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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         R. SparksRequest for Comments: 6778                                       TekelecCategory: Informational                                     October 2012ISSN: 2070-1721Requirements for Archiving IETF Email Listsand for Providing Web-Based Browsing and SearchingAbstract   The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work.   Participants frequently need to search and browse the archives of   these lists and have asked for improved search capabilities.  The   current archive mechanism could also be made more efficient.  This   memo captures the requirements for improved email list archiving and   searching systems.Status of This Memo   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is   published for informational purposes.   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has   received public review and has been approved for publication by the   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet   Standard; seeSection 2 of RFC 5741.   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained athttp://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6778.Copyright Notice   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the   document authors.  All rights reserved.   This document is subject toBCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of   publication of this document.  Please review these documents   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as   described in the Simplified BSD License.Sparks                        Informational                     [Page 1]

RFC 6778         List Archiving and Search Requirements     October 2012Table of Contents1. Introduction ....................................................22. List Search and Archive Requirements ............................32.1. Search and Browsing ........................................32.2. Archiving Active Lists .....................................52.3. Importing Messages from Other Archives .....................52.4. Exporting Messages from the Archives .......................52.5. Redundancy .................................................62.6. Archive Administration .....................................62.7. Transition Requirements ....................................73. Internationalized Address Considerations ........................74. IMAP Access .....................................................75. Security Considerations .........................................76. Acknowledgements ................................................77. Informative References ..........................................81.  Introduction   The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work.   Participants frequently need to search the archives of these lists   and have asked for improved search capabilities, particularly when   the search needs to cover a large period of time or cross several   lists.  For instance, document editors, shepherds, working group   chairs, and area directors may need to review all discussion of a   particular draft.  That discussion may be spread across the working   group list, one or more directorate lists, and the IETF general list.   Occasionally, work impacts multiple groups, possibly in different   areas, and the search must cover additional working group lists.   The current tools for performing these searches require several   manually coordinated steps, which are error prone.  Without a local   copy of the archive (which may not be complete), searching most   working group lists requires brute force effort, aided possibly by   web search engines.   More advanced search capabilities have been constructed for a limited   subset of the available lists and are exposed in the "Email Archives   Quick Search" section of the main IETF website.  While these tools   are of great assistance, there is still significant need for   improvement.   The current archive mechanism could also be made more efficient.  The   current practices involve duplicate stores (for the web and ftp   interfaces), which impact storage and replication and are subject to   inconsistency.Sparks                        Informational                     [Page 2]

RFC 6778         List Archiving and Search Requirements     October 2012   This memo captures the requirements for improved email list archiving   and searching systems.2.  List Search and Archive Requirements2.1.  Search and Browsing   o  The system must provide a web interface for searching and browsing      archived messages.   o  The system must allow browsing the entire archive of a given list      by thread or by date.   o  The system must allow browsing the results of a search by thread      or by date.         Both threading based on Message-Id/References/In-Reply-To and         threading based on same subject line (modulo short prefixes         like re: and fwd:) should be taken into account.   o  The system must allow searching across any subset of the archived      lists (one list, a selection of lists, or all lists).   o  The system must allow searching of any combination (using AND, OR,      and NOT operators) of the following attributes.  Richer search      capabilities are highly desirable.      -  string occurring in sender name or email address      -  date range      -  string occurring in Subject      -  string occurring in message body      -  string occurring in message header (in particular, exact match         of Message-Id)            For instance, it would be nice to search the entire archive            for instances of a message with a given Message-ID with a            URL like <http://datatracker.ietf.org/mlarchive/msg?id=4EA6E023.6010603@example.com>Sparks                        Informational                     [Page 3]

RFC 6778         List Archiving and Search Requirements     October 2012   o  Individual messages must be representable by a long-term stable      URI that can be shared between users.  That is, the URI must be      suitable for reference in an email message.      -  It would be preferable for that URI to appear in an Archived-At         header field in the message [RFC5064].   o  Searches should be representable by a URI that can be shared      between users.      -  Such URIs should be long-term stable.      -  The search may be re-executed when the URI is referenced.  It         is acceptable for the same URI to produce different results if         accessed at different times or by different people (for         example, by reflecting additional messages that may match the         search criteria or reflecting changes in access authorization         to lists with restricted archives).   o  When the system requires credentials, it must use the      datatracker's authentication system.      -  While the vast majority of archived lists have an open access         policy, some archived lists have restricted archives.      -  The system must not require credentials for browsing or         searching lists with open archives.  (But it is acceptable for         a user to browse or search such lists while logged in.)      -  The system must make it possible to limit access to a         restricted archive based on login credentials.      -  Messages from restricted archives must be distinguishable from         messages from unrestricted archives in any search results.Sparks                        Informational                     [Page 4]

