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RFC 2821

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

Pages: 79
Obsoletes:  082109741869
Obsoleted by:  5321
Updated by:  5336
Part 4 of 4 – Pages 64 to 79
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7. Security Considerations

7.1 Mail Security and Spoofing

SMTP mail is inherently insecure in that it is feasible for even fairly casual users to negotiate directly with receiving and relaying SMTP servers and create messages that will trick a naive recipient into believing that they came from somewhere else. Constructing such a message so that the "spoofed" behavior cannot be detected by an expert is somewhat more difficult, but not sufficiently so as to be a deterrent to someone who is determined and knowledgeable. Consequently, as knowledge of Internet mail increases, so does the knowledge that SMTP mail inherently cannot be authenticated, or integrity checks provided, at the transport level. Real mail security lies only in end-to-end methods involving the message bodies, such as those which use digital signatures (see [14] and, e.g., PGP [4] or S/MIME [31]). Various protocol extensions and configuration options that provide authentication at the transport level (e.g., from an SMTP client to an SMTP server) improve somewhat on the traditional situation described above. However, unless they are accompanied by careful handoffs of responsibility in a carefully-designed trust environment, they remain inherently weaker than end-to-end mechanisms which use digitally signed messages rather than depending on the integrity of the transport system.
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   Efforts to make it more difficult for users to set envelope return
   path and header "From" fields to point to valid addresses other than
   their own are largely misguided: they frustrate legitimate
   applications in which mail is sent by one user on behalf of another
   or in which error (or normal) replies should be directed to a special
   address.  (Systems that provide convenient ways for users to alter
   these fields on a per-message basis should attempt to establish a
   primary and permanent mailbox address for the user so that Sender
   fields within the message data can be generated sensibly.)

   This specification does not further address the authentication issues
   associated with SMTP other than to advocate that useful functionality
   not be disabled in the hope of providing some small margin of
   protection against an ignorant user who is trying to fake mail.

7.2 "Blind" Copies

Addresses that do not appear in the message headers may appear in the RCPT commands to an SMTP server for a number of reasons. The two most common involve the use of a mailing address as a "list exploder" (a single address that resolves into multiple addresses) and the appearance of "blind copies". Especially when more than one RCPT command is present, and in order to avoid defeating some of the purpose of these mechanisms, SMTP clients and servers SHOULD NOT copy the full set of RCPT command arguments into the headers, either as part of trace headers or as informational or private-extension headers. Since this rule is often violated in practice, and cannot be enforced, sending SMTP systems that are aware of "bcc" use MAY find it helpful to send each blind copy as a separate message transaction containing only a single RCPT command. There is no inherent relationship between either "reverse" (from MAIL, SAML, etc., commands) or "forward" (RCPT) addresses in the SMTP transaction ("envelope") and the addresses in the headers. Receiving systems SHOULD NOT attempt to deduce such relationships and use them to alter the headers of the message for delivery. The popular "Apparently-to" header is a violation of this principle as well as a common source of unintended information disclosure and SHOULD NOT be used.

7.3 VRFY, EXPN, and Security

As discussed in section 3.5, individual sites may want to disable either or both of VRFY or EXPN for security reasons. As a corollary to the above, implementations that permit this MUST NOT appear to have verified addresses that are not, in fact, verified. If a site
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   disables these commands for security reasons, the SMTP server MUST
   return a 252 response, rather than a code that could be confused with
   successful or unsuccessful verification.

   Returning a 250 reply code with the address listed in the VRFY
   command after having checked it only for syntax violates this rule.
   Of course, an implementation that "supports" VRFY by always returning
   550 whether or not the address is valid is equally not in
   conformance.

   Within the last few years, the contents of mailing lists have become
   popular as an address information source for so-called "spammers."
   The use of EXPN to "harvest" addresses has increased as list
   administrators have installed protections against inappropriate uses
   of the lists themselves.  Implementations SHOULD still provide
   support for EXPN, but sites SHOULD carefully evaluate the tradeoffs.
   As authentication mechanisms are introduced into SMTP, some sites may
   choose to make EXPN available only to authenticated requestors.

7.4 Information Disclosure in Announcements

There has been an ongoing debate about the tradeoffs between the debugging advantages of announcing server type and version (and, sometimes, even server domain name) in the greeting response or in response to the HELP command and the disadvantages of exposing information that might be useful in a potential hostile attack. The utility of the debugging information is beyond doubt. Those who argue for