RFC 5703 PROPOSED STANDARD EMAIL · SIEVE · MIME

Sieve MIME: Sieve Email Filtering: MIME Part Tests, Iteration, Extraction, Replacement, and Enclosure

Lets a Sieve filtering script look inside a MIME message, walk its parts, and change or wrap what they find.

On rfc-editor.org ↗
PUBLISHED
October 2009
AUTHORS
T. Hansen, C. Daboo
STREAM
IETF
CAPABILITY STRINGS
foreverypart, mime, replace, enclose, extracttext
NESTED LOOPS THAT MUST BE SUPPORTED
At least one
NEW HEADERS REGISTERED
Original-Subject and Original-From
HEADER TEST MIME OPTIONS
:type, :subtype, :contenttype, :param
NEW MESSAGE PART TYPES USED BY ENCLOSE
multipart/mixed and message/rfc822
DOI
10.17487/RFC5703
ERRATA
Reported errata

RFC text

Contents
Original text · RFC Editor View on rfc-editor.org ↗
Network Working Group                                          T. Hansen
Request for Comments: 5703                             AT&T Laboratories
Category: Standards Track                                       C. Daboo
                                                              Apple Inc.
                                                            October 2009


     Sieve Email Filtering: MIME Part Tests, Iteration, Extraction,
                       Replacement, and Enclosure

Abstract

   This document defines extensions to the Sieve email filtering
   language to permit analysis and manipulation of the MIME body parts
   of an email message.

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) 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 BSD License.

   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
   modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................3
   3. Sieve Loops: Actions "foreverypart" and "break" .................3
   4. Changes to Sieve Tests ..........................................4
      4.1. Test "header" ..............................................4
      4.2. Test "address" .............................................7
      4.3. Test "exists" ..............................................8
   5. Action "replace" ................................................8
   6. Action "enclose" ...............................................10
   7. Action "extracttext" ...........................................11
   8. Sieve Capability Strings .......................................11
   9. Examples .......................................................12
      9.1. Example 1 .................................................12
      9.2. Example 2 .................................................12
      9.3. Example 3 .................................................13
   10. Acknowledgements ..............................................13
   11. Security Considerations .......................................14
   12. IANA Considerations ...........................................14
      12.1. foreverypart capability ..................................15
      12.2. mime capability ..........................................15
      12.3. replace capability .......................................15
      12.4. enclose capability .......................................16
      12.5. extracttext capability ...................................16
   13. References ....................................................16
      13.1. Normative References .....................................16
      13.2. Informative References ...................................17

1.  Introduction

   MIME messages ([RFC2045]) are often complex objects, consisting of
   many parts and sub-parts.  This Sieve ([RFC5228]) extension defines
   mechanisms for performing tests on MIME body parts, looping through
   the MIME body parts, extracting information from a MIME body part,
   changing the contents of a MIME body part, and enclosing the entire
   message within a wrapper.

2.  Conventions Used in This Document

   Conventions for notations are as in [RFC5228], Section 1.1.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

3.  Sieve Loops: Actions "foreverypart" and "break"

   The base Sieve language has no looping mechanism.  Given that
   messages may contain multiple parts, in order to support filters that
   apply to any and all parts, we introduce a new control command:
   "foreverypart", which is an iterator that walks though every MIME
   part of a message, including nested parts, depth first, and applies
   the commands in the specified block to each of them.  The iterator
   will start with the first MIME part (as its current context) and will
   execute a command block (Sieve commands enclosed by {...}).  Upon
   completion of this command block, the iterator advances to the next
   MIME part (as its current context) and executes the same command
   block again.

   The iterator can be terminated prematurely by a new Sieve control
   command, "break".

   Usage:  foreverypart [":name" string] block

   Usage:  break [":name" string];

   "foreverypart" commands can be nested inside other "foreverypart"
   commands.  When this occurs, the nested "foreverypart" iterates over
   the MIME parts contained within the MIME part currently being
   targeted by the nearest enclosing "foreverypart" command.  (That is,
   the inner loop only operates on children of the bodypart currently
   accessed by the outer loop.)  If that MIME part is a terminal MIME
   part (i.e., does not contain other MIME parts), then the nested
   "foreverypart" loop is simply ignored.

   Sieve implementations MAY limit the number of nested loops that occur
   within one another; however, they MUST support at least one nested
   loop inside another loop.

   If a name is given to a "break" command, it terminates the closest
   enclosing loop with the identical matching name.  (If a nested
   "foreverypart" name is the same as a "foreverypart" name in an outer
   level, the outer level name is hidden.)  It is an error if there is
   no enclosing loop with that name.

   If no name is given in a "break" command (i.e., the ":name" parameter
   is omitted), the break command terminates the closest enclosing loop.

4.  Changes to Sieve Tests

   This specification extends the base Sieve "header", "address", and
   "exists" tests to support targeting those tests at a specific MIME
   part or at all MIME parts in the enclosing scope.

