Network Working S.E. Hardcastle-Kille Group ISODE Consortium INTERNET-DRAFT July 1992 Expires: January 1993 MHS use of Directory to support MHS Routing Status of this Memo This document is an Internet Draft. 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. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a "working draft" or "work in progress." Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in each Internet Draft directory to learn the current status of this or any other Internet Draft. Abstract This document specifies an approach for X.400 Message Handling Systems to perform application level routing using the OSI Directory [MHS88, CCI88]. Use of the directory in this manner is fundamental to enabling large scale deployment of X.400. This draft document will be submitted to the RFC editor as a protocol standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Please send comments to the author or to the discussion group . INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 Contents 1 Introduction 6 2 Work to be done 6 3 Goals 7 4 Approach 9 5 Direct vs Indirect Connection 10 6 X.400 and RFC 822 13 7 Objects 13 8 Communities 14 9 Routing Trees 16 9.1 Routing Tree Definition . . . . . . . 16 9.2 The Open Community Routing Tree . . . . . 17 9.3 Routing Tree Location . . . . . . . 17 9.4 Example Routing Trees . . . . . . . 17 9.5 Use of Routing Trees to look up Information . . 18 10 Routing Tree Selection 19 10.1 Routing Tree Order . . . . . . . . 19 10.2 Example use of Routing Trees . . . . . . 20 10.2.1 Fully Open Organisation . . . . . 20 10.2.2 Open Organisation with Fallback . . . 20 10.2.3 Minimal-routing MTA . . . . . . 21 10.2.4 Organisation with Firewall . . . . . 21 10.2.5 Well Known Entry Points . . . . . 21 10.2.6 ADMD using the Open Community for Advertising 22 10.2.7 ADMD/PRMD gateway . . . . . . . 22 Expires: January 1993 Page 1 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 11 Routing Information 22 11.1 MTA Choice . . . . . . . . . . 26 11.2 Routing Filters . . . . . . . . . 28 12 Local Addresses (UAs) 30 13 Indirect Connectivity 33 14 Direct Lookup 34 15 Alternate Routes 34 15.1 Finding Alternate Routes . . . . . . . 34 15.2 Sharing routing information . . . . . . 34 16 Looking up Information in the Directory 35 17 Naming MTAs 36 17.1 Naming 1984 MTAs . . . . . . . . . 38 18 Attributes Associated with the MTA 38 19 Bilateral Agreements 38 20 MTA Selection 40 20.1 Dealing with protocol mismatches . . . . . 40 20.2 Supported Protocols . . . . . . . . 40 20.3 MTA Capability Restrictions . . . . . . 41 20.4 Subtree Capability Restrictions . . . . . 41 21 MTA Pulling Messages 41 22 Security and Policy 43 22.1 Finding the Name of the Calling MTA . . . . 43 22.2 Authentication . . . . . . . . . 44 22.3 Authentication Information . . . . . . 46 Expires: January 1993 Page 2 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 23 Policy and Authorisation 48 23.1 Simple MTA Policy . . . . . . . . 48 23.2 Complex MTA Policy . . . . . . . . 49 24 Trace and Rerouting 50 25 Redirects 50 26 Non Delivery 51 27 Bad Addresses 51 28 Submission 53 28.1 Normal Derivation . . . . . . . . 53 28.2 Roles and Groups . . . . . . . . . 53 29 Protocol Extensions 54 30 Format Conversion 56 31 Access Units 58 32 The Overall Routing Algorithm 59 32.1 X.400 Routing . . . . . . . . . 59 32.2 Pseudo Code . . . . . . . . . . 60 32.3 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . 60 33 Performance 60 34 Acknowledgements 60 35 Security Considerations 62 36 Author's Address 62 A Object Identifier Assignment 63 Expires: January 1993 Page 3 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 B Community Identifier Assignments 65 C Protocol Identifier Assignments 66 D ASN.1 Summary 66 E Regular Expression Syntax 66 Expires: January 1993 Page 4 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 List of Figures 1 Location of Routing Trees . . . . . . 17 2 Routing Tree Use Definition . . . . . . 19 3 Routing Information at a Node . . . . . 24 4 UA Attributes . . . . . . . . . 30 5 Indirect Access . . . . . . . . . 33 6 MTA Definitions . . . . . . . . . 37 7 MTA Bilateral Table Entry . . . . . . 39 8 Transport Community Definition . . . . . 40 9 Subtree Capability Restriction . . . . . 42 10 Pulling Messages . . . . . . . . . 43 11 Authentication Requirements . . . . . . 45 12 MTA Authentication Parameters . . . . . 47 13 Simple MTA Policy Specification . . . . . 48 14 Redirect Definition . . . . . . . . 51 15 Non Delivery Information . . . . . . . 52 16 Bad Address Pointers . . . . . . . . 53 17 Per-recipient Protocol Extensions . . . . 55 18 Per-message Protocol Extensions . . . . . 56 19 Format Conversion Registration . . . . . 57 20 Access Unit Attributes . . . . . . . 58 21 Object Identifier Assignment . . . . . . 64 22 Transport Community Object Identifier Assignments 65 23 Protocol Object Identifier Assignments . . . 66 List of Tables 1 Possible target end to end delays . . . . 8 Expires: January 1993 Page 5 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 1 Introduction MHS Routing is the problem of controlling the path of a message as it traverses one or more MTAs to reach its destination recipients. Routing starts with a recipient O/R Address, and parameters associated with the message to be routed. It is assumed that this is known a priori, or is derived at submission time as described in Section 28 The key problem in routing is to map from an O/R Address onto an MTA (next hop). This should be an MTA which in some sense is ``nearer'' to the destination UA. This is done repeatedly until the message can be directly delivered to the recipient UA. There are a number of things which need to be considered to determine this. These are discussed in the subsequent sections. A description of the overall routing process is given in Section 32. 2 Work to be done This section notes things which still need to be done to this document, and also to other documents in the series. This includes: 1. Formalising ASN.1: defining modules and variable imports. (all documents) 2. Provide pseudo-code to describe the algorithm more clearly 3. Write a general note on MHS Use of Directory, summarising what is already defined in X.402, and showing how this work relates to it. 4. It was suggested that format conversion be factored out into another document. This has not been done, as it is only three pages long, and the decoupling costs more effort than it gains. 5. More examples 6. Notes on performance 7. Acknowledgements 8. Update I-D cross-references 9. Add appendix on regex Expires: January 1993 Page 6 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 10. List of attributes which affect routing 3 Goals Application level routing for MHS is a complex procedure, with many requirements. The following goals for the solution are set: o Straightforward to manage. Non-trivial configuration of routing for current message handling systems is a black art, often involving gathering and processing many tables, and editing complex configuration files. Many problems are solved in a very ad hoc manner. Managing routing for MHS is the most serious headache for most mail system managers. o Economic, both in terms of network and computational resources. o Robust. Errors and out of date information should cause minimal and local damage. o Deal with link failures. There should be some ability to choose alternative routes. In general, the routing approach should be redundant. o Load sharing. Information on routes should allow ``equal'' routes to be specified, and thus facilitate load sharing. o Support format and protocol conversion o Dynamic and automatic. There should be no need for manual propagation of tables or administrator intervention. o Policy robust. It should not allow specification of policies which cause undesirable routing effects. o Reasonably straightforward to implement. o Deal with X.400, RFC 822, and their interaction. o Extensible to other mail architectures o Recognise existing RFC 822 routing, and coexist smoothly. Expires: January 1993 Page 7 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _____________________________________________________________ |______________|High_Priority_|Normal_Priority_|Low_Priority_|_ |50%_max_delay_|0.5_hour______|1_hour__________|12_hours_____| |98%_max_delay_|3_hours_______|12_hours________|24_hours_____| |max_delay_____|6_hours_______|72_hours________|96_hours_____| Table 1: Possible target end to end delays o Improve RFC 822 routing capabilities. This is particularly important for RFC 822 sites not in the SMTP Internet. o Deal correctly with different X.400 protocols (P1, P3, P7), and with 1984 and 1988 versions. o Support X.400 operation over multiple protocol stacks (TCP/IP, CONS, CLNS) and in different communities. o Messages should be routed consistently. Alternate routing strategies, which might introduce unexpected delay, should be used with care (e.g. routing through a protocol converter due to unavailability of an X.400 MTA). o End to End delay should be minimised. Table 1 indicates the sort of target which might be aimed for. The figures are illustrative of the sort of target which might be set. They are better than achieved in most current Research Networks. They are larger that the CEN/Cenelec figures, which were probably written by someone who has never run an MHS Network. The long tail-offs on Normal and Low priority recognise the fact that some end systems will not get 24 hour operator coverage (whereas international MTAs should). In the case of a high priority message, a non-delivery notification should be returned within the suggested time. o Interact sensibly with ADMD services provided by PTTs or RPOAs. o Be global in scope o Routing strategy should deal with a scale of order of magnitude 106 -- 107 MTAs. o Routing strategy should deal with of order 106 -- 107 Organisations. Expires: January 1993 Page 8 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 o Information about alterations in topology should propagate rapidly to sites affected by the change. o Removal, examination, or destruction of messages by third parties should be difficult. This is hard to quantify, but ``difficult'' should be comparable to the effort needed to break system security on a typical MTA system. o As with current Research Networks, it should be recognised that prevention of forged mail will not always be possible. However, this should be as hard as can be afforded. o Sufficient tracing and logging should be available to track down security violations and faults. o Optimisation of routing messages with multiple recipients, in cases where this involves selection of preferred single recipient routes. The following are not initial goals: o Advanced optimisation of routing messages with multiple recipients, noting dependencies between the recipients to find routes which would not have been chosen for either of the single recipients. o Dynamic load balancing. The approach does not give a means to determine load. However, information on alternate routes is provided, which is the static information needed for load balancing. 4 Approach A broad problem statement, and a survey of earlier approaches to the problem is given in the COSINE Study on MHS Topology and Routing [Kil88]. The interim (table-based) approach suggested in this study, whilst not being followed in detail, broadly reflects what the MHS community is doing. The evolving specification of the RARE table format is defined in [Epp91]. This document specifies the envisaged longer term approach. Although this work is important and needed now, there is a coherent interim approach, and this work should not be Expires: January 1993 Page 9 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 rushed. Some documents have made useful contributions to this work: o My paper on MHS use of directory, which laid out the broad approach of mapping the O/R Address space on to the DIT [Kil87]. o The current OSI Standardisation work on MHS use of Directory for routing. The concept of Routing Entity is a useful one [MHS91]. o The work of the VERDI Project [CTW+90]. o Work by Kevin Jordan of CDC [Jor91]. o The routing approach of ACSNet [DLKE85, LKF91] paper. This gives useful ideas on incremental routing, and replicating routing data. o A lot of work on network routing is becoming increasingly relevant. As the MHS routing problem increases in size, and network routing increases in sophistication (e.g., policy based routing), the two areas have increasing amounts in common. For example, see [Chi91]. 5 Direct vs Indirect Connection Two extreme approaches to routing connectivity are: 1. High connectivity between MTAs. An example of this is the way the Domain Name Server system is used on the DARPA/NSF Internet. Essentially, all MTAs are fully interconnected. 