MAIL PROTOCOL
					    NIC 29588 (Nov. 22, 1977)



Jon Postel, SRI-ARC
NIC 29588 (Feb. 18, 1976)


			MAIL PROTOCOL


Introduction

  This document describes the existing mail transmission protocols. The
  mail transmission protocol is a subset of the File Transfer protocol,
  consisting of tvo additional commands to the set of commands
  described in the specification of the File Transfer protocol.

  Old FTP

    A. McKenzie "File Transfer Protoool," RFC 454, NIC 14333, 16-Feb-73.

  New FTP

    N. Neigus "File Transfer Protocol," RFC 542, NIC 17759, 12-Jul-73.
	
    J. Postel "Revised FTP Reply Codes," RFC 640, NIC 30843, 5-Jun-74.


Commands

  Mail File (MLFL)

    The intent of this command is to enable a user site to mail data
    (in the form of a file) to another user at the server site. It
    should be noted that the files to be mailed are transmitted via
    the data connection in ASCII or EBCDIC type. (It is the user's
    responsibility to ensure that the type is correct.) These files
    should be inserted into the destination user's mailbox by the
    server in accordance with serving Host mail conventions. The mail
    may be marked as sent from the particular using HOST and the user
    specified by the 'USER' command. The argument field may contain
    one or more Host system or NIC idents (it is recommended that
    multiple idents be allowed so the same mail can easily be sent to
    several users), or it may be empty. If the argument field is
    empty or blank (one or more spaces), then the mail is destined for
    a printer or other designated place for site mail.

    A NIC ident refers to the standard identification described in the
    Arpanet Directory. A serving host may keep a table mapping NIC
    idents into system idents, although NIC idents are not required in
    the implementation. A system ident is the user's normal
    identification at the serving HOST. The use of system idents



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MAIL PROTOCOL
NIC 29588 (Nov. 22, 1977)



    would allow a network user to send Rail to other users who do not
    have NIC identification but whose system ident is known.

  Mail (MAIL)

    This command allows a user to send mail that is NOT in a file over
    the TELNET connection. The argument field may contain one or more
    system or NIC idents, or it may be empty. The idents are defined
    as above for the MAIL command. After the 'mail' command is
    received, the server is to treat the folloving lines as text of
    the mail sent by the user. The mail text is to be terminated by a
    line containing only a single period, that is, the character
    sequence ".CRLF" in a new line. It is suggested that a modest
    volume of mail service should be free; i.e., it may be entered
    before a USER command.


Reply Codes

  The MAIL and MLFL commands have the same reply codes as the Append
  (APPE) command, with the addition of the reply code for MAIL stating
  that mail is expected over the Telnet connection.

    Old FTP

      350 - Enter mail, terminate with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>

    New FTP

      354 - Start mail input, end with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>


Syntax

  For consistency in the handling of mail at the various hosts, it is
  required that all mail sending subsystems or programs use the
  standard syntax convention documented in RFC 733 (NIC 41952) for the
  text of the mail. This is essential to enable users, and especially
  programs, to intelligently process mail.



NOTE:	See also RFC 743, which proposes a more efficient scheme for
	mailing to several recipients

{{ Above NOTE: is in different font, persumably added later to the
original. -- Transcriber }}




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