4.1.  Test "header"

   The "header" test is extended with the addition of new ":mime" and
   ":anychild" tagged arguments and their associated options.

   Usage:  header [":mime"] [":anychild"] [MIMEOPTS]
      [COMPARATOR] [MATCH-TYPE]
      <header-names: string-list> <key-list: string-list>

      The definition of [MIMEOPTS] is:

   Syntax:  ":type" / ":subtype" / ":contenttype" /
      ":param" <param-list: string-list>

   When the ":mime" tagged argument is present in the "header" test, it
   will parse the MIME header lines in the message so that tests can be
   performed on specific elements.  The ":anychild" tagged argument may
   only appear when the ":mime" tagged argument is present, and only
   modifies the semantics of the ":mime" tagged argument.  That is,
   presence of the ":anychild" in absence of ":mime" is an error.

   When used outside the context of a "foreverypart" iterator, and
   without an ":anychild" tagged argument, the "header" test will
   examine only the outer top-level [RFC5322] headers of the message.

   When used inside the context of a "foreverypart" iterator, and
   without an ":anychild" tagged argument, the "header" test will
   examine the headers associated with the current MIME part context
   from the loop.

   When used outside the context of a "foreverypart" iterator, and with
   an ":anychild" tagged argument, the "header" test will examine all
   MIME body parts and return true if any of them satisfies the test.

   When used inside the context of a "foreverypart" iterator, and with
   an ":anychild" tagged argument, the "header" test will examine the
   current MIME part context and all its nested MIME body parts,
   returning true if any of them satisfies the test.

   The "header" test with the ":mime" tagged argument can test various
   aspects of certain structured MIME headers.  Implementations SHOULD
   support desegmentation, decoding, and charset translation of
   parameter values encoded according to [RFC2231] as part of this test.
   Additionally, [RFC2047] describes a process whereby [RFC5322] headers
   can be encoded in various ways.  That encoding is not strictly
   allowed in MIME parameters; however, in practice, it has been used in
   many email implementations.  So, Sieve implementations MAY decode
   [RFC2047]-encoded words in parameter values as part of this test.

   These options are available:

   :type          for a "Content-Type" MIME header field, parses and
                  tests the value of the MIME type specified in the
                  header; for a "Content-Disposition" MIME header field,
                  parses and tests the value of the disposition
                  specified in the header; for other MIME headers, uses
                  a blank string for the test.

   :subtype       for a "Content-Type" MIME header field, parses and
                  tests the value of the MIME subtype specified in the
                  header; for a "Content-Disposition" MIME header field,
                  uses a blank string for the test; for other MIME
                  headers, uses a blank string for the test.

   :contenttype   for a "Content-Type" MIME header field, parses and
                  tests the combined value of the MIME type and subtype
                  specified in the header; for a "Content-Disposition"
                  MIME header field, behaves the same as the ":type"
                  option; for other MIME headers, uses a blank string
                  for the test.

   :param         parses the header looking for MIME parameters in the
                  header.  The supplied string-list lists the names of
                  any parameters to be tested.  If any one named
                  parameter value matches any of the test string values,
                  the test will return true.

   When the ":count" option from [RFC5231] is used, the following
   applies:

   a.  for ":type", ":subtype", or ":contenttype", return a count of the
       number of headers that parsed successfully

   b.  for ":param", return a count of the number of parameters with the
       given name that were found

   Example:

   require ["mime", "fileinto"];

   if header :mime :type "Content-Type" "image"
   {
       fileinto "INBOX.images";
   }

   In this example, any message that contains a MIME image type part at
   the top-level is saved to the mailbox "INBOX.images".

   Example:

   require ["mime", "fileinto"];

   if header :mime :anychild :contenttype
             "Content-Type" "text/html"
   {
       fileinto "INBOX.html";
   }

   In this example, any message that contains any MIME part with a
   content-type of "text/html" is saved to the mailbox "INBOX.html".

   Example:

   require ["mime", "foreverypart", "fileinto"];

   foreverypart
   {
       if allof (
         header :mime :param "filename" :contains
            "Content-Disposition" "important",
         header :mime :subtype "Content-Type" "pdf",
         size :over "100K")
       {
           fileinto "INBOX.important";
           break;
       }
   }

   In this example, any message that contains a MIME part that has a
   content-disposition with a filename parameter containing the text
   "important", has a content-subtype of "pdf" and is bigger than 100 Kb
   is saved to the mailbox "INBOX.important".

4.2.  Test "address"

   The "address" test is extended with the addition of new ":mime" and
   ":anychild" tagged arguments and their associated options.

   Usage:  address [":mime"] [":anychild"] [COMPARATOR]
      [ADDRESS-PART] [MATCH-TYPE]
      <header-list: string-list> <key-list: string-list>

   When the ":mime" tagged argument is present in the "address" test, it
   will parse the MIME header lines as if they were standard address
   header lines in a message so that tests can be performed on specific
   elements.