2. Low connectivity between MTAs. An example of this is the UUCP network. In general an intermediate approach is desirable. Too sparse a connectivity is inefficient, and leads to undue delays. However, full connectivity is not desirable, for the reasons discussed below. A number of general issues related to relaying are now considered. The reasons for avoiding relaying are clear. These include. o Efficiency. If there is an open network, it should be used. Expires: January 1993 Page 10 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 o Extra hops introduce delay, and increase the (very small) possibility of message loss. As a basic principle, hop count should be minimised. o Busy relays or Well Known Entry points can introduce high delay and lead to single point of failure. o If there is only one hop, it is straightforward for the user to monitor progress of messages submitted. If a message is delayed, the user can take appropriate action. o Many users like the security of direct transmission. It is a argument often given very strongly for use of SMTP. Despite these very powerful arguments, there are a number of reasons why some level of relaying is desirable: o Charge optimisation. If there is an expensive network/link to be traversed, it may make sense to restrict its usage to a small number of MTAs. This would allow for optimisation with respect to the charging policy of this link. o Copy optimisation. If a message is being sent to two remote MTAs which are close together, it is usually optimal to send the message to one of the MTAs (for both recipients), and let it pass a copy to the other MTA. o To access an intermediate MTA for some value added service. In particular for: -- Message Format Conversion -- Distribution List expansion o Dealing with different protocols. The store and forward approach allows for straightforward conversion. Relevant cases include: -- Provision of X.400 over different OSI Stacks (e.g. Connectionless Network Service). -- Use of a different version of X.400. Expires: January 1993 Page 11 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 -- Interaction with non-X.400 mail services o To compensate for inadequate directory services: If tables are maintained in an ad hoc manner, the manual effort to gain full connectivity is too high. o To hide complexity of structure. If an organisation has many MTAs, it may still be advantageous to advertise a single entry point to the outside world. It will be more efficient to have an extra hop, than to (widely) distribute the information required to connect directly. This will also encourage stability, as organisations need to change internal structure much more frequently than their external entry points. For many organisations, establishing such firewalls is high priority. o To handle authorisation, charging and security issues. In general, it is desirable to deal with user oriented authorisation at the application level. This is essential when MHS specific parameters must be taken into consideration. It may well be beneficial for organisations to have a single MTA providing access to the external world, which can apply a uniform access policy (e.g. as to which people are allowed access). This would be particularly true in a multi-vendor environment, where different systems would otherwise have to enforce the same policy --- using different vendor-specific mechanisms. In summary there are strong reasons for an intermediate approach. This will be achieved by providing mechanisms for both direct and indirect connectivity. The manager of a configuration will then be able to make appropriate choices for the environment. Two models of managing large scale routing have evolved: 1. Use of a global directory/database. This is the approach proposed here. 2. Use of a routing table in each MTA, which is managed either by a management protocol or by directory. This is coupled with means to exchange routing information between MTAs. This approach is more analogous to how network level routing is commonly performed, and is the general approach being developed by ISO. It has good characteristics in terms of managing links, and dealing with link related policy. However, it assumes limited connectivity, and Expires: January 1993 Page 12 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 does not adapt well to a network environment with high connectivity available. 6 X.400 and RFC 822 This document defines mechanisms fo X.400 routing. It is important that this can be integrated with RFC 822 base routing, as many MTAs will work in both communities. This routing document is written with this problem in mind, and support for RFC 822 routing using the same basic infrastructure is defined in a companion document [HK92c]. In addition support for X.400/RFC 822 gatewaying is needed, to support interaction. Directory based mechanisms for this are defined in [HK92b]. The advantages of the approach defined by this set of specifications are: o Uniform management for sites which wish to support both protocols. o Simpler management for gateways. o Improved routing services for RFC 822 only sites. For sites which are only X.400 or only RFC 822, the mechanisms associated with gatewaying or with the other form of addressing are not needed. 7 Objects It is useful to start with a managers perspective. Here is the set of object classes used in this specification. It is important that all information entered relates to something which is being managed. If this is achieved, configuration decisions are much more likely to be correct. In the examples, distinguished names are written using the User Friendly Name Syntax [HK92d]. The list of objects used in this specification is: User An entry representing a single human user. This will typically be named in an organisational context. For example: Steve Kille, Computer Science, University College London, GB Expires: January 1993 Page 13 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 This entry would have associated information, such as telephone number, postal address, and mailbox. MTA A Message Transfer Agent. In general, the binding between machines and MTAs will be complex. Often a small number of MTAs will be used to support many machines, by use of local approaches such as NFS. The MTA will identify its OSI location. User Agent (Mailbox) This defines the User Agent (UA) to which mail may be delivered. This will define the account with which the UA is associated, and may also point to the user(s) associated with the UA. It will identify which MTAs1 are able to access the UA. Role Some organisational function. For example: System Manager, Computer Science, University College London, GB The associated entry would indicate the occupant of the role. Distribution Lists There would be an entry representing the distribution list, with information about the list, the manger, and members of the list. 8 Communities There are two basic types of agreement in which an MTA may participate in order to facilitate routing: Open Agreements An agreement between a collection of MTAs to behave in a cooperative fashion to route traffic. This may be viewed as a general bilateral agreement. Bilateral Agreements An agreement between a pair of MTAs to route certain types of traffic. This MTA pair agreement usually reflects a higher level agreement. It is an important special ---------------------------- 1. In the formal X.400 model, there will be a single MTA delivering to a UA. In many practical configurations, multiple MTAs can deliver to a single UA. This will increase robustness, and is desirable. Expires: January 1993 Page 14 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 case of the first, as bilateral information must be held for the link at both ends. In some cases, this information must be private. It is important to ensure that there are sufficient agreements in place for all messages to be routed. This will usually be done by having agreements which correspond to the addressing hierarchy. For X.400, this is the model where a PRMD connects to an ADMD, and the ADMD provides the inter PRMD connectivity, by the ability to route to all other ADMDs. Other agreements may be added to this hierarchy, in order to improve the efficiency of routing. In general, there may be valid addresses, which cannot be routed to, either for connectivity or policy reasons. We model these two types of agreements as communities. A community is a scope in which an MTA advertises its services and learns about other services. Each MTA will: 1. Register its services in one or more communities. 2. Look up services in one or more communities. In most cases an MTA will deal with a very small number of communities --- very often one only. There are a number of different types of community. The open community This is a public/global scope. It reflects routing information which is made available to any MTA which wishes to use it. The local community This is the scope of a single MTA. It reflects routing information private to the MTA. It will contain an MTAs view of the set of bilateral agreements in which it participates, and routing information private and local to the MTA. Hierarchical communities A hierarchical community is a subtree of the O/R Address tree. For example, it might be a management domain, an organisation, or an organisational unit. This sort of community will allow for firewalls to be established. A community can have complex internal structure, and register a small subset of that externally. Expires: January 1993 Page 15 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 Closed communities A closed community is a set of MTAs which agrees to route amongst themselves. Examples of this might be ADMDs within a country, or a set of PRMDs representing the same organisation in multiple countries. Formally, a community indicates the scope over which a service is advertised. In practice, it will tend to reflect the scope of services offered. It does not make sense to offer a public service, and only advertise it locally. Public advertising of a private service makes more sense, and this is shown below. In general, having a community offer services corresponding to the scope in which they are advertised will lead to routing efficiency. Examples of how communities can be used to implement a range of routing policies are given in Section 10.2. 9 Routing Trees Communities are a useful abstract definition of the routing approach taken by this specification. Each community is represented in the directory as a routing tree. There will be many routing trees instantiated in the directory. Typically, an MTA will only be registered in and make use of a small number of routing trees. In most cases, it will register in and use the same set of routing trees. 9.1 Routing Tree Definition Each community has a model of the O/R address space. Within a community, there is a general model of what to do with a given O/R Address. This is structured hierarchically, according to the O/R address hierarchy. A community can register different possible actions, depending on the depth of match. This might include identifying the MTA associated with a UA which is matched fully, and providing a default route for an O/R address where there is no match in the community --- and all intermediate forms. The name structure of a routing tree follows the O/R address hierarchy, which is specified in a separate document [HK92a]. Where there is any routing action associated with a node in a routing tree, the node is of object class routingInformation, as defined in Section 11. Expires: January 1993 Page 16 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ routingTreeRoot OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF oRAddressComponent, subtree ::= oc-routing-treee-root _________________Figure_1:__Location_of_Routing_Trees__________________ 9.2 The Open Community Routing Tree The routing tree of the open community starts at the root of the DIT. This routing tree also serves the special function of instantiating the global O/R Address space in the Directory. Thus, if a UA wishes to publish information to the world, this hierarchy allows it to do so. The O/R Address hierarchy is a registered tree, which may be instantiated in the directory. Names at all points in the tree are valid, and there is no requirement that the namespace is instantiated by the owner of the name. For example, a PRMD may make an entry in the DIT, even if the ADMD above it does not. In this case, there will be a ``skeletal'' entry for the ADMD, which is used to hang the PRMD entry in place. This might be thought of as directory knowledge information. 