in some
locally-appropriate way, such as returning a DSN [10] to the sender.
If there is no match found by the above, MTAs SHOULD have the
capability of searching for the recipient domain against the
'mailLocalAddress' attribute using the "wildcard domain" address
"@<full-local-domain>" , e.g., "@example.org". In other words, if
mail arrives for "[email protected]", and there is no recipient
with that address specified as 'mailLocalAddress', then the recipient
with the wildcard domain address should receive the mail.
MTAs MAY do other searches but only after the above are done.
In short, the address attribute 'mailLocalAddress' may be used by an
LDAP entry to answer the question "what is/are this account's email
address(es)?"
4.3 Routing Attributes
( 2.16.840.1.113730.3.1.18
NAME 'mailHost'
DESC 'fully-qualified hostname of the MTA that is the final
SMTP destination of messages to this recipient'
EQUALITY caseIgnoreIA5Match
SYNTAX '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.26{256}'
SINGLE-VALUE
)
The 'mailHost' attribute indicates which SMTP MTA considers the
recipient's mail to be locally handleable. This information can be
used for routing, in that an intermediary MTA may take it to be the
destination for messages addressed to this recipient. Normal mail
routing requirements (i.e., use of MX records [5]) apply to the
specified hostname unless overridden by local conventions. In other
words, the mail should be sent to the specified host without changing
the recipient address. The hostname is specified as a
fully-qualified DNS hostname with no trailing dot (e.g.,
"host42.example.com").
If the 'inetLocalMailRecipient' object class is present, the
'mailHost' attribute for each entry MAY contain a value. If it does,
that value MUST be the fully qualified name of the server containing
the host MTA for this person. If 'mailHost' is present then it MUST
be taken as the host for this user, and all mail to this user MUST be
routed to this machine.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 5]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
( 2.16.840.1.113730.3.1.47
NAME 'mailRoutingAddress'
DESC 'RFC 822 address to use when routing messages to
the SMTP MTA of this recipient'
EQUALITY caseIgnoreIA5Match
SYNTAX '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.26{256}'
SINGLE-VALUE
)
The 'mailRoutingAddress' attribute indicates a routing address for
the recipient. The address MUST conform to the syntax of an
'addr-spec' in [3]. An intermediary MTA MUST use this information to
route the message to the MTA that handles mail for this recipient,
e.g., the envelope address MUST be rewritten to this value. This is
useful in cases where, for a given recipient, the target MTA prefers
a particular address to appear as the recipient address in the SMTP
envelope. 'mailRoutingAddress' MAY be used as an alternative to
'mailHost', and is intended to have the same effect as 'mailHost'
except that 'mailRoutingAddress' is an address for rewriting the
envelope. With 'mailHost', the envelope address either is not
rewritten, or is rewritten according to implementation-specific rules
and/or configuration.
If both 'mailHost' and 'mailRoutingAddress' are present, MTAs MUST
interpret it to mean that messages are to be routed to the host
indicated by 'mailHost', while rewriting the envelope as per
'mailRoutingAddress'. In theory, there could be peculiar cases where
this is necessary, but this is not normally expected.
Absence of both 'mailHost' and 'mailRoutingAddress' MAY be considered
an error, unless "location-independent" recipient types are supported
by the various MTAs within the organization. This would allow any
MTA in the organization to handle the processing of mail for, say, a
mailing list. This presumes that the various MTAs all recognize the
recipient type in question, suggesting a need to standardize
recipient types that could be "location-independent".
In short, routing attributes may be used by an LDAP entry to answer
the question "how should MTAs route mail to this account?"
(analogous to using the sendmail "aliases" database for per-user
routing within an organization). This is in contrast with
"forwarding"; forwarding and delivery options may be specified in an
LDAP entry to answer the question "what happens to mail once it
arrives at this account?", which may include forwarding to some other
account within or outside the organization (analogous to using the
sendmail ".forward" file). Such options are outside the scope of the
'inetLocalMailRecipient' schema definition.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 6]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
The following possibilities exist as a result of an LDAP lookup on an
address:
mailHost is mailRoutingAddress is Results in
----------- --------------------- ----------
set to a set mail routed to
"local" host mailRoutingAddress
set to a not set delivered to
"local" host original address
set to a set relay to mailHost
remote host using mailRoutingAddress
set to a not set original address
remote host relayed to mailHost
not set set mail routed to
mailRoutingAddress
not set not set error or
"location-independent"
The term "local" host above means the host specified is one that the
local (target) MTA considers to be a local delivery. The local MTA
MAY rewrite the original address when mailRoutingAddress is not set
if local conventions warrant the change.