   The behavior of the ":anychild" tagged argument and the interaction
   with the "foreverypart" iterator is the same as for the extended
   "header" test in Section 4.1.

   That is,

      the use of "address" when both the ":mime" and ":anychild" tagged
      arguments are omitted is the test defined in [RFC5228], i.e., it
      will *only* operate on top-level header fields, whether or not it
      is inside "foreverypart".

      the use of "address" with ":mime" and no ":anychild" operates on
      the current MIME part only (or on the top-level header fields, if
      outside "foreverypart").

      the use of "address" with ":mime" and ":anychild" operates on the
      current MIME part and all of its descendants.

   Example:

   require ["mime", "fileinto"];

   if address :mime :is :all "content-from" "tim@example.com"
   {
       fileinto "INBOX.part-from-tim";
   }

   In this example, any message that contains a MIME Content-From header
   at the top-level matching the text "tim@example.com" is saved to the
   mailbox "INBOX.part-from-tim".

4.3.  Test "exists"

   The "exists" test is extended with the addition of the new ":mime"
   and ":anychild" tagged arguments and their associated options.

   Usage:  exists [":mime"] [":anychild"] <header-names: string-list>

   When the ":mime" tagged argument is present in the "exists" test, the
   test is extended to check for the existence of MIME headers in MIME
   parts.

   The behavior of the ":anychild" tagged argument and the interaction
   with the "foreverypart" iterator is the same as for the extended
   "header" test Section 4.1.

   That is,

      the use of "exists" when both the ":mime" and ":anychild" tagged
      arguments are omitted is the test defined in [RFC5228], i.e., it
      will *only* operate on top-level header fields, whether or not it
      is inside "foreverypart".

      the use of "exists" with ":mime" and no ":anychild" operates on
      the current MIME part only (or on the top-level header fields, if
      outside "foreverypart").

      the use of "exists" with ":mime" and ":anychild" operates on the
      current MIME part and all of its descendants.

   Example:

   require ["mime", "fileinto"];

   if exists :mime :anychild "content-md5"
   {
       fileinto "INBOX.md5";
   }

   In this example, any message that contains a MIME Content-MD5 header
   in any MIME part is saved to the mailbox "INBOX.md5".

5.  Action "replace"

   Usage:  replace [":mime"] [":subject" string] [":from" string]
      <replacement: string>

   The "replace" command is defined to allow a MIME part to be replaced
   with the text supplied in the command.

   When used in the context of a "foreverypart" iterator, the MIME part
   to be replaced is the "current" MIME part.  If the current MIME
   context is a multipart MIME part, the entire multipart MIME part is
   replaced, which would alter the MIME structure of the message by
   eliminating all of the children of the multipart part.  (Replacing a
   non-multipart MIME part within a "foreverypart" loop context does not
   alter the overall message structure.)  If the MIME structure is
   altered, the change takes effect immediately: the "foreverypart"
   iterator that is executing does not go into the no-longer existing
   body parts, and subsequent "foreverypart" iterators would use the new
   message structure.

   When used outside the context of a "foreverypart" loop, the MIME part
   to be replaced is the entire message.

   If the ":mime" parameter is not specified, the replacement string is
   a text/plain part in UTF-8 [RFC3629].

   If the ":mime" parameter is specified, then the replacement string
   is, in fact, a MIME entity as defined in [RFC2045], Section 2.4,
   including both MIME headers and content.

   If the entire message is being replaced, the optional ":subject"
   parameter specifies a subject line to attach to the message that is
   generated.  UTF-8 characters can be used in the string argument;
   implementations MUST convert the string to [RFC2047]-encoded words if
   and only if non-ASCII characters are present.  If the ":subject"
   parameter is used, implementations MUST preserve any previous Subject
   header as an Original-Subject header.  Implementations MUST preserve
   all other header fields from the original message with the exception
   of those relating to the MIME structure that is being replaced.

   If the entire message is being replaced, as an indication that the
   message is no longer as created by the original author of the
   message, the optional ":from" parameter may be used to specify an
   alternate address to use in the From field of the message that is
   generated.  The string must specify a valid [RFC5322] mailbox-list.
   Implementations SHOULD check the syntax and generate an error when a
   syntactically invalid ":from" parameter is specified.
   Implementations MAY also impose restrictions on what addresses can be
   specified in a ":from" parameter; it is suggested that values that
   fail such a validity check simply be ignored rather than causing the
   "replace" action to fail.  If the From header is changed,
   implementations MUST preserve the previous From header as an
   Original-From header.

   Implementations that support the "editheader" extension [RFC5293]
   MUST ensure that any Original-Subject or Original-From headers added
   by the system cannot be modified or removed.  Implementations MAY
   prevent the addition of Original-Subject and Orignal-From headers via
   the "editheader" extension.

