RFC 6196

Moving mailserver: URI Scheme to Historic 🎀

okay bestie, this is RFC 6196 and it's giving housekeeping with main character energy 💅 Here's the title block tea ☕

• Request for Comments: 6196
• Author: A. Melnikov, Isode Limited
• Date: March 2011
• Category: Standards Track
• Updates: RFC 1738
• Obsoletes: nothing listed
• ISSN: 2070-1721

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Abstract ✨

so basically this doc puts the mailserver: URI scheme into the historic bin in the IANA URI registry 🗂️ it's a whole retirement arc, periodt

Status of This Memo 📜

this is an Internet Standards Track document 🔥 it's an IETF product and it reflects the consensus of the IETF community. it got public review and the IESG approved it for publication. if you want more on Internet Standards, check Section 2 of RFC 5741. for the current status, any errata, and how to send feedback, go to http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6196 🦋

Copyright Notice 🌸

Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

this document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) as they were on the date this was published. please actually read those, because they spell out your rights and restrictions for this document 🙈 any Code Components pulled out of this doc have to include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions, and they come with no warranty, as the Simplified BSD License describes.

Table of Contents 🧚

1. Introduction and Overview .......................................2
2. Security Considerations .........................................2
3. IANA Considerations .............................................2
4. References ......................................................3
   4.1. Normative References .......................................3
   4.2. Informative References .....................................3

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1. Introduction and Overview ✨

okay so [RFC1738] registered the mailserver: URI scheme as provisional in the IANA URI registry, which is defined by [RFC4395]. it described the scheme as "Access to data available from mail servers" and that's it, no more details 😭 the author of this doc isn't aware of any other more detailed definition of mailserver: either. as it's currently specified, the scheme is not interoperable 💀

there's a small risk that someone looks at IANA's registry, decides to implement the scheme, and invents some undocumented syntax for it 🙈 to lower that risk, this doc discourages any future implementations of the scheme and asks IANA to mark it as Historic in the URI scheme registry.

there were some earlier attempts to document mailserver: in detail, but they didn't work out 💔 if you want to build instructions for generating an email message [RFC5322], use the mailto: URI scheme [RFC6068] instead. if you want to reference a message or a set of messages in a mailstore over IMAP [RFC3501], POP [RFC1939], or the web [RFC2616], use the imap: [RFC5092], pop: [RFC2384], or http: [RFC2616] URIs respectively 🫶

2. Security Considerations 🔐

the mailserver: URI scheme was never properly documented in the past, so it doesn't interoperate. this is a whole saga. there are no known implementations of this URI scheme 😱

3. IANA Considerations 🦋

IANA has re-registered the mailserver: URI scheme as Historic in the URI scheme registry and updated the reference so it points to this document ✨

4. References 📚

4.1. Normative References

[RFC4395]  Hansen, T., Hardie, T., and L. Masinter, "Guidelines and
           Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes", BCP 35,
           RFC 4395, February 2006.

4.2. Informative References

[RFC1738]  Berners-Lee, T., Masinter, L., and M. McCahill, "Uniform
           Resource Locators (URL)", RFC 1738, December 1994.

[RFC1939]  Myers, J. and M. Rose, "Post Office Protocol - Version 3",
           STD 53, RFC 1939, May 1996.

[RFC2384]  Gellens, R., "POP URL Scheme", RFC 2384, August 1998.

[RFC2616]  Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
           Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
           Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.

[RFC3501]  Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
           4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.

[RFC5092]  Melnikov, A. and C. Newman, "IMAP URL Scheme", RFC 5092,
           November 2007.

[RFC5322]  Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 5322,
           October 2008.

[RFC6068]  Duerst, M., Masinter, L., and J. Zawinski, "The 'mailto'
           URI Scheme", RFC 6068, October 2010.

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Author's Address 🎀

Alexey Melnikov
Isode Limited
5 Castle Business Village
36 Station Road
Hampton, Middlesex  TW12 2BX
UK

EMail: Alexey.Melnikov@isode.com