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RFC2161

  1. RFC 2161
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.




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   Thus an appropriate header field  might look like this:

   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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  1. RFC 2161