   If ":mime" is specified and either ":subject" or ":from" is
   specified, the ":subject:" or ":from" parameter MUST be ignored.
   This SHOULD be flagged as a compilation error.

6.  Action "enclose"

   Usage:  enclose <:subject string> <:headers string-list> string

   A new Sieve action command is defined to allow an entire message to
   be enclosed as an attachment to a new message.  After enclosure,
   subsequent actions affecting the message header or content, as well
   as tests operating on the MIME structure or accessing MIME header
   fields, use the newly created message instead of the original
   message; this means that any use of a "replace" action or other
   similar actions should be executed before the "enclose" action.

   If multiple "enclose" actions are executed by a script, the message
   is enclosed multiple times.  (If a Sieve script desires to choose
   between different enclosures, or wants to delay the enclosure to the
   end of the script, it can use variables with appropriate tests
   [RFC5229].)

   This action does not affect messages that are forwarded via a
   "redirect" action.

   Specifically, the original message becomes a multipart/mixed message
   with two parts: a text/plain portion with the string argument as its
   body, and a message/rfc822 portion with the original message
   enclosed.  The Content-Type: header field becomes multipart/mixed.
   The optional Subject: header is specified by the ":subject" argument;
   if not present, the subject will be taken from the enclosed message.
   Any headers specified by ":headers" are copied from the old message
   into the new message.  If not specified by ":headers", Date: and
   From: headers should be synthesized to reflect the current date and
   the user running the Sieve action.

7.  Action "extracttext"

   Usage:  extracttext [MODIFIER] [":first" number] <varname: string>

   The "extracttext" action may be used within the context of a
   "foreverypart" loop and is used to store text into a variable as
   defined by [RFC5229].  Servers MUST support transcoding of any
   textual body part into UTF-8 for use with this action.  This requires
   decoding any transfer encoding as well as transcoding from the
   indicated character set into UTF-8.  It stores at most ":first"
   characters of the transcoded content of the current MIME body part in
   the variable identified by varname.  If the ":first" parameter is not
   present, the whole content of the current MIME body part is stored.
   In either case, the actually stored data MAY be truncated to conform
   to implementation specific limit on variable length and/or on MIME
   body part length.  If the transfer encoding or character set is
   unrecognized by the implementation or recognized but invalid, an
   empty string will result.

   If "extracttext" is used outside the context of a "foreverypart"
   loop, the action will set the variable identified by varname to the
   empty string.  This SHOULD be flagged as a compilation error.

   Modifiers are applied on the extracted text before it is stored in
   the variable.

8.  Sieve Capability Strings

   A Sieve implementation that defines the "foreverypart" and "break"
   actions will advertise the capability string "foreverypart".

   A Sieve implementation that defines the ":mime" and ":anychild"
   tagged arguments to the "header", "address", and "exists" commands
   will advertise the capability string "mime".

   A Sieve implementation that defines the "replace" action will
   advertise the capability string "replace".

   A Sieve implementation that defines the "enclose" action will
   advertise the capability string "enclose".

   A Sieve implementation that defines the "extracttext" action will
   advertise the capability string "extracttext".  Note that to be
   useful, the "extracttext" action also requires the "variables"
   [RFC5229] and "foreverypart" capabilities.

9.  Examples

9.1.  Example 1

   Consider a Sieve script to replace some of the Windows executable
   attachments in a message.  (The actual list of executable types and
   extensions is considerably longer and constantly changing.  The tests
   shown here are an example only.)  Such a script might look like this:

   require [ "foreverypart", "mime", "replace" ];
   foreverypart
   {
     if anyof (
            header :mime :contenttype :is
              "Content-Type" "application/exe",
            header :mime :param "filename"
              :matches ["Content-Type", "Content-Disposition"] "*.com" )
     {
       replace "Executable attachment removed by user filter";
     }
   }

9.2.  Example 2

   Consider a Sieve script to warn the user about some of the executable
   attachment types.  (The actual list of executable types and
   extensions is considerably longer and constantly changing.  The tests
   shown here are an example only.)  Such a script might look like this:

   require [ "foreverypart", "mime", "enclose" ];

   foreverypart
   {
     if header :mime :param "filename"
        :matches ["Content-Type", "Content-Disposition"]
          ["*.com", "*.exe", "*.vbs", "*.scr",
           "*.pif", "*.hta", "*.bat", "*.zip" ]
     {
       # these attachment types are executable
       enclose :subject "Warning" :text
   WARNING! The enclosed message contains executable attachments.
   These attachment types may contain a computer virus program
   that can infect your computer and potentially damage your data.

   Before clicking on these message attachments, you should verify
   with the sender that this message was sent by them and not a
   computer virus.