5. Examples
The following examples illustrate possible uses of the
'inetLocalMailRecipient' object class. Note that the examples
include attributes defined outside of this document to demonstrate a
complete record. The existence of these attributes in the example is
not an indication that these attributes are used for LDAP-based mail
routing (e.g., the 'mail' is not used for mail routing).
Here is an example of an LDAP entry representing a mail user:
dn: uid=joe,o=Example Corp,c=US
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
objectClass: inetLocalMailRecipient
objectClass: nsMessagingServerUser
cn: Joe User
sn: User
uid: joe
userPassword: {crypt}y2KxtbzMYnApU
mail: [email protected]
Lachman, et. al. [Page 7]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
mailLocalAddress: [email protected]
mailLocalAddress: [email protected]
mailHost: nsmail1.example.com
mailDeliveryOption: mailbox
mailQuota: 1000000
mailForwardingAddress: [email protected]
Joe User is a user of a hypothetical mail system called NS Messaging.
Let's say mail arrives on an MTA called "mx.example.com", addressed
to "[email protected]". That MTA searches the directory for a mail
recipient with that address, using an LDAP search filter [8] such as:
(&(objectClass=inetLocalMailRecipient)
([email protected]))
It finds Joe's LDAP entry, and routes the message to the target MTA
"nsmail1.example.com", while not rewriting the SMTP envelope
recipient address. Then, "nsmail1.example.com" receives the message,
searches for and finds the recipient in the directory, ascertains
that it is the recipient's target MTA, and handles the message as per
other attributes in the recipient's entry and/or the MTA
configuration (in this case, the message is delivered to a mailbox,
and forwarded to another recipient).
Note that this document does not specify the rules an MTA is to use
to ascertain whether or not it is the target MTA for a given
recipient (it could check the recipient's 'mailHost' value against
its own hostname, or check the recipient's 'mailRoutingAddress', or
check the MTA configuration, or some combination of these).
Here is another example of an LDAP entry representing a mail user:
dn: uid=john,o=Example Corp,c=US
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
objectClass: inetLocalMailRecipient
objectClass: xyzMailUser
cn: John Doe
sn: Doe
uid: john
userPassword: {crypt}y2KxtbzMYnApU
mail: [email protected]
mailLocalAddress: [email protected]
mailRoutingAddress: [email protected]
xyzPostOfficeName: PO_1
xyzClusterNumber: 3
xyzMessageStoreId: 9
Lachman, et. al. [Page 8]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
John Doe is a user of a hypothetical mail system called XYZ Mail.
Let's say mail arrives on an MTA called "mx.example.com", addressed
to "[email protected]". That MTA searches the directory for a mail
recipient with that address, and routes the message to "xyz-
gw.example.com", rewriting the SMTP envelope recipient address to
"[email protected]", as per the 'mailRoutingAddress'. On
"xyz-gw.example.com", the message is gatewayed into the XYZ Mail
system and then dealt with as per other attributes.
Here is an example of an LDAP entry representing a mailing list:
dn: cn=Scuba Group,o=Example Corp,c=US
objectClass: top
objectClass: groupOfUniqueNames
objectClass: inetLocalMailRecipient
objectClass: mailGroup
cn: Scuba Group
mail: [email protected]
mailLocalAddress: [email protected]
mailHost: host42.example.com
mgrpRFC822MailMember: [email protected]
mgrpRFC822MailMember: [email protected]
The Scuba Group is a mail group (mailing list) that includes two
members. A message addressed to "[email protected]" is routed to
"host42.example.com" where it is then resent to the mailing list
members.
Here is an example of an LDAP entry representing a forwarding alias:
dn: cn=Jane Roe Forwarding Alias,o=Example,c=US
objectClass: top
objectClass: inetLocalMailRecipient
objectClass: mailForwardingAlias
mail: [email protected]
mailLocalAddress: [email protected]
mailHost: mail.example.org
mailForwardingAddress: [email protected]
cn: Jane Roe Forwarding Alias
This entry uses a hypothetical object class 'mailForwardingAlias'
that is not specified here, but is used as an example of how an LDAP
entry might represent such a recipient type. A message addressed to
"[email protected]" is routed to "mail.example.org" where it is
then forwarded. In this case, Jane Roe may be a former member of the
Example Organization, and they are forwarding her mail to her new
address elsewhere.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 9]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
6. Security Considerations
As in all cases where account information is stored in an LDAP-based
directory service, network administrators must be careful to ensure
that their directory service controls users' access to the entries
and attributes stored therein, according to site policy. In
particular, mail routing information should not be accessible from
outside the organization, since it is intended for use only by MTAs
within the organization.