9.3 Routing Tree Location All routing trees follow the same O/R address hierarchy. Routing trees other than the open community routing tree are rooted at arbitrary parts of the DIT. These routing trees are instantiated using the subtree mechanism defined in the companion document ``Representing Tables and Subtrees in the Directory'' [HK92a]. A routing tree is identified by the point at which it is rooted. An MTA will use a list of routing trees, as determined by the mechanism described in Section 10. Routing trees may be located in either the organisational or O/R address structured part of the DIT. All routing trees, other than the open community routing tree, are rooted by an entry of object class RoutingTreeRoot, as defined in Figure 1. 9.4 Example Routing Trees Consider routing trees with entries for O/R Address: Expires: January 1993 Page 17 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 PRMD=UK.AC; ADMD=Gold 400; C=GB; In the open community routing tree, this would have a distinguished name of: PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, GB Consider a routing tree which is private to: University College London, GB They might choose to label a routing tree root ``UCL Routing Tree'', which would lead to a routing tree root of: UCL Routing Tree, University College London, GB The O/R address in question would be stored in this routing tree as: PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, C=GB, CN=UCL Routing Tree, University College London, GB 9.5 Use of Routing Trees to look up Information Lookup of an O/R address in a routing tree is done as follows: 1. Map the O/R address onto the O/R address hierarchy described in [HK92a] in order to generate a Distinguished Name. 2. Append this to the Distinguished Name of the routing tree, and then look up the whole name. 3. Handling of errors will depend on the application of the lookup, and is discussed later. Note that it is valid to look up a null O/R Address, as the routing tree root may contain default routing information for the routing tree. This is held in the root entry of the routing tree, which is a Expires: January 1993 Page 18 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ routingTreeList ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX RoutingTreeList SINGLE VALUE ::= at-routing-tree-list RoutingTreeList ::= SEQUENCE OF RoutingTreeName RoutingTreeName ::= CHOICE { named-tree DistinguishedName, 10 open-community NULL } ________________Figure_2:__Routing_Tree_Use_Definition_________________ subclass of routingInformation. The open community routing tree does not have a default. Routing trees may have aliases into other routing trees. This will typically be done to optimise lookups from the first routing tree which a given MTA uses. Lookup needs to take account of this. 10 Routing Tree Selection The list of routing trees which a given MTA uses will be represented in the directory. This uses the attribute defined in Figure 2. This attribute defines the routing trees used by an MTA, and the order in which they are used. Holding these in the directory eases configuration management. It also enables an MTA to calculate the routing choice of any other MTA which follows this specification, provided that none of its routing trees have access restrictions. This should facilitate debugging routing problems. 10.1 Routing Tree Order The order in which routing trees are used will be critical to the operation of this algorithm. A common approach will be: 1. Access one or more shared private routing trees to access private routing information. Expires: January 1993 Page 19 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 2. Utilise the open routing tree. 3. Fall back to a default route from one of the private routing trees. Initially, the open routing tree will be very sparse, and there will be little routing information in ADMD level nodes. Access to many services will only be via ADMD services, which in turn will only be accessible via private links. For most MTAs, the fallback routing will be important, in order to gain access to an MTA which has the right private connections configured. In general, for a site, UAs will be registered in one routing tree only, in order to avoid duplication. They may be placed into other routing trees by use of aliases, in order to gain performance. For some sites, Users and UAs with a 1:1 mapping will be mapped onto single entries by use of aliases. 10.2 Example use of Routing Trees Some examples of how this structure might be used are now given. Many other combinations are possible to suit organisational requirements. 10.2.1 Fully Open Organisation The simplest usage is to place all routing information in the open community routing tree. An organisation will simply establish O/R addresses for all of its UAs in the open community tree, each registering its supporting MTA. This will give access to all systems accessible from this open community. 10.2.2 Open Organisation with Fallback In practice, some MTAs and MDs will not be directly reachable from the open community (e.g., ADMDs with a strong model of bilateral agreements). These services will only be available to users/communities with appropriate agreements in place. Therefore it will be useful to have a second (local) routing tree, containing only the name of the fallback MTA at its root. Thus, open routing will be tried first, and if this fails the message will be routed to a single selected MTA. Expires: January 1993 Page 20 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 10.2.3 Minimal-routing MTA The simplest approach to routing is to deliver to associated users, and send everything else to a single MTA (possibly with backup). A organisation using MTAs with this approach will register its users as for the fully open organisation. A single routing tree will be established, with the name of the organisation being aliased into the open community routing tree. Thus the MTA will correctly identify local users, but use a fallback mechanism for all other addresses. 10.2.4 Organisation with Firewall An organisation can establish an organisation community to build a firewall, with the overall organisation being registered in the open community. This is an important structure, which cannot be achieved easily with current technology (e.g., DNS with MX records). o Some MTAs are registered in the open community routing tree to give access into the organisation. This will include the O/R tree down to the organisational level. Full O/R Address verification will not take place externally. o All users are registered in a private (organisational) routing tree. o All MTAs in the organisation are registered in the organisation's private routing tree, and access information in the organisation's community. This gives full internal connectivity. o Some MTAs in the organisation access the open community routing tree. These MTAs take traffic from the organisation to the outside world. These will often be the same MTAs that are externally advertised. 10.2.5 Well Known Entry Points Well known entry points will be used to provide access to countries and MDs which are oriented to private links. A private routing tree will be established, which indicates these links. This tree would be shared by the well known entry points. Expires: January 1993 Page 21 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 10.2.6 ADMD using the Open Community for Advertising An ADMD uses the open community for advertising. It advertises its existence and also restrictive policy. This will be useful for: o Address validation o Advertising the mechanism for a bilateral link to be established 10.2.7 ADMD/PRMD gateway An MTA provides a gateway from a PRMD to an ADMD. It is important to note that many X.400 MDs will not use the directory. This is quite legitimate. This technique can be used to register access into such communities from those that use the directory. o The MTA registers the ADMD in its local community (private link) o The MTA registers itself in the PRMD's community to give access to the ADMD. 11 Routing Information Each node, other than a skeletal one, in a routing tree has information associated with it. This information is defined by the object class routingInformation, which is specified in Figure 3. For example, information might be associated with the node: PRMD=CDC, ADMD=ATTmail, C=US If this node was in the open community routing tree, then the information represents information published by the owner of the PRMD relating to public access to that PRMD. If this node was present in another routing tree, it would represent information published by the owner of the routing tree about access information to the referenced PRMD. The attributes associated with a routingInformation node provide the_following_information:_____________________________________________ routingInformation OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF TOP Expires: January 1993 Page 22 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 MAY CONTAIN { authoritativeAddress, routingFilter, routingFailureAction, mTAInfo, accessMD, nonDeliveryInfo, badAddressSearchPoint, 10 badAddressSearchAttributes} ::= oc-routing-information -- will always be subclassed by an -- object class with a naming attribute authoritativeAddress ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX AddressAuthority SINGLE VALUE ::= at-authoritative-address 20 AddressAuthority ::= ENUMERATED { authoritative(0), non-authoritative(1) } routingFilter ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX RoutingFilter ::= at-routing-filter 30 RoutingFilter ::= SEQUENCE{ attribute-type OBJECT-IDENTIFIER, weight RouteWeight, dda-key String OPTIONAL, regex-match IA5String OPTIONAL, node DistinguishedName } String ::= CHOICE {PrintableString, TeletexString} 40 routingFailureAction ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX RoutingFailureAction SINGLE VALUE ::= at-routing-failure-action RoutingFailureAction ::= ENUMERATED { Expires: January 1993 Page 23 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 next-level(0), next-tree-only(1), next-tree-first(2) } 50 mTAInfo ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX MTAInfo ::= at-mta-info MTAInfo ::= SEQUENCE { name DistinguishedName, weight [1] RouteWeight OPTIONAL, mta-attributes [2] SET OF Attribute OPTIONAL} 60 RouteWeight ::= INTEGER {endpoint(0), preferred-access(5), backup(10)} (0..20) _______________Figure_3:__Routing_Information_at_a_Node________________ o That the node corresponds a valid O/R address. This is implicit in the existence of the entry. o If the node is a UA. This will be true if the node is of object class routedUA. This is described further in Section 12. If it is not of this object class, it is an intermediate node in the O/R Address hierarchy. o Whether or not the node is authoritative for the level below is specified by the authoritativeAddress attribute. If it is authoritative, this will give the basis for (permanently) rejecting invalid O/R Addresses. The attribute is encoded as enumerated, as it may be later possible to add partial authority (e.g., for certain attribute types). If this attribute is missing, the node is assumed to be non-authoritative. For example, consider the node: MHS-O=X-Tel, PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, C=GB Expires: January 1993 Page 24 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 An organisation which has a bilateral agreement with this organisation has this entry in its routing tree, with no children entries. This is marked as non-authoritative. There is a second routing tree maintained by X-Tel, which contains all of the children of this node, and is marked as authoritative. When considering an O/R Address MHS-PN=Random.Unknown, MHS-O=X-Tel, PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, C=GB only the second authoritative routing tree can be used to determine that this address is invalid. o A list of MTAs and associated information defined by the mtaInfo attribute. This information is discussed further in Sections 17 and 20. This information is the key information associated with the node. When a node is matched in a lookup, it indicates the validity of the route, and a set of MTAs to connect to. Selection of MTAs is discussed in Sections 20 and Section 11.1. o An action to be taken if none of the MTAs can be used directly (or if there are no MTAs present) is defined by the routingFailureAction attribute. When an routing tree is being used, it is usually in the context of a sequence of routing trees. If a matched node cannot be used directly, the routing algorithm will have the choice to move up a level in the current routing tree, or to move on to the next routing tree with an option to move back to the first tree later. This option to move back is to allow for the common case where a tree is used to specify two things: 1. Routing information private to the MTA (e.g., local UAs or routing info for bilateral links). 