   .
   ;
       break;
     }
   }

9.3.  Example 3

   A Sieve script to extract subject and text out of messages from the
   boss might look like this:

   require ["mime", "variables", "extracttext"];

   if header :contains "from" "boss@example.org"
   {
     # :matches is used to get the value of the Subject header
     if header :matches "Subject" "*"
     {
       set "subject" "${1}";
     }

     # extract the first 100 characters of the first text/* part
     foreverypart
     {
       if header :mime :type :is "Content-Type" "text"
       {
         extracttext :first 100 "msgcontent";
         break;
       }
     }

     # if it's not a 'for your information' message
     if not header :contains "subject" "FYI:"
     {
       # do something using ${subject} and ${msgcontent}
       # such as sending a notification using a
       # notification extension
     }
   }

10.  Acknowledgements

   Comments from members of the MTA Filters Working Group, in particular
   Ned Freed, Kjetil Torgrim Homme, Mark Mallett, Alexey Melnikov, Aaron
   Stone, and Nigel Swinson are gratefully acknowledged.

11.  Security Considerations

   The "enclose" action creates an entirely new message, as compared to
   just redirecting or forwarding the existing message.  Therefore, any
   site policies applicable to message submission should be enforced.

   The looping specification specified here provides easier access to
   information about the message contents, which may also be achieved
   through other sieve tests.  This is not believed to raise any
   additional security issues beyond those for the Sieve "envelope" and
   "body" [RFC5173] tests.

   Any change in message content may interfere with digital signature
   mechanisms that include that content in the signed material.  In
   particular, using "replace" makes direct changes to the body content
   and will affect the body hash included in Domain Keys Identified Mail
   (DKIM) signatures [RFC4871], or the message signature used for Secure
   MIME (S/MIME) [RFC3851], Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) [RFC1991] or
   OpenPGP [RFC4880].

   It is not possible to examine the MIME structure of decrypted content
   in a multipart/encrypted MIME part.

   When "enclose" is used on a message containing a multipart/signed
   MIME part, the Sieve implementation MUST ensure that the original
   message is copied octet-for-octet to maintain the validity of the
   digital signature.

   The system MUST be sized and restricted in such a manner that even
   malicious use of MIME part matching does not deny service to other
   users of the host system.

   All of the security considerations given in the base Sieve
   specification also apply to these extensions.

12.  IANA Considerations

   The Original-Subject and Original-From headers have been registered
   in the Permanent Message Header Fields registry.

   The following templates specify the IANA registrations of the Sieve
   extensions specified in this document.  This information has been
   added to the IANA registry of Sieve Extensions (currently found at
   http://www.iana.org).

12.1.  foreverypart capability

   To: iana@iana.org
   Subject: Registration of new Sieve extension

   Capability name: foreverypart
   Description: adds the "foreverypart" and "break" actions for
   iterating through MIME parts of a message.

   RFC number: RFC 5703
   Contact address: The Sieve discussion list
   <ietf-mta-filters@imc.org>.

12.2.  mime capability

   To: iana@iana.org
   Subject: Registration of new Sieve extension

   Capability name: mime
   Description: adds the ":mime" and ":anychild" tagged arguments to the
   "header", "address", and "exists" tests.  Adds the ":type",
   ":subtype", ":contenttype", and ":param" options when ":mime" is used
   with the "header" test.

   RFC number: RFC 5703
   Contact address: The Sieve discussion list
   <ietf-mta-filters@imc.org>.

12.3.  replace capability

   To: iana@iana.org
   Subject: Registration of new Sieve extension

   Capability name: replace
   Description: adds the "replace" action for replacing a MIME body part
   of a message.

   RFC number: RFC 5703
   Contact address: The Sieve discussion list
   <ietf-mta-filters@imc.org>.

12.4.  enclose capability

   To: iana@iana.org
   Subject: Registration of new Sieve extension

   Capability name: enclose
   Description: adds the "enclose" action for enclosing a message with a
   wrapper.

   RFC number: RFC 5703
   Contact address: The Sieve discussion list
   <ietf-mta-filters@imc.org>.

12.5.  extracttext capability

   To: iana@iana.org
   Subject: Registration of new Sieve extension

   Capability name: extracttext
   Description: adds the "extracttext" action for extracting text from a

   MIME body part.

   RFC number: RFC 5703
   Contact address: The Sieve discussion list
   <ietf-mta-filters@imc.org>.

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2045]  Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
              Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message
              Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996.

   [RFC2047]  Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
              Part Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text",
              RFC 2047, November 1996.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2231]  Freed, N. and K. Moore, "MIME Parameter Value and Encoded
              Word Extensions:
              Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations", RFC 2231,
              November 1997.

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.

   [RFC5173]  Degener, J. and P. Guenther, "Sieve Email Filtering: Body
              Extension", RFC 5173, April 2008.

   [RFC5228]  Guenther, P. and T. Showalter, "Sieve: An Email Filtering
              Language", RFC 5228, January 2008.

