MAILMAINT

Summary

The MAILMAINT working group met at IETF 125 to discuss the progress of several active drafts related to email maintenance and extensions. Key topics included internationalized email address syntax (SMTPUTF8), improvements to IMAP object identifiers, unobtrusive email signatures, and automated configuration. A significant portion of the meeting focused on the architectural placement of SMTPUTF8 restrictions and the potential update of the mailto URI scheme.

Key Discussion Points

Working Group Status and Nearing Completion

IMAP-JMAP Keywords and Mailbox Attributes and IMAP UID BATCH are currently with the RFC Editor. Ken Murchison noted that UID BATCH is already in production at Apple and Fastmail with high usage.
Expires message header field has been submitted to the IESG.
draft-ietf-mailmaint-wrong-recipient: Still awaiting implementations, specifically from senders, to facilitate testing.
draft-ietf-mailmaint-imap-extensions-suggestions: Progress is parked until the work on draft-ietf-mailmaint-imap-objectid-bis is further along.
draft-ietf-mailmaint-oauth-public: Technical work is largely complete; awaiting review from the OAuth working group.

SMTPUTF8 Drafts

Presentation: SMTPUTF8 draft duo

Arnt Gulbrandsen presented updates on draft-ietf-mailmaint-smtputf8-syntax and draft-ietf-mailmaint-interoperable-addresses.
Discussion on Zero Width Joiner (200D): Discussion occurred regarding its use to defeat spam filters versus its necessity in specific writing systems (e.g., Urdu).
Standard vs. BCP: John Klensin and Pete Resnick raised concerns about these documents potentially contradicting base standards. The consensus among those present (Arnt Gulbrandsen, Pete Resnick, John Klensin, and Ken Murchison) was that these documents should be reframed as Best Current Practice (BCP) or Informational, focusing on implementation guidance for account creation and display rather than protocol transport.
Punycode in Domains: Victor Dukhovni cautioned against strictly forbidding XN-- Punycode in domain parts due to existing practical realities in certificates and mail clients.

Automatic Configuration (PACC and Autoconfig)

Presentation: [draft-ietf-mailmaint-pacc]

draft-ietf-mailmaint-pacc (PDI Archive): Alexey Melnikov noted that the document needs to decide on mandatory compression formats (e.g., tar, gzip, zip). Bron Gondwana suggested coordinating tombstone/incremental export logic with ongoing JMAP history work.
draft-ietf-mailmaint-autoconfig: Matt reported that the MX configuration option was removed to simplify security requirements.
OpenID Discovery: Mauro Stettler suggested adding OpenID discovery as an option because many identity providers (like Keycloak) expose OpenID discovery endpoints rather than the standard OAuth well-known path.

IMAP Extension for Object Identifiers

Presentation: OBJECTID+

Mauro Stettler presented draft-ietf-mailmaint-imap-objectid-bis. The draft now uses a "compound identifier" approach for objectId.
Implicit Enable: The draft supports implicit activation via commands like SELECT or FETCH, similar to the CONDSTORE approach.
JMAP Access Interaction: Discussion centered on whether this draft should obsolete the original OBJECTID and update JMAP Access to support accountId. There was a general sense that merging these updates into one document is the most efficient path.

Unobtrusive End-to-End Email Signatures

Presentation: [draft-ietf-mailmaint-unobtrusive-signatures]

Kai presented progress on draft-ietf-mailmaint-unobtrusive-signatures.
Thunderbird has implemented initial support for OpenPGP messages in its daily release channel.
Future work includes adding DKIM Simple canonicalization for the message body and implementing protected header checks.

New Work and Other Business

Message-Global: Victor Dukhovni proposed deprecating Message-Global in MIME, citing it as a design mistake. Arnt Gulbrandsen expressed interest in co-authoring this.
mailto URI: Martin Dürst proposed updating RFC 6068 (mailto URI) to better handle internationalized addresses. The Chairs and Area Directors (Barry Leiba and Pete Resnick) discussed whether this falls under the MAILMAINT charter, concluding that it likely does, provided there is coordination with the HTTP/Web community.

Decisions and Action Items

SMTPUTF8: Arnt Gulbrandsen, Pete Resnick, and John Klensin to collaborate on reworking the SMTPUTF8 drafts as BCP/Informational documents.
PACC: Alexey Melnikov to start mailing list threads regarding preferred compression formats and the use of tombstones for incremental exports.
Autoconfig: Mauro Stettler to provide proposed text for OpenID discovery endpoints.
Object ID: Mauro Stettler and Bron Gondwana to refine the draft and address the interaction with JMAP Access (potentially merging the work).
PDI Archive: The current document should be posted as a 00 WG draft.

Next Steps

Authors to address feedback and post updated drafts.
Chairs to verify the charter scope for the mailto URI update.
Ken Murchison to continue pushing for OAuth WG review of draft-ietf-mailmaint-oauth-public.

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