2. Default routing information for the case where other routing has failed. The actions allow for a tree to be followed, for the private information, then for other trees to be used, and finally to fall back to the default situation. For very complex configurations it might be necessary to split this into two trees. The options are: Expires: January 1993 Page 25 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 1. Move up a level in the current routing tree. This is the action implied if the attribute is omitted. This will usually be the best action in the open community routing tree. It is the default action if the attribute is not present. 2. Move to the next tree. This will be useful optimisation for a routing tree where it is known that there is no useful additional routing information higher in the routing tree. 3. Move to the next tree, and then default back to the next level in this tree if no route is found. This will be useful for an MTA to operate in the sequence: (a) Check for optimised private routes (b) Try other available information (c) Fall back to a local default route o The accessMD attribute is discussed in Section 13. This attribute is used if to indicate MDs which provide indirect access to the part of the tree that is being routed to. o The badAddressSearchPoint and badAddressSearchAttributes are discussed in Section 16. This attribute is for when an address has been rejected, and allows information on alternative addresses to be found. o A set of routing filters, defined by the routingFilter attribute. This attribute provides for routing on information in the unmatched part of the O/R Address. This is described in Section 11.2. 11.1 MTA Choice This section considers how the choice between alternate MTAs is made. First, it is useful to consider the conditions why an MTA is entered into a node of the routing tree are considered. -- The manager for the node of the tree must place it there. This is a formality, but critical in terms of overall authority. Expires: January 1993 Page 26 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 -- The MTA manager should agree to it being placed there. -- The MTA will in general (for some class of message) be prepared to route to any valid O/R address in the subtree implied by the address. The only exception to this is where the MTA will route to a subset of the tree which cannot easily be expressed by making entries at the level below. An example might be an MTA prepared to route to all of the subtree, with certain explicit exceptions. Information on each MTA is stored in an mTAInfo attribute. This attribute contains: name The Distinguished Name of the MTA weight A weighting factor (Route Weight) which gives a basis to choose between different MTAs. mta-attributes Attributes from the MTAs entry. Information on the MTA will generally be stored in the MTA's entry. The MTA is represented here as a structure, which enables some of this entry information to be represented in the routing node. This can lead to considerable performance optimisation. For example if ten MTAs were represented at a node, another MTA making a routing decision might need to make ten reads in order to obtain the information needed. If any attributes are present here, all of the attributes needed to make a routing decision will be included. Route weighting is a mechanism to distinguish between different route choices. A routing weight may be associated with the MTA in the context of a routing tree entry. This is because routing weight will always be context dependent. This will allow machines which have other functions to be used as backup MTAs. The Route Weight is an integer in range 0--20. The lower the value, the better the choice of MTA. Where the weight is equal, and no other factors apply, the choice between the MTAs should be random to facilitate load balancing. If the MTA itself is in the list, it should only route to an MTA of lower weight. The exact values will be chosen by the manager of the relevant part of the routing tree. For guidance, three fixed points are given: Expires: January 1993 Page 27 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 -- 0. For an MTA which can deliver directly to the entire subtree implied by the position in the routing tree. -- 5. For an MTA which is preferred for this point in the subtree. -- 10. For a backup MTA. When an organisation registers in multiple routing trees, the route weight used is dependent on the context of the subtree. In general it is not possible to compare weights between subtrees. In some cases, use of route weighting can be used to divert traffic away from expensive links. Attributes that available in the MTA entry and will be needed for making a routing choice are: *** list attributes which must be present here if they are in the MTA *** A full list of MTA attributes, with summaries of their descriptions are given in Section 18. *** delete following list when referenced section is filled in *** -- Picking an MTA which is ``close'' in naming terms (e.g., prefer an MTA in the same PRMD). -- Authentication policy of the MTA (e.g., some MTAs may require strong authentication). This is discussed in Section 22.2. -- Information on the stack offered by the MTA. This is discussed in Section 20.1. -- Policy for the traffic an MTA will route. This is discussed in Section 23. 11.2 Routing Filters This attribute provides for routing on information in the unmatched part of the O/R Address, including: -- Routing on the basis of an O/R Address component type -- Routing on the basis of a substring match of an O/R address component. This might be used to route X121 addressed faxes to an appropriate MTA. Expires: January 1993 Page 28 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 When present, the procedures of analysing the routing filters should be followed before other actions. The routing filter overrides MTAinfo and accessMD attributes. The components of the routingFilter attribute are: attribute-type This gives the attribute type to be matched, and is selected from the attribute types which have not been matched to identify the routing entry. The filter applies to this attribute type. If there is no regex present, the filter is true if the attribute is present. The value is the object identifier of the X.500 attribute type (e.g., at-prmd-name). weight This gives the weight of the filter, which is encoded as a Route Weight. If multiple filters match, the weight of each matched filter is used to select between them. dda-key If the attribute is domain defined, then this parameter may be used to identify the key. regex-match This string is used to give a regular expression match on the attribute value. The syntax for regular expressions is defined in Appendix E. node This defines where to get routing information for the filter. It will be an entry with object class routingInformation, which can be used to determine the MTA or MTA choice. An example of use of routing filters is now given, showing how to route on X121 address to a fax gateway in germany. Consider the routing point. PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, GB The entry associated would have two routing filters: 1. One with type x121 and no regex, to route a default fax gateway. 2. One with type x121 and a regex ^9262 to route all german faxes to a fax gateway located in germany with which there is a bilateral agreement. This would have a lower weight, so that Expires: January 1993 Page 29 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ routedUA OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF routingInformation MAY CONTAIN { -- from X.402 mhs-deliverable-content-length, mhs-deliverable-content-types, mhs-deliverable-eits, mhs-message-store, mhs-preferred-delivery-methods, 10 -- defined here mandatoryRedirect, supportingMTA, filteredRedirect, uAName, nonDeliveryInfo} ::= oc-routed-ua supportingMTA ATTRIBUTE SUBTYPE OF mtaInfo 20 ::= at-supporting-mta uAName ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax ::= at-ua-name _______________________Figure_4:__UA_Attributes________________________ it would be selected over the default fax gateway. 12 Local Addresses (UAs) Local addresses (UAs) are a special case for routing: the endpoint. The definition of the routedUA object class is given in Figure 4. This identifies a User Agent in a routing tree. This is needed for several reasons: 1. To allow UAs to be defined without having an entry in another part of the DIT. Expires: January 1993 Page 30 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 2. To identify which (leaf and non-leaf) nodes in a routing tree are User Agents. In a pure X.400 environment, a UA (as distinct from a connecting part of the O/R address space) is simply identified by object class. Thus an organisation entry can itself be a UA. A UA need not be a leaf, and can thus have children in the tree. 3. To allow UA parameters as defined in X.402 (e.g., the mhs-deliverable-eits) to be determined efficiently from the routing tree, without having to go to the user's entry. 4. To identify the MTA which supports a UA. The MTAs which support a UA directly are noted in the SupportingMTA attribute, which may be multi-valued. X.400 models that only one MTA is associated with a UA. In practice, it is possible and useful for several MTAs to be able to deliver to a single UA. This attribute is a subtype of MTAinfo, as it is possible for an MTA to be registered to route to a UA, without it actually being able to deliver messages to it. This attribute must be present, unless the address is being non-delivered or redirected. 5. The attribute nonDeliveryInfo mandates non-delivery to this address, as described in Section 26. 6. The attributes mandatoryRedirect and filteredRedirect control redirects, as described in Section 25. 7. The attribute uAName points to the distinguished Name of the user. The pointer from the user to the O/R Address is achieved by the mhs-or-addresses attribute. This makes the UA/User linkage symmetrical. When routing to a UA, an MTA will read the supportingMTA attribute. If it finds its own name present, it will know that the UA is local, and invoke appropriate procedures for local delivery (e.g., co-resident or P3 access information). The cost of holding these attributes for each UA at a site will often be reduced by use of attribute inheritance. (*** Editor's note. Comment on linking attributes that I don't understand ***). The linkage between the UA and User entries was noted above. It is also possible to use a single entry for both User and UA, as there is no conflict between these. In this case, the entries should be in one part of the DIT, with aliases from the other. Expires: January 1993 Page 31 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 Many sites will need to support local RFC 822 mailboxes (UAs). As the RFC 822 mailboxes are untyped, it is necessary for such a site to represent every mailbox as an mHSPersonalName object. To support UAs of other object classes, there will then need to be aliases to the correct entry. For example, suppose that there is a UA: MHS-CN=Postmaster, MHS-OU=CS, MHS-O=UCL, PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, GB There will have to be an alias: CN="/CN=Postmaster/", MHS-OU=CS, MHS-O=UCL, PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, GB which points to the real entry. For user convenience, it will also be desirable to have an alias: CN=Postmaster, MHS-OU=CS, MHS-O=UCL, PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, GB If there is a mailbox for: MHS-OU=Sales, MHS-OU=CS, MHS-O=UCL, PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, GB There will need to be an alias: CN="/OU=Sales/", MHS-OU=CS, MHS-O=UCL, PRMD=UK.AC, ADMD=Gold 400, GB In general, aliases can be used extensively at this level to provide alternate values for names. For routing purpose, UAs (Mailboxes) will only be located by the read operation, not by searching. This is for efficiency of overall routing. To support many UNIX mail utilities, it is important for UNIX sites to alias the UNIX login ids as alternate values, and to have tools which maintain this binding automatically. Expires: January 1993 Page 32 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ accessMD ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax ::= at-access-md ______________________Figure_5:__Indirect_Access_______________________ 13 Indirect Connectivity A definition of the accessMD attribute is given in Figure 5. In some cases a part of the O/R Address space will be accessed indirectly. For example, an ADMD without access from the open community might have an agreement with another MD to provide this access. If this attribute is found, the routing algorithm should recurse, in order to route to this access MD. Note 1: It might be preferable to mandate use of the current routing tree first, to attempt to find a more direct path. Note 2: It has been noted that this access MD behaves like a default routing filter (i.e., no attributes). It