   [RFC5229]  Homme, K., "Sieve Email Filtering: Variables Extension",
              RFC 5229, January 2008.

   [RFC5231]  Segmuller, W. and B. Leiba, "Sieve Email Filtering:
              Relational Extension", RFC 5231, January 2008.

   [RFC5293]  Degener, J. and P. Guenther, "Sieve Email Filtering:
              Editheader Extension", RFC 5293, August 2008.

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

13.2.  Informative References

   [RFC1991]  Atkins, D., Stallings, W., and P. Zimmermann, "PGP Message
              Exchange Formats", RFC 1991, August 1996.

   [RFC3851]  Ramsdell, B., "Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail
              Extensions (S/MIME) Version 3.1 Message Specification",
              RFC 3851, July 2004.

   [RFC4871]  Allman, E., Callas, J., Delany, M., Libbey, M., Fenton,
              J., and M. Thomas, "DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
              Signatures", RFC 4871, May 2007.

   [RFC4880]  Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., Shaw, D., and R.
              Thayer, "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 4880, November 2007.

Authors' Addresses

   Tony Hansen
   AT&T Laboratories
   200 Laurel Ave.
   Middletown, NJ  07748
   USA

   EMail: tony+sieveloop@maillennium.att.com


   Cyrus Daboo
   Apple Inc.
   1 Infinite Loop
   Cupertino, CA  95014
   USA

   EMail: cyrus@daboo.name
   URI:   http://www.apple.com/

ISO Plain Language

On this page
PROBLEMMIME messages are often complex objects with many parts and sub-parts, and the base Sieve language has no way to look inside them. It also has no loop, so a filter cannot apply the same rule to every part of a message.
MECHANISMThe extension adds a foreverypart loop that walks every MIME part depth first, a break command to leave it early, and :mime and :anychild tagged arguments that let the header, address and exists tests look at the headers of a part or of all of its children. It also adds three actions: replace, enclose and extracttext.
WHAT IT ADDSA filter can now route a message according to what is inside it, replace an unwanted part with text of its own, wrap the whole message in a warning, and copy the text of a part into a variable. Five capability strings, foreverypart, mime, replace, enclose and extracttext, tell a script what the server supports.

§1What This Extension Adds

MIME messages are often complex objects, consisting of many parts and sub-parts. This Sieve extension defines mechanisms for performing tests on MIME body parts, looping through the MIME body parts, extracting information from a MIME body part, changing the contents of a MIME body part, and enclosing the entire message within a wrapper.

Five capability strings tell a script which of those mechanisms the server implements. A server that defines the foreverypart and break actions advertises foreverypart. A server that defines the :mime and :anychild tagged arguments to the header, address and exists commands advertises mime. A server that defines the replace action advertises replace, one that defines the enclose action advertises enclose, and one that defines the extracttext action advertises extracttext. To be useful, extracttext also requires the variables and foreverypart capabilities.

The IANA considerations register the five capability names in the registry of Sieve extensions, and register the Original-Subject and Original-From headers in the Permanent Message Header Fields registry.

The extension has five parts, and each has its own name that a script can ask about. A script that uses a name the server does not have is rejected at compile time rather than failing later.

§3Looping Over the Parts of a Message

The base Sieve language has no looping mechanism. Given that messages may contain multiple parts, in order to support filters that apply to any and all parts, the extension introduces a new control command, foreverypart, which is an iterator that walks through every MIME part of a message, including nested parts, depth first, and applies the commands in the specified block to each of them. The iterator starts with the first MIME part as its current context and executes a command block, the Sieve commands enclosed by braces. On completion of the block, the iterator advances to the next MIME part and executes the same block again.

The iterator can be terminated prematurely by a new Sieve control command, break. The usage is foreverypart with an optional :name string followed by a block, and break with an optional :name string.

Foreverypart commands can be nested inside other foreverypart commands. When this occurs, the nested foreverypart iterates over the MIME parts contained within the MIME part currently being targeted by the nearest enclosing foreverypart command, so the inner loop only operates on children of the part currently accessed by the outer loop. If that MIME part is a terminal part, that is, it does not contain other MIME parts, the nested loop is simply ignored. Sieve implementations MAY limit the number of nested loops within one another, but they MUST support at least one nested loop inside another loop.

If a name is given to a break command, it terminates the closest enclosing loop with the identical matching name. If a nested foreverypart name is the same as a foreverypart name at an outer level, the outer level name is hidden. It is an error if there is no enclosing loop with that name. If no name is given in a break command, the break terminates the closest enclosing loop.

The loop walks the message depth first: the top-level part, then each part inside it, then each part inside those. Inside the loop, the current part is what the tests and actions operate on.

Loops can be nested, and then the inner loop covers only the children of the part the outer loop is currently on. A named break stops one particular loop, which is how a script stops after the first matching part.