7. Acknowledgments
The 'inetLocalMailRecipient' object class is based on an earlier
design done by the Netscape Messaging and Directory Server teams,
which was implemented and deployed to customers as part of Netscape
Messaging Server. Various team members contributed to the design,
including Bill Fitler, Bruce Steinback, Prabhat Keni, Mike Macgirvin,
John Myers, John Kristian, Tim Howes, Mark Smith, and Leif Hedstrom.
Thanks also to Jeff Hodges of Stanford for contributing to the early
design discussions, and to the other participants in the IETF LASER
BOF, including, from Sun Microsystems, John Beck, Anil Srivastava,
and Darryl Huff.
8. References
[1] M. Wahl, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997.
[2] J. Postel, "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", STD 10, RFC 821,
August 1982.
[3] D. Crocker, "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text
Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, August 1982.
[4] "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection -
The Directory: Overview of Concepts, Models and Service", ISO/IEC JTC
1/SC21, International Standard 9594-1, 1988.
[5] C. Partridge, "Mail routing and the domain system", STD 14, RFC
974, January 1986.
[6] R. Braden, "Requirements for Internet hosts - application and
support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989.
[7] M. Wahl, A. Coulbeck, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight X.500
Directory Access Protocol (v3): Attribute Syntax Definitions", RFC
2252, December 1997.
[8] T. Howes, "The String Representation of LDAP Search Filters",
RFC 2254, December 1997.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 10]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
[9] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[10] K. Moore, "SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status
Notifications", RCP 1891, January 1996.
9. Authors' Addresses
Hans Lachman
Netscape Communications Corp.
501 East Middlefield Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone: (650) 254-1900
EMail: [email protected]
Gregory Neil Shapiro
Sendmail, Inc.
6603 Shellmound Street
Emeryville, CA 94608-1042
Phone: +1 510-594-5522
Fax: +1 510-594-5411
EMail: [email protected]
X. Change Summary
X.1.1 Substantive changes between
draft-lachman-laser-ldap-mail-routing-00.txt and
draft-lachman-laser-ldap-mail-routing-01.txt
(i) Added Gregory Neil Shapiro as another author.
(ii) Changed Draft heaer.
(iii) Added "Conventions Used in this Document" section.
(iv) Replaced RFC mentions with reference numbers.
(v) Add new MUST/SHOULD/MAY sections to bring more in line with
RFC documents.
(vi) Clarify job of MTA in Overview by adding third paragraph.
(vii) mailRoutingAddress can be outside of administrative control.
(viii) Eliminated use of 'mail' attribute for mail routing.
(ix) Changed name of 'mailAlternateAddress' to 'mailLocalAddress'.
(x) Remove "routable" from 'mailLocalAddress' description.
(xi) Clarify which addresses MUST be in 'mailLocalAddress'.
(xii) Allow for multiple responses if they all have the same
routing attribute values.
(xiii) Clarify use of MX records on routing attributes.
(xiv) Add a table to clarify use of 'mailHost' and
'mailRoutingAddress'.
(xv) Remove document weakening statements from section 5.
(xvi) Only use reserved domains (example.com, example.org) in
examples.
(xvii) Clean up references
(xviii) Added section X to list the changes between draft versions.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 11]
INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP Schema for Intranet Mail Routing January 2001
X.1.2 Substantive changes between
draft-lachman-laser-ldap-mail-routing-01.txt and
draft-lachman-laser-ldap-mail-routing-02.txt
(i) Changed Intended Category from Standard Track to Informational.
(ii) Removed references to mailGroup document which has expired.
(iii) Add additional Overview text from RL 'Bob' Morgan.
(iv) If a domain uses LDAP-based routing, require all MTAs in that
domain to either use LDAP for routing or forward mail to an
MTA which uses LDAP for routing.
(v) Add more text regarding "local" domain.
(vi) Tighten rules for better interoperability. Multiple,
matching results is now treated as an unsuccessful lookup.
(vii) Tighten rules for better interoperability. Change the action
for a lookup which returns both a 'mailHost' and
'mailRoutingAddress' to a MUST (from a MAY).
(viii) Point out that examples contain attributes which are not part of
this spec and should not be used for mail routing
(specifically, 'mail').
(ix) Clean up text.
(x) NOTE: Still need vendor-neutral OIDs for the objectClass and
attributes.
10. Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999-2001). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished
to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise
explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied,
published and distributed, in whole or in part, without
restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice
and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative
works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any
way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the
Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed
for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the
procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards
process must be followed, or as required to translate it into
languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not
be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on
an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Lachman, et. al. [Page 12]
|