may be preferable to make attribute optional in routing filter, and then drop the AccessMD. The attribute is called an MD, as this is descriptive of its normal use. It might point to a more closely defined part of the O/R Address space. It is possible for both access MD and MTAs to be specified. This might be done if the MTAs only support access over a restricted set of transport stacks. In this case, the access MD should only be routed to if it is not possible to route to any of the MTAs. This structure can also be used as an optimisation, where a set of MTAs provides access to several parts of the O/R Address space. Rather than repeat the MTA information, a single access MD is used as a means of grouping the MTAs. The value of the access MD will probably not be meaningful in this case. Expires: January 1993 Page 33 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 14 Direct Lookup Where an O/R address is registered in the open community and has one or more ``open'' MTAs which supports it, this will be optimised by storing MTA information in the O/R address entry. In general the Directory will support this by use of attribute inheritance, and so there will not be a large storage overhead implied. This is a function of the basic routing approach. As a further optimisation of this case, the User's distinguished name entry may also contain the MTAInfo attribute. This can be looked up from the distinguished name, and thus routing on submission can be achieved by use of a single read. 15 Alternate Routes 15.1 Finding Alternate Routes The routing algorithm selects a single MTA. It could be extended to find alternate routes. How far this is done should be a local configuration choice. Excessive use of alternate routing is not usually beneficial. It will often force messages onto convoluted paths, when there was only a short outage on the preferred path. It is important to note that this strategy will lead to picking the first acceptable route. It is important to configure the routing trees, so that the first route identified will also be the best route. 15.2 Sharing routing information So far, only single addresses have been considered. Improving routing choice for multiple addresses is analogous to dealing with multiple routes. When multiple addresses are present, and alternate routes are available, the preferred routes should be chosen so as to maximise the number of recipients sent with each message. Specification of routing trees can facilitate this optimisation. Suppose there is a set of addresses (e.g., in an organisation) which have different MTAs, but have access to an MTA which will do local switching. If each address is registered with the optimal MTA as preferred, but has the ``hub'' MTA registered with a lower route weight, then optimisation will occur when a message is sent to Expires: January 1993 Page 34 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 multiple addresses in the group. Note: An alternative possible approach is to define ``areas'', possibly by adding semantics to the naming of MTAs, and then define entry MTAs for an area. 16 Looking up Information in the Directory The description so far has been abstract about lookup of information. This section considers how information is looked up in the Directory. Consider that an O/R Address is presented for lookup, and there is a sequence of routing trees. At any point in the lookup sequence, there is one of a set of actions that can take place: Handle MTA Info Information from the node should be examined. If suitable information is found, one of the following is done: o Use the information and finish the routing process o Continue the routing process in order to find more options to choose from Unroutable Address Potentially valid address, which cannot be routed Bad Address Temporary Reject Try again later Permanent Reject Administrative error on the directory which should be fixed, but it preventing routing. Each routing tree should be processed in turn. To start a new routing tree, the full O/R address should be looked up in the routing tree. The next routing tree should be started when: o An entry is reached with routing action next-tree-only or next-tree-first. o A lookup is done in the routing tree at the top level (i.e., country), and no routing action is returned. In this case, it Expires: January 1993 Page 35 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 should behave as if the action was next-tree-first. Unless the action is next-tree-only, or the root of the routing tree has been processed, the routing tree which is about to be left should be pushed onto a stack of routing trees for future processing. The position in the tree should be retained. been completed Errors from the lookup (directory read) should be handled as follows: AttributeError This leads to a permanent reject. NameError The matched parameter is used to determine the number of components of the name that have matched (possibly zero). The read is then repeated with this name. This is the normal case, and allows the ``best'' entry in the routing tree to be located with two reads. Referral The referral should be followed. SecurityErrror Strip one component of the O/R address and continue. ServiceError This leads to a temporary reject. 17 Naming MTAs MTAs need to be named in the DIT, but the name does not have routing significance, it is simply a unique key. Attributes associated with naming MTAs are given in Figure 6. This figure also gives a list of attributes, which may be present in the MTA entry. The use of most of these is explained in subsequent sections. The mTAName and globalDomainID attributes are needed to define the information that an MTA places in trace information. In X.400, MTAs are named by MD and a single string. This style of naming is supported, with MTAs named in the O/R Address tree relative to the root of the DIT (or possibly in a different routing tree). The MTAName attribute is used to name MTAs in this case. For X.400(88) it is assumed that the Distinguished Name may be passed as an AE Title. MTAs may be named with any other DN, which can be in the O/R Address or Organisational DIT hierarchy. There are several reasons why MTAs might be named differently. Expires: January 1993 Page 36 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ mTAName ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX caseIgnoreIA5StringSyntax (SIZE(1..ub-mta-name-length) SINGLE VALUE ::= at-mta-name -- used for naming when -- MTA is named in O=R Address Hierarchy globalDomainID ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX 10 GlobalDomainIdentifier SINGLE VALUE ::= at-global-domain-id -- both attributes present when MTA -- is named outside O=R Address Hierarchy -- to enable trace to be written mTA OBJECT CLASS SUBCLASS OF mhs-message-transfer-agent MAY CONTAIN { 20 mTAName, globalDomainID, responderAuthenticationRequirements, initiatorAuthenticationRequirements, responderPullingAuthenticationRequirements, initiatorPullingAuthenticationRequirements, mTAUsedForConversion, bodyPartConversionService, contentConversionService, mTAWillRoute, 30 initiatorP1Mode, responderP1Mode, polledMTAs, transportCommunity, respondingRTSCredentials, initiatingRTSCredentials, callingPresentationAddress, callingSelectorValidity, routingTreeList, accessMD, 40 localAccessUnit, accessUnitsUsed } ::= oc-mta Expires: January 1993 Page 37 ______________________Figure_6:__MTA_Definitions_______________________ INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 o The flat naming space is inadequate to support large MDs. MTA name assignment using the directory would be awkward. o An MD does not wish to register its MTAs in this way (essentially, it prefers to give them private names in the directory). o An organisation has a policy for naming application processes, which does not fit this approach. In this case, the MTA entry must contain the correct information to be inserted in trace. The MTAName and GlobalDomainID attributes are used to do this. They are single value. For an MTA which inserts different trace in different circumstances, a more complex approach would be needed. An MD may choose to name its MTAs outside of the O/R address hierarchy, and then link some or all of them with aliases. A pointer from this space may help in resolving information based on MTA Trace. 17.1 Naming 1984 MTAs Some simplifications are necessary for 1984 MTAs, and only one naming approach may be used. In X.400, MTAs are named by MD and a single string. This style of naming is supported, with MTAs named in the O/R Address tree relative to the root of the DIT (or possibly in a different routing tree). The MTAName attribute is used to name MTAs in this case. 18 Attributes Associated with the MTA This section lists the attributes which may be associated with an MTA as defined in Figure 6, summarises their use, and gives pointers to the relevant section. *** tbs 19 Bilateral Agreements In many cases, X.400 routing has to be on the basis of bilateral agreement. We can now consider how these agreements are represented in the Directory. A bilateral agreement is represented by an entry Expires: January 1993 Page 38 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ mTABilateralTableEntry OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF mTA, distinguishedNameTableEntry ::= oc-mta-bilateral-table-entry _________________Figure_7:__MTA_Bilateral_Table_Entry__________________ associated with each MTA participating in the bilateral agreement. For one end of the bilateral agreement, the agreement information will be keyed by the name of the MTA at the other end. Each party to the agreement will set up the entry which represents its half of the agreed policy. The fact that these correspond is controlled by the external agreement. In many cases, only one half of the agreement will be in the directory. The other half might be in an ADMD MTA configuration file. MTA bilateral information is stored in a table, as defined in [HK92a]. An MTA has one such table, which controls agreements in both directions. The definition of entries in this table are defined in Figure 7. This table will usually be access controlled so that only a single MTA or selected MTAs which appear externally as one MTA can access it. Each entry in the table is of the object class DistinguishedNameTableEntry, which is used to name the entry by the distinguished name of the MTA. In some cases discussed in Section 22.1, there will also be aliases of type textTableEntry. The MTA attributes needed as a part of the bilateral agreement (typically MTA Name/Password pairs), as described in Section 22.3, will always be present. Other MTA attributes (e.g., presentation address) may be present for one of two reasons: 1. As a performance optimisation 2. Because the MTA does not have a global entry Every MTA with bilateral agreements will define a bilateral MTA table. When a connection from a remote MTA is received, its Distinguished Name is used to generate the name of the table entry. For 1984, the MTA Name exchanged at the RTS level is used as a key into the table. For outbound connections, an attribute in the MTA's entry (either read directly, or from mTAInfo from the routing tree) will indicate that a bilateral connection should be used. The entry containing the Expires: January 1993 Page 39 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ transportCommunity ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX objectIdentifierSyntax ::= at-transport-community ______________Figure_8:__Transport_Community_Definition________________ bilateral information for the MTA can be derived as for an incoming connection. 20 MTA Selection 20.1 Dealing with protocol mismatches MTAs may operate over different stacks. This means that some MTAs cannot talk directly to each other. Even where the protocols are the same, there may be reasons why a direct connection is not possible. An environment where there is full connectivity over a single stack is known as a transport community [HK91]. The set of transport communities supported by an MTA is specified by use of the TransportCommunity attribute defined in Figure 8. This is represented as a separate attribute for the convenience of making routing decisions. It is assumed that all X.400 protocols supported will be available over the same set of communities. A community is identified by an object identifier, and so the mechanism supports both well known and private communities. A list of object identifiers corresponding to well known communities is given in Appendix B. 20.2 Supported Protocols It is important to know the protocol capabilities of an MTA. This is done by the application context. There are standard definitions for the following 1988 protocols. o P3 (with and without RTS, both user and MTS initiated) o P7 (with and without RTS). Expires: January 1993 Page 40 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 o P1 (various modes). Strictly, this is the only one that matters for routing. In order to support P1(1984), an application context which defines this protocol is given in Appendix C. This context is for use in the directory only, and would never be exchanged over the network. For routing purposes, a message store which is not co-resident with an MTA is represented as if it had a co-resident MTA and configured with a single link to its supporting MTA. In cases where the UA is involved in exchanges, the UA will be of object class mhs-user-agent, and this will allow for appropriate communication information to be registered. 