THE PART HIERARCHY THE LOOP WALKS
  • Message The top-level part
    • MIME part
      • Nested MIME part
      • Nested MIME part
    • MIME part

§4The Extended header, address and exists Tests

The specification extends the base Sieve header, address and exists tests to support targeting those tests at a specific MIME part or at all MIME parts in the enclosing scope.

The header test gains the :mime and :anychild tagged arguments. The :anychild argument may only appear when the :mime argument is present, and presence of :anychild in the absence of :mime is an error. When used outside a foreverypart iterator without :anychild, the test examines only the outer top-level headers of the message. When used inside the iterator without :anychild, it examines the headers associated with the current MIME part context. When used outside the iterator with :anychild, it examines all MIME body parts and returns true if any of them satisfies the test. When used inside the iterator with :anychild, it examines the current part and all its nested body parts, again returning true if any satisfies the test.

With the :mime argument the header test can test individual elements of structured MIME headers. Implementations SHOULD support desegmentation, decoding and charset translation of parameter values encoded according to RFC 2231, and MAY decode RFC 2047-encoded words in parameter values. Four options are available. The :type option tests the MIME type of a Content-Type header, or the disposition of a Content-Disposition header, and uses a blank string for other headers. The :subtype option tests the MIME subtype of a Content-Type header and uses a blank string otherwise. The :contenttype option tests the combined type and subtype of a Content-Type header, behaves like :type for a Content-Disposition header, and uses a blank string otherwise. The :param option parses the header looking for MIME parameters and tests the named ones; the test returns true if any one named parameter value matches any of the test string values. When the :count option is used, the count is the number of headers that parsed successfully for :type, :subtype or :contenttype, and the number of parameters with the given name that were found for :param.

The address and exists tests gain the same two tagged arguments, and their behaviour with :anychild and the foreverypart iterator is the same as for the header test. Using either test with both arguments omitted is the test defined in RFC 5228, operating only on top-level header fields whether or not it is inside foreverypart. With :mime and no :anychild, it operates on the current MIME part only, or on the top-level header fields if outside foreverypart. With :mime and :anychild, it operates on the current MIME part and all of its descendants.

Three of the standard tests gain the ability to look inside a message. Without any new arguments they behave exactly as before, looking only at the top-level headers. With the mime argument they look at the headers of the current part, and with anychild as well they look at the headers of that part and of every part inside it.

§5The replace Action

The replace command is defined to allow a MIME part to be replaced with the text supplied in the command. Its usage is replace with an optional :mime argument, an optional :subject string, an optional :from string, and a replacement string.

When used in the context of a foreverypart iterator, the MIME part to be replaced is the current MIME part. If the current MIME context is a multipart MIME part, the entire multipart part is replaced, which alters the MIME structure of the message by eliminating all of the children of the multipart part. Replacing a non-multipart part within a foreverypart loop context does not alter the overall message structure. If the MIME structure is altered, the change takes effect immediately: the foreverypart iterator that is executing does not go into the no-longer existing body parts, and subsequent foreverypart iterators would use the new message structure.

When used outside the context of a foreverypart loop, the MIME part to be replaced is the entire message. If the :mime parameter is not specified, the replacement string is a text/plain part in UTF-8. If it is specified, the replacement string is a MIME entity including both MIME headers and content.

If the entire message is being replaced, the optional :subject parameter specifies a subject line to attach to the generated message. UTF-8 characters can be used in the string, and implementations MUST convert the string to RFC 2047-encoded words if and only if non-ASCII characters are present. If the :subject parameter is used, implementations MUST preserve any previous Subject header as an Original-Subject header, and MUST preserve all other header fields from the original message with the exception of those relating to the MIME structure that is being replaced.

The optional :from parameter may be used to specify an alternate address for the From field of the generated message, as an indication that the message is no longer as created by the original author. The string must specify a valid RFC 5322 mailbox-list, and implementations SHOULD check the syntax and generate an error when a syntactically invalid parameter is specified. Implementations MAY also impose restrictions on what addresses can be specified, and it is suggested that values failing such a validity check simply be ignored rather than causing the replace action to fail. If the From header is changed, implementations MUST preserve the previous From header as an Original-From header. Implementations that support the editheader extension MUST ensure that any Original-Subject or Original-From headers added by the system cannot be modified or removed.

If :mime is specified and either :subject or :from is specified, the subject or from parameter MUST be ignored, and this SHOULD be flagged as a compilation error.

Inside a loop, replace overwrites the part the loop is currently on with the given text. Outside a loop, it overwrites the whole message.

Replacing the whole message also replaces its headers, so the original subject and sender are kept under the names Original-Subject and Original-From. A script cannot then edit those two headers, because they record what the message originally was.

§6The enclose Action

The enclose action allows an entire message to be enclosed as an attachment to a new message. After enclosure, subsequent actions affecting the message header or content, as well as tests operating on the MIME structure or accessing MIME header fields, use the newly created message instead of the original; this means that any use of a replace action or other similar actions should be executed before the enclose action.