RFC 6778         List Archiving and Search Requirements     October 20122.2.  Archiving Active Lists   o  The archive system must accept messages handled by various mail      list manager packages.      -  Lists hosted on the IETF systems are served by Mailman         [Mailman].      -  Lists hosted at other organizations may use other packages.         *  The archive system must accept messages through subscribing            to such an external list.         *  The archive system may support other mechanisms for            accepting messages into the archive.2.3.  Importing Messages from Other Archives   Lists hosted at other systems are sometimes moved to the IETF   servers, and their archive is moved with them.  The archiving system   must be able to import these archives.   o  At a minimum, the archive system must be able to import mbox      formatted archives [RFC4155] [Mbox].   o  The archive system should be able to import Maildir and Maildir-      like (the key characteristic being one-message-per-file) formatted      archives [Maildir].   o  It is acceptable to use a separate utility to convert between      these formats before import, as long as the conversion is      lossless.2.4.  Exporting Messages from the Archives   The archive system must allow both users and administrators to export   messages.   o  The archive system must support exporting messages in the mbox      format.   o  The archive system should support exporting messages in the      Maildir format.   o  The archive system must support exporting the entire archive of a      given list.Sparks                        Informational                     [Page 5]

RFC 6778         List Archiving and Search Requirements     October 2012   o  The archive system must support exporting all messages from a      given list within a given date range.   o  The archive system should allow exporting the results of any      supported search query.2.5.  Redundancy   o  The systems must facilitate providing archive, search, and browse      functions through geographically distributed servers.      -  The systems must support a single active and single standby         server.  This reflects the current operating configuration and         is expected to be the initial deployment model.      -  The systems should support a single active and multiple standby         servers.      -  The systems should support multiple active servers for the         search and browse functions.  Support for multiple active         archive servers is not a requirement.      -  The amount of traffic generated to ensure data replication         between servers should be on the order of the size of any new/         changed messages in the archives.         *  It is acceptable for replication to be part of the archival            system itself (such as using the replication mechanisms from            an underlying database).         *  It is acceptable to rely on replication of the underlying            filesystem objects (using rsync of one or more directory            trees, for example), but only if the objects in the            underlying filesystem are formatted such that the size of            the replication data is on the order of the size of any new/            changed messages in the archives.2.6.  Archive Administration   o  The archive system must support adding and removing lists to be      archived.   o  The system must allow the administrator to add messages to and      delete messages from an archived list.  The system should log such      actions.Sparks                        Informational                     [Page 6]

RFC 6778         List Archiving and Search Requirements     October 20122.7.  Transition Requirements   There are many existing archived messages containing embedded links   into the existing MHonArc [MHonArc] mail archive.  These links must   continue to work, but they should reach the message as archived in   the new system.3.  Internationalized Address Considerations   The archive and search functions should anticipate internationalized   email addresses as discussed in the following three documents --   [RFC6531], [RFC6532], and [IMAP-UTF8].  There is no firm requirement   at this time.4.  IMAP Access   Requirements for allowing access to the archives using IMAP are   captured in [IMAP-ARCH].  The archive system must anticipate   integrating with a system that provides IMAP access.5.  Security Considerations   Creating a new tool for searching and archiving IETF email lists does   not affect the security of the Internet in any significant fashion.   Searching can be I/O and CPU intensive.  The implementors of this   tool should consider the potential for maliciously crafted searches   attempting to consume all available resources.  Similarly, the   implementors should consider the potential for denial-of-service   attacks through making many connections to the browsing system or   rapid navigating within it.   Preserving the integrity of the archives is important.  The   implementors should ensure that administrative access is   appropriately authenticated, and that message paths into the archive   are appropriately configured to avoid unauthorized message insertion.6.  Acknowledgements   The Tools Development team provided input into the initial   brainstorm.  Text suggestions from Alexey Melnikov, Pete Resnick, S.   Moonesamy, Francis Dupont, and Murray Kucherawy have been   incorporated.Sparks                        Informational                     [Page 7]

RFC 6778         List Archiving and Search Requirements     October 20127.  Informative References   [IMAP-ARCH]  Sparks, R.,"IMAP Access to IETF Email List Archives",                Work in Progress, August 2012.   [IMAP-UTF8]  Resnick, P., Ed., Newman, C., Ed., and S. Shen, Ed.,                "IMAP Support for UTF-8", Work in Progress,                October 2012.   [Maildir]    "Maildir", <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maildir&oldid=503288041>.   [Mailman]    "Mailman", <http://www.list.org/>.   [Mbox]       "mbox", <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mbox&oldid=515402275>.   [MHonArc]    "MHonArc", <http://www.mhonarc.org/>.   [RFC4155]    Hall, E., "The application/mbox Media Type",RFC 4155,                September 2005.   [RFC5064]    Duerst, M., "The Archived-At Message Header Field",RFC 5064, December 2007.   [RFC6531]    Yao, J. and W. Mao, "SMTP Extension for                Internationalized Email",RFC 6531, February 2012.   [RFC6532]    Yang, A., Steele, S., and N. Freed, "Internationalized                Email Headers",RFC 6532, February 2012.Author's Address   Robert Sparks   Tekelec   17210 Campbell Road   Suite 250   Dallas, Texas  75254-4203   USA   EMail: RjS@nostrum.comSparks                        Informational                     [Page 8]