20.3 MTA Capability Restrictions In addition to policy restrictions, described in Section 23, an MTA may have capability restrictions. The maximum size of MPDU is defined by the standard attribute mhs-deliverable-content-length. It may be useful to define other capability restrictions, for example to enable routing of messages around MTAs with specific deficiencies. It has been suggested using MTA capabilities as an optimised means of expressing capabilities of all users associated with the MTA. This is felt to be undesirable. 20.4 Subtree Capability Restrictions In many cases, users of a subtree will share the same capabilities. It is possible to specify this by use of attributes, as defined in Figure 9. This will allow for restrictions to be determined in cases where there is no entry for the user or O/R Address. This will be a useful optimisation in cases where the UA capability information is not available from the directory, either for policy reasons or because it is not there. This information may also be present in the domain tree (RFC 822). 21 MTA Pulling Messages Pulling messages between MTAs, typically by use of two way alternate, is for bilateral agreement. It is not the common case. There are two Expires: January 1993 Page 41 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ restrictedSubtree OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF top MAY CONTAIN { subtreeDeliverableContentLength, subtreeDeliverableContentTypes, subtreeDeliverableEITs } ::= oc-restricted-subtree subtreeDeliverableContentLength ATTRIBUTE SUBTYPE OF mhs-deliverable-content-length 10 ::= at-subtree-deliverable-content-length subtreeDeliverableContentTypes ATTRIBUTE SUBTYPE OF mhs-deliverable-content-types ::= at-subtree-deliverable-content-types subtreeDeliverableEITs ATTRIBUTE SUBTYPE OF mhs-deliverable-eits ::= at-subtree-deliverable-eits 20 ______________Figure_9:__Subtree_Capability_Restriction________________ circumstances in which it can arise. 1. Making use of a connection that was opened to push messages. 2. Explicitly polling in order to pull messages Attributes to support this are defined in Figure 10. These attributes indicate the capabilities of an MTA to pull messages, and allows a list of polled MTAs to be specified. If omitted, the normal case of push-only is specified. Support for pulling messages will not be provided initially. Expires: January 1993 Page 42 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ initiatorP1Mode ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX P1Mode SINGLE VALUE ::= at-initiator-p1-mode responderP1Mode ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX P1Mode SINGLE VALUE ::= at-responder-p1-mode 10 P1Mode ::= ENUMERATED { push-only(0), pull-only(1), twa(2) } polledMTAs ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX PolledMTAs := at-polled-mtas PolledMTAs ::= SEQUENCE { 20 mta DistinguishedName, poll-frequency INTEGER OPTIONAL --frequency in minutes } _____________________Figure_10:__Pulling_Messages______________________ 22 Security and Policy 22.1 Finding the Name of the Calling MTA A key issue for authentication is for the called MTA to find the name of the calling MTA. This is needed, for it to be able to look up information on a bilateral agreement on information about the MTA in the directory (e.g., a public key). Where X.400(88) is used, the name is available as a distinguished name from the AE-Title provided in the A-Associate. For X.400(84), it will not be possible to derive a global name from the bind. The MTA Name exchanged in the RTS Bind will provide a key into the private bilateral agreement table. Thus for X.400(1984) it will only be possible to have bilateral inbound links or no authentication of the calling MTA. Expires: January 1993 Page 43 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 22.2 Authentication The levels of authentication required by an MTA will have an impact on routing. For example, if an MTA requires strong authentication, not all MTAs will be able to route to it. The attributes which define the authentication requirements are defined in Figure 11. The attributes specify authentication levels for the following cases: Responder These are the checks that the responder will make on the initiator's credentials. Initiator These are the checks that the initiator will make on the responders credentials. Very often, no checks are needed --- establishing the connection is sufficient. Responder Pulling These are responder checks when messages are pulled. These will often be stronger than for pushing. Initiator Pulling For completeness. If an attribute is omitted, no checks are required. If multiple checks are required, then each of the relevant bits should be set. If there are alternative acceptable checks, then multiple values of the attribute are used. The values of the authentication requirements mean: mta-name-present That an RTS level MTA parameter should be present for logging purposes. aet-present That a distinguished name application entity title should be provided at the ACSE level aet-valid As for aet-present, and that the AET be registered in the directory. This may be looked up as a part of the validation process. If mta-name-present is set, the RTS value of mta and password must correspond to those registered in the directory. network-address This can only be used for the responder. The AET must be looked up in the directory, and the callingPresentationAddress attribute matched against the calling address. This must match exactly at the network level. The Expires: January 1993 Page 44 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ responderAuthenticationRequirements ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX AuthenticationRequirements SINGLE VALUE ::= at-responder-authentication-requirements initiatorAuthenticationRequirements ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX AuthenticationRequirements SINGLE VALUE ::= at-initiator-authentication-requirements 10 repsonderPullingAuthenticationRequirements ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX AuthenticationRequirements SINGLE VALUE ::= at-responder-pulling-authentication-requirements initiatorPullingAuthenticationRequirements ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX AuthenticationRequirements SINGLE VALUE ::= at-initiator-pulling-authentication-requirements 20 AuthenticationRequirements ::= BITSTRING { mta-name-present(0), aet-present(1), aet-valid(2), network-address(3), simple-authentication(4), strong-authentication(5), bilateral-agreement-needed(6)} _______________Figure_11:__Authentication_Requirements_________________ Expires: January 1993 Page 45 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 validity of selectors will be matched according to the callingSelectorValidity attribute. simple-authentication All MTA and password parameters needed for simple authentication must be used. This will usually be in conjunction with a bilateral agreement. strong-authentication Use of strong authentication. bilateral-agreement-needed This means that this MTA will only accept connections in conjunction with a bilateral agreement. This link cannot be used unless such an agreement exists. These attributes may also be used to specify UA/MTA authentication policy. They may be resident in the UA entry in environments where this information cannot be modified by the user. Otherwise, it will be present in an MTA table (represented in the directory). An MTA could choose to have different authentication levels related to different policies (Section 23). This is seen as too complex, and so they are kept independent. The equivalent function can always be achieved by using multiple MTAs. 22.3 Authentication Information This section specifies connection information needed by P1. This is essentially RTS parameterisation needed for authentication. This is defined in Figure 12. Confidential bilateral information is implied by these attributes, and this will be held in the bilateral information agreement. This should have appropriate access control applied. Note that in some cases, MTA information will be split across a private and public entry. The parameters are: Initiating Credentials The credentials to be used when the local MTA initiates the association. It gives the credentials to insert into the request, and those expected in the response. Responding Credentials The credentials to be used when the remote MTA initiates the association. It gives the credential expected in the request, and those to be inserted into the response. Expires: January 1993 Page 46 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ respondingRTSCredentials ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX RTSCredentials SINGLE VALUE ::= at-responding-rts-credentials initiatingRTSCredentials ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX RTSCredentials SINGLE VALUE 10 ::= at-initiating-rts-credentials RTSCredentials ::= SEQUENCE { request [0] MTAandPassword OPTIONAL, response [1] MTAandPassword OPTIONAL } MTAandPassword ::= SEQUENCE { MTAName, 20 Password } -- MTAName and Password -- from X.411 callingPresentationAddress ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX PresentationAddress MULTI VALUE ::= at-remote-presentation-address callingSelectorValidity ATTRIBUTE 30 WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX CallingSelectorValidity SINLGE VALUE ::= at-calling-selector-validity CallingSelectorValidity ::= ENUMERATED { all-selectors-fixed(0), tsel-may-vary(1), all-selectors-may-vary(2) } ______________Figure_12:__MTA_Authentication_Parameters________________ Expires: January 1993 Page 47 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ mTAWillRoute ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX MTAWillRoute ::= at-mta-will-route MTAWillRoute ::= SEQUENCE { from [0] SET OF ORAddressPrefix OPTIONAL, to [1] SET OF ORAddressPrefix OPTIONAL, from-excludes [2] SET OF ORAddressPrefix OPTIONAL, to-excludes [3] SET OF ORAddressPrefix OPTIONAL } 10 ORAddressPrefix ::= DistinguishedName _____________Figure_13:__Simple_MTA_Policy_Specification_______________ Remote Presentation Address Valid presentation addresses, which the remote MTA may connect from. If an MTA/Password pair is omitted. The MTA should default to the local MTA Name, and the password to an ASN.1 NULL. Note: It may be useful to add more information here relating to parameters required for strong authentication. 23 Policy and Authorisation 23.1 Simple MTA Policy The routing trees will generally be configured in order to identify MTAs which will route to the destination. A simple means is identified to specify an MTA's policy. This is defined in Figure 13. The multi-valued attribute gives a set of policies which the MTA will route. O/R Addresses are represented by a prefix, which identifies a subtree. A distinguished name encoding of O/R Address is used. There are three components: from This gives a set of O/R addresses which are granted permission by this attribute value. If omitted, ``all'' is implied. Expires: January 1993 Page 48 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 to This gives the set of acceptable destinations. If omitted, ``all'' is implied. from-excludes This defines (by prefix) subtrees of the O/R address tree which are explicitly excluded from the ``from'' definition. If omitted, there are no exclusions. to-excludes This defines (by prefix) subtrees of the O/R address tree which are explicitly excluded from the ``to'' definition. If omitted, there are no exclusions. This simple policy should suffice for most cases. In particular, it gives sufficient information for most real situations where a policy choice is forced. This simple prefixing approach does not deal explicitly with alias dereferencing. The prefixes refer to O/R addresses where aliases have been dereferenced. To match against these prefixes, O/R addresses being matched need to be looked up in the directory. If the lookup fails, it should be assumed that the provided address is ``normalised''. This means that policy may be misinterpreted for parts of the DIT not referenced in the directory. The originator refers to the MTS originator, and the recipient to the MTS recipient, following any list expansion or redirect. 