If multiple enclose actions are executed by a script, the message is enclosed multiple times. A script that wants to choose between different enclosures, or wants to delay the enclosure to the end of the script, can use variables with appropriate tests.

The action does not affect messages that are forwarded via a redirect action.

Specifically, the original message becomes a multipart/mixed message with two parts: a text/plain portion with the string argument as its body, and a message/rfc822 portion with the original message enclosed. The Content-Type header field becomes multipart/mixed. The optional Subject header is specified by the :subject argument; if not present, the subject is taken from the enclosed message. Any headers specified by :headers are copied from the old message into the new message. If not specified by :headers, Date and From headers should be synthesized to reflect the current date and the user running the Sieve action.

Enclose builds a new message around the old one. The new message has two parts: the text the script supplies, and the original message itself as an attachment.

Because the original is kept intact inside, the wrapping happens after any other edits, and a message that has been enclosed is the one later actions work on.

§7The extracttext Action

The extracttext action may be used within the context of a foreverypart loop and is used to store text into a variable as defined by RFC 5229. Its usage is extracttext with an optional modifier, an optional :first number, and a variable name.

Servers MUST support transcoding of any textual body part into UTF-8 for use with this action. This requires decoding any transfer encoding as well as transcoding from the indicated character set into UTF-8. It stores at most the :first characters of the transcoded content of the current MIME body part in the variable identified by the variable name. If the :first parameter is not present, the whole content of the current MIME body part is stored. In either case the stored data MAY be truncated to conform to an implementation-specific limit on variable length and/or on MIME body part length. If the transfer encoding or character set is unrecognized by the implementation, or recognized but invalid, an empty string will result.

If extracttext is used outside the context of a foreverypart loop, the action sets the variable to the empty string, and this SHOULD be flagged as a compilation error. Modifiers are applied on the extracted text before it is stored in the variable.

This action copies the text of the current part into a variable, so that later parts of the script can compare against it or pass it on. The text is decoded and converted to UTF-8 first, so the script sees characters rather than encoded bytes.

§9Example Scripts

The first example replaces some of the Windows executable attachments in a message. The script requires the foreverypart, mime and replace capabilities, walks every part, and replaces the part with a note if its content type is application/exe, or if a filename parameter in either the Content-Type or Content-Disposition header matches the pattern *.com.

The second example warns the user about executable attachment types instead of removing them. It requires the foreverypart, mime and enclose capabilities, walks every part, and when a filename parameter matches one of a list of patterns including *.com, *.exe, *.vbs, *.scr, *.pif, *.hta, *.bat and *.zip, it encloses the message with a warning text and then breaks out of the loop.

The third example extracts the subject and text out of messages from the boss. It requires the mime, variables and extracttext capabilities, checks whether the From header contains the boss's address, uses the :matches comparator to capture the value of the Subject header into a variable, and then loops over the parts to extract the first 100 characters of the first text part into another variable, breaking out of the loop once it has found one.

The three examples cover the usual reasons to want this extension: removing an unwanted attachment, wrapping a message in a warning, and pulling a piece of text out of a message to use elsewhere.

EXAMPLE 1: REPLACING EXECUTABLE ATTACHMENTS (RFC 5703, SECTION 9.1)
Example 1
require [ "foreverypart", "mime", "replace" ];
foreverypart
{
  if anyof (
         header :mime :contenttype :is
           "Content-Type" "application/exe",
         header :mime :param "filename"
           :matches ["Content-Type", "Content-Disposition"] "*.com" )
  {
    replace "Executable attachment removed by user filter";
  }
}

§11Security Considerations

The enclose action creates an entirely new message, as compared to just redirecting or forwarding the existing message. Any site policies applicable to message submission should therefore be enforced.

The looping specification provides easier access to information about the message contents, which may also be achieved through other Sieve tests. This is not believed to raise any additional security issues beyond those for the Sieve envelope and body tests.

Any change in message content may interfere with digital signature mechanisms that include that content in the signed material. In particular, using replace makes direct changes to the body content and will affect the body hash included in DKIM signatures, or the message signature used for S/MIME, Pretty Good Privacy or OpenPGP.

It is not possible to examine the MIME structure of decrypted content in a multipart/encrypted MIME part. When enclose is used on a message containing a multipart/signed MIME part, the Sieve implementation MUST ensure that the original message is copied octet-for-octet to maintain the validity of the digital signature.

The system MUST be sized and restricted in such a manner that even malicious use of MIME part matching does not deny service to other users of the host system. All of the security considerations given in the base Sieve specification also apply to these extensions.

Two things need care. A script that rewrites the body breaks any digital signature over the message, because the signature covers the original bytes. And a script that wraps a signed message must copy the original bytes exactly, so that the signature still verifies.

§9References