A MIME Body Part for ODA

H. Alvestrand

doi:10.17487/RFC2161

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This is a modified version of the Internet RFC suitable for machine-translating. Original version is available here: RFC2161

EXPERIMENTAL

Network Working Group                                    H. Alvestrand
Request for Comments: 2161                                     UNINETT
Category: Experimental                                    January 1998

A MIME Body Part for ODA

Status of this Memo

This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.

Table of Contents

Status of this Memo ........................................ 1
1 Introduction .............................................. 1
1.1 The Application/ODA MIME content-type ................... 1
1.2 ODA - application/oda ................................... 2
2 Security Considerations ................................... 3
3 References ................................................ 4
4 Author's Address .......................................... 4
5 Full Copyright Statement .................................. 5

1.  Introduction

This document contains the definitions, originally contained in RFC 1495 and RFC 1341, on how to carry ODA in MIME, and how to translate it to its X.400 representation.

1.1.  The Application/ODA MIME content-type

The "ODA" subtype of application is used to indicate that a body contains information encoded according to the Office Document Architecture [ODA] standards, using the ODIF representation format. For application/oda, the Content-Type line should also specify an attribute/value pair that indicates the document application profile (DAP), using the key word "profile", and the document class, using the keyword "class".

For the keyword "class", the values "formatted", "processable" and "formatted-processable" are legal values. Thus an appropriate header field might look like this:

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Content-Type: application/oda; profile=Q112; class=formatted

Consult the ODA standard [T.411] for further information.

The Base64 content-transfer-encoding is appropriate for carrying ODA.

1.2.  ODA - application/oda

X.400 Body Part: ODA MIME Content-Type: application/oda Conversion: None Comments:

The ODA body part is defined in the CCITT document T.411 [T.411], appendix E, section E.2, "ODA identification in the P2 protocol of MHS"

An abbreviated version of its ASN.1 definition is:

oda-body-part EXTENDED-BODY-PART-TYPE
PARAMETERS OdaBodyPartParameters DATA OdaData ::= id-et-oda

OdaBodyPartParameters ::= SET {
document-application-profile [0] OBJECT IDENTIFIER document-architecture-class [1] INTEGER { formatted (0) processable (1) formatted-processable(2)}}

id-et-oda OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { 2 8 1 0 1 }

Mapping from X.400 to MIME, the following is done:

The Parameters.document-application-profile is mapped onto the MIME parameter "profile" according to the table below.

Profile OBJECT IDENTIFIER

Q112 { iso (1) identified-organization (3) ewos (16)
eg (2) oda (6) profile (0) q112 (1) }

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The Parameters.document-architecture-class is mapped onto the MIME parameter "class" according to the table below.

String Integer

formatted formatted(0) processable processable(1) formatted-processable formatted-processable(2)

NOTE: This parameter is not defined in RFC 1341.

The body of the MIME content-type is the Data part of the ODA body part.

When mapping from MIME to X.400, the following steps are done:

The Parameters.document-application-profile and Parameters.document- architecture-class are set from the tables above. If any of the parameters are missing, the values for Q112 and formatted-processable are used.

It is an option for the gateway implementor to try to access them from inside the document, where they are defined as

document-profile.document-characteristics.document-architecture-class

document-profile.document-characteristics.document-application- profile

Gateways are NOT required to do this, since the document- characteristics are optional parameters. If a gateway does not, it simply uses the defaulting rules defined above.

The OBJECT IDENTIFIERs for the document application profile and for ODA {2 8 0 0} must be added to the Encoded Information Types parameter of the message envelope.

2.  Security Considerations

ODA body parts have the natural propensity of complex structures that it is hard to find out what the parts are capable of.

Moreover, ODA is an extensible architecture, where new content portions may be added at any time, so that the threats posed by this body part may change over time.

However, no security risks related to ODA are known at this time.

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3.  References

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

[T.411]
CCITT Recommendation T.411 (1988), Open Document Architecture (ODA) and Interchange Format, Introduction and General Principles.

4.  Author's Address

Harald Tveit Alvestrand UNINETT Postboks 6883 Elgeseter N-7002 TRONDHEIM

Phone: +47 73 59 70 94 EMail: Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no

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5.  Full Copyright Statement

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English.

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

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