23.2 Complex MTA Policy MTAs will generally have a much more complex policy mechanism, such as that provided by PP [KO91]. Representing this as a part of the routing decision does not seem worthwhile at present. Some of the issues which need to be tackled are: o Use of charging and non-charging nets o Policy dependent on message size o Different policy for delivery reports. o Policy dependent on attributes of the originator or recipient(e.g., mail from students) o Content type and encoded information types Expires: January 1993 Page 49 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 o The path which the message has traversed to reach the MTA o MTA bilateral agreements o Pulling messages o Costs. This sort of policy information may also be for information only. Policies relating to submission do not need to be public. They can be private to the MTA. 24 Trace and Rerouting In cases where a connection is made to an MTA which is not the primary choice, following a failed connection attempt to the primary MTA, the rerouted element of trace should be filled in in the following cases: o All cases where routing is within the MD (internal trace) o Where the change of MTA leads to routing through a different MD 25 Redirects There is a need to specify redirects in the Directory. This will be done at the O/R Address level (i.e., in a routing tree). This will be useful for alternate names where an equivalent name (synonym) defined by an alias is not natural. The definitions are given in Figure 14. Mandatory redirects are specified by the mandatoryRedirect attribute. A filtered redirect is provided, to allow small messages, large messages, or messages containing specific EITs or content to be redirected. Message size is measured in kBytes. When a delivery report is sent to an address which would be redirected, X.400 would ignore the redirect. This means that every O/R address would need to have a valid means of delivery. This would seem to be awkward to manage. Therefore, the redirect should be followed, and the delivery report delivered to the redirected address. Expires: January 1993 Page 50 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ mandatoryRedirect ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax SINGLE VALUE ::= at-mandatory-redirect filteredRedirect ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX FilteredRedirect ::= at-filtered-redirect FilteredRedirect ::= SEQUENCE { 10 redirect-to DistinguishedName, CHOICE { min-size [1] INTEGER, max-size [2] INTEGER, content [3] ContentType, eit [4] ExternalEncodedInformationType } } 20 ___________________Figure_14:__Redirect_Definition_____________________ 26 Non Delivery It is possible for a manager to define an address to non-deliver with specified reason and diagnostic codes. This might be used for a range of management purposes. The attribute to do this is defined in Figure 15. 27 Bad Addresses If there is a bad address, it is desirable to do a directory search to find alternatives. This is a helpful user service and should be provided. This function is invoked after address checking has failed, and where this is no user supplied alternate recipient. This function would be an MTA-chosen alternative to administratively assigned alternate recipient. Attributes to support handling of bad addresses are defined in Figure 16. The attributes are: Expires: January 1993 Page 51 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ nonDeliveryInfo ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX NonDeliveryReason ::- at-non-delivery-info NonDeliveryReason ::= SEQUENCE { reason INTEGER (0..ub-reason-codes), diagnostic INTEGER (0..ub-diagnostic-codes), supplementaryInfo PrintableString } _________________Figure_15:__Non_Delivery_Information__________________ badAddressSearchPoint This gives the point (or list of points) from which to search. badAddressSearchAttributes This gives the set of attribute types to search on. The default is common name. Searches are always single level, and always use approximate match. If a small number of matches are made, this is returned to the originator by use of the per recipient AlternativeAddresssInformation in the delivery report (DR). This should be marked non-critical, so that it will not cause the DR to be discarded. This attribute allows the Distinguished Name and O/R Address of possible alternate recipients to be returned with the delivery report. There is also the possibility to attach extra information in the form of directory attributes. Typically this might be used to return attributes of the entry which were matched in the search. A summary of the information should also be returned using the supplementary delivery report (e.g., ``your message could not be delivered to smith, try J. Smith or P. Smith''), so that the information is available to user agents not supporting this extension. If the directory search fails, or there are no matches returned, a delivery report should be returned as if this extra check had not been made. Note: It might be useful to allow control of search type, and also single level vs subtree in future versions. Expires: January 1993 Page 52 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ badAddressSearchPoint ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax ::= at-bad-address-search-point badAddressSearchAttributes ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX AttributeType ::= at-bad-address-search-attributes alternativeAddressInformation EXTENSION AlternativeAddressInformation 10 ::= id-alternative-address-information AlternativeAddressInformation ::= SET OF SEQUENCE { distinguished-name DistinguishedName OPTIONAL, or-address ORAddress OPTIONAL, other-useful-info SET OF Attribute } ___________________Figure_16:__Bad_Address_Pointers____________________ 28 Submission A message may be submitted with Distinguished Name only. If the MTA to which the message is submitted supports this service, this section describes how the mapping is done. 28.1 Normal Derivation The Distinguished Name is looked up to find the attribute mhs-or-addresses. If the attribute is single value, it is straightforward. If there are multiple values, an error should be indicated, as there is no way for the MTS to choose a single O/R address. 28.2 Roles and Groups Some support for roles is given. If there is no O/R address, and the entry is of object class role, then this attribute should be dereferenced, and the message submitted to each of the role occupants. Similarly, if the entry is of object class group. Expires: January 1993 Page 53 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 29 Protocol Extensions A number of protocol extensions are needed, primarily to support content conversion. These extensions may be used with either MTA Abstract Service (P1) or MTS Abstract Service (P3). The per-recipient extensions are given in Figure 17. The following per-recipient extensions are defined. general-explicit-conversion The explicit conversion of X.400 only allows for a listed set of conversions. This attribute allows for any conversion of body parts to be requested. Built in EITs must be represented by their object identifiers. content-conversion This requests for different content types to be converted (e.g., content type 22 to 2 downgrade). source-route This gives a sequence of points (either MTAs or MDs) which must be traversed in the order given. The points may be accessed directly or indirectly for each step. This should be stripped as each point is reached. If this element is marked as critical for transfer, the route is mandatory, otherwise it is advisory. There is some risk of spurious loops being detected. This can be specified by a UA or an MTA. An MTA may introduce further source routing if a need arises. route-barring This gives a list of points which must not be traversed. If this element is marked as critical for transfer, the barring is mandatory, otherwise it is advisory. route-restriction This give a list of points which the route must be restricted to (e.g., to constrain costs). The following per-message extensions are defined in Figure 18. These are: warning-interval Some MTAs offer a facility to send (IPMS) warnings about a messages delayed transit. This parameter allows the warning interval to be specified. last-warning This parameter specifies the time at which the last warning was sent. It will ensure that warnings are sent to the Expires: January 1993 Page 54 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ general-explicit-conversion EXTENSION GeneralExplicitConversion ::= id-general-explicit-conversion GeneralExplicitConversion ::= SEQUENCE { from ExternalEncodedInformationType, to ExternalEncodedInformationType } content-conversion EXTENSION ContentConverson 10 ::= id-content-conversion ContentConversion ::= SEQUENCE { from ContentType, to ContentType } source-route EXTENSION SourceRoute ::= id-source-route 20 SourceRoute ::= SEQUENCE OF RouteElement RouteElement ::= CHOICE { mta [0] DistinguishedName, md [1] DistinguishedName } route-barring EXTENSION RouteBarring ::= id-route-barring 30 RouteBarring ::= SET OF RouteElement route-restriction EXTENSION RouteRestriction ::= id-route-restriction RouteRestriction ::= SET OF RouteElement ____________Figure_17:__Per-recipient_Protocol_Extensions______________ Expires: January 1993 Page 55 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ warning-interval EXTENSION -- interval between user warnings INTEGER -- in minutes ::= id-warning-interval last-warning EXTENSION -- time last warning was send UTCTime ::= id-last-warning _____________Figure_18:__Per-message_Protocol_Extensions_______________ originator at even intervals. 30 Format Conversion An MTA will determine reformatting requirements for a message in two ways: 1. First, any explicitly requested conversions will be dealt with 2. Second, the recipients capabilities are determined (from the directory), and any necessary conversions made. UA capability may be determined from any of: o The User's entry o The O/R Address entry o A subtree capability restriction as defined in Section 20.4. A choice to do reformatting can only be made by an MTA with access to this information. Once an MTA has determined a requirement to do reformatting, it should attempt to do this. If this cannot be done, or if the requirements are unknown, the message should be routed without conversion. In many cases, the MTA will be able to perform conversion locally. In some cases, particularly simple MTAs, it may be necessary to perform a conversion at a remote MTA. First the remote MTA must be identified. Each MTA will maintain a list of MTAs (or MDs??) it uses for performing remote conversions. Any MTA offering conversions will Expires: January 1993 Page 56 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ mTAUsedForConversion ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax ::= at-mta-used-for-conversion bodyPartConversionService ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX GeneralExplicitConversion ::= at-body-part-conversion-service contentConversionService ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX ContentConversion 10 ::= at-content-conversion-service ______________Figure_19:__Format_Conversion_Registration_______________ register them in the directory. Thus it is a matter of simple matching to determine if one of the MTAs used for conversion services offers the conversion needed (perhaps in more than one stage). The attributes needed to do this are defined in Figure 19. The attributes defined are: mTAUsedForConversion This defines the set of MTAs which are used by an MTA to provide conversion. bodyPartConversionService This defines the services offered by an MTA for body part conversion. contentConversionService This defines the services offered by an MTA for content type conversion (e.g., 22 to 2 downgrade). This facility can be used for either body part conversion or content type conversion. In some cases, the MTA performing the conversion will be accessed indirectly. In this case, a mandatory source route should be specified, in order to ensure that the message is routed to the correct MTA. Expires: January 1993 Page 57 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 _______________________________________________________________________ localAccessUnit ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX AccessUnitType ::= at-local-access-unit AccessUnitType ::= ENUMERATED { fax (1), physical-delivery (2), teletex (3), telex (4) } 10 accessUnitsUsed ATTRIBUTE WITH SYNTAX SelectedAccessUnit ::= at-access-units-used SelectedAccessUnit ::= SEQUENCE { type AccessUnitType, providing-MTA DistinguishedName, filter SET OF ORAddress OPTIONAL } __________________Figure_20:__Access_Unit_Attributes___________________ 31 Access Units Attributes needed for support of Access Units are defined in Figure 20. The attributes defined are: localAccessUnit This defines the list of access units supported by the MTA. accessUnitsUsed This defines which access units are used by the MTA, giving the type and MTA. An O/R Address filter is provided to control which access unit is used for a given recipient. For a filter to match an address, all attributes specificed in the filter must match the given address. This is specified as an O/R Address, so that routing to access units can be filtered on the basis of attributes not mapped onto the directory (e.g., postal attributes). Where a remote MTA is used, it may be necessary to use source routing. Expires: January 1993 Page 58 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 Note: This mechanism might be used to replace the routefilter mechanism of the MTS routing. 32 The Overall Routing Algorithm Having provided all the pieces, a summary of how routing works can be given. The very top level of the routing algorithm is: 1. Route the message according to the protocol by which it arrives (RFC 822 or X.400). In the case of RFC 822, this should follow [HK92c]. 2. If this fails, and gatewaying is supported, map the address and attempt to route according to the other protocol using [HK92b]. 32.1 X.400 Routing The core of the X.400 routing is described in Section 11. A sequence of routing trees are followed. As nodes of the routing tree are matched, a set of MTAs will be passed upwards for evaluation. If all of these are rejected, the trees are followed further2. A set of MTAs is evaluated on the following criteria: o If an MTA is the local MTA, deliver locally. o Supported protocols. The MTA must support a protocol that the current MTA supports3, as described in Section 20.2. o The protocols must share a common transport community, as described in Section 20.1. o There must be no capability restrictions in the MTA which prevents transfer of the current message, as described in Section 20.3. ---------------------------- 2. It might be argued that the trees should be followed to find alternate routes in the case that only one MTA is acceptable. This is not proposed. 3. Note that this could be an RFC 822 protocol, as well as an X.400 protocol. Expires: January 1993 Page 59 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 o There must be no policy restrictions in the MTA which prevents transfer of the current message, as described in Section 23. o The authentication requirements of the MTA must be met by the local MTA, as described in Section 22.2. o If the authentication (Section 22.2) indicates that a bilateral agreement is present, the MTA must be listed in the local set of bilateral agreements, as described in Section 19. o In cases where the recipient UA's capabilities can be determined, there should either be no mismatch, or there must be an ability to use local or remote reformatting capabilities, as described in Section 19. 32.2 Pseudo Code This section describes the routing algorithm in pseudo-code. ***** tbs 32.3 Examples to be supplied 33 Performance *** notes on the overall performance of the scheme, and notes on implementation techniques to go faster 34 Acknowledgements *** tbs References [CCI88] The Directory --- overview of concepts, models and services, December 1988. CCITT X.500 Series Recommendations. Expires: January 1993 Page 60 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 [Chi91] J.N. Chiappa. A new IP routing and addressing architecture, 1991. Internet Draft. [CTW+90] A. Consael, M. Tschicholz, O. Wenzel, K. Bonacker, and M. Busch. DFN-Directory nutzung durch MHS, April 1990. GMD Report. [DLKE85] P. Dick-Lauder, R.J. Kummerfeld, and K.R. Elz. ACSNET - the australian alternative to UUCP. In EUUG Conference, Paris, pages 60--69, April 1985. [Epp91] U. Eppenberger. Routing coordination for an X.400 MHS service within a multi protocol environment, October 1991. Version 1.0, RARE WG1 Document. [HK91] S.E. Hardcastle-Kille. Encoding network addresses to support operation over non-OSI lower layers. Request for Comments RFC 1277, Department of Computer Science, University College London, November 1991. [HK92a] S.E. Hardcastle-Kille. Representing the O/R Address hierarchy in the directory information tree, April 1992. Internet Draft. [HK92b] S.E. Hardcastle-Kille. Use of the directory to support mapping between X.400 and RFC 822 addresses, April 1992. Internet Draft. [HK92c] S.E. Hardcastle-Kille. Use of the directory to support routing for RFC 822 and related protocols, April 1992. Internet Draft. [HK92d] S.E. Hardcastle-Kille. Using the OSI directory to achieve user friendly naming. Request for Comments in preparation, Department of Computer Science, University College London, January 1992. [Jor91] K.E. Jordan. Using X.500 directory services in support of X.400 routing and address mapping, November 1991. 3rd draft, IETF WG. [Kil87] S.E. Kille. MHS use of directory service for routing. In IFIP 6.5 Conference on Message Handling, Munich, pages 157--164. North Holland Publishing, April 1987. Expires: January 1993 Page 61 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 [Kil88] S.E. Kille. Topology and routing for MHS. COSINE Specification Phase 7.7, RARE, 1988. [KO91] S.E. Kille and J.P. Onions. The PP manual, December 1991. Version 6.0. [LKF91] P. Lauder, R.J. Kummerfeld, and A. Fekete. Hierarchical network routing. In Tricomm 91, 1991. [MHS88] CCITT recommendations X.400 / ISO 10021, April 1988. CCITT SG 5/VII / ISO/IEC JTC1, Message Handling: System and Service Overview. [MHS91] Zen and the ART of navigating through the dark and murky regions of the message transfer system: Working document on MTS routing, September 1991. ISO SC 18 SWG Messaging. 35 Security Considerations Security considerations are not discussed in this INTERNET--DRAFT . 36 Author's Address Steve Hardcastle-Kille ISODE Consortium PO Box 505 London SW11 1DX England Phone: +44-71-223-4062 EMail: S.Kille@ISODE.COM DN: CN=Steve Hardcastle-Kille, O=ISODE Consortium, C=GB UFN: S. Hardcastle-Kille, ISODE Consortium, GB Expires: January 1993 Page 62 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 A Object Identifier Assignment _______________________________________________________________________ mhs-ds OBJECT-IDENTIFIER ::= {iso(1) org(3) dod(6) internet(1) private(4) enterprises(1) isode-consortium (453) mhs-ds (3)} routing OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {mhs-ds 1} oc OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {routing 1} at OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {routing 2} id OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {routing 3} 10 oc-mta OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {oc 1} oc-mta-bilateral-table-entry OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {oc 2} oc-routing-information OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {oc 3} oc-restricted-subtree OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {oc 4} oc-routed-ua OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {oc 5} oc-routing-treee-root OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {oc 6} at-access-md OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 1} at-access-units-used OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 2} at-authoritative-address OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 3} 20 at-bad-address-search-attributes OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 4} at-bad-address-search-point OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 5} at-body-part-conversion-service OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 6} at-calling-selector-validity OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 7} at-content-conversion-service OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 8} at-filtered-redirect OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 9} at-global-domain-id OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 10} at-initiating-rts-credentials OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 11} at-initiator-authentication-requirements OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 12} at-initiator-p1-mode OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 13} 30 at-initiator-pulling-authentication-requirements OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 14} at-local-access-unit OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 15} at-mandatory-redirect OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 16} at-mta-info OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 18} at-mta-name OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 19} at-mta-used-for-conversion OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 20} at-mta-will-route OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 21} at-remote-presentation-address OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 22} at-responder-authentication-requirements OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 23} Expires: January 1993 Page 63 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 at-responder-p1-mode OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 24} 40 at-responder-pulling-authentication-requirements OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 25} at-responding-rts-credentials OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 26} at-routing-failure-action OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 27} at-routing-filter OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 28} at-routing-tree-list OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 29} at-subtree-deliverable-content-length OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 30} at-subtree-deliverable-content-types OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 31} at-subtree-deliverable-eits OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 32} at-supporting-mta OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 33} at-transport-community OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 34} 50 at-ua-name OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {at 35} id-alternative-address-information OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 1} id-content-conversion OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 2} id-general-explicit-conversion OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 3} id-logging-level OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 4} id-route-barring OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 5} id-route-restriction OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 6} id-source-route OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 7} id-last-warning OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 8} 60 id-warning-interval OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id 9} _______________Figure_21:__Object_Identifier_Assignment________________ Expires: January 1993 Page 64 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 B Community Identifier Assignments _______________________________________________________________________ ts-communities OBJECT-IDENTIFIER ::= {iso(1) org(3) dod(6) internet(1) private(4) enterprises(1) isode-consortium (453) ts-communities (4)} tc-cons OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {ts-communities 1} -- OSI CONS tc-clns OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {ts-communities 2} -- OSI CLNS tc-internet OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {ts-communities 3} -- Internet + RFC 1006 tc-int-x25 OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {ts-communities 4} -- International X.25 -- Without CONS tc-ixi OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {ts-communities 5} -- IXI (Europe)10 tc-janet OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {ts-communities 6} -- Janet (UK) ____Figure_22:__Transport_Community_Object_Identifier_Assignments______ Expires: January 1993 Page 65 INTERNET--DRAFT MHS Routing using Directory July 1992 C Protocol Identifier Assignments _______________________________________________________________________ mail-protocol OBJECT-IDENTIFIER ::= {iso(1) org(3) dod(6) internet(1) private(4) enterprises(1) isode-consortium (453) mail-protocol (5)} ac-p1-1984 OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {mail-protocol 1} -- p1(1984) ac-smtp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {mail-protocol 2} -- SMTP ac-uucp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {mail-protocol 3} -- UUCP Mail ac-jnt-mail OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {mail-protocol 4} -- JNT Mail (UK) __________Figure_23:__Protocol_Object_Identifier_Assignments___________ D ASN.1 Summary To be supplied E Regular Expression Syntax *** tbs. Will be taken from ed(1) man page Expires: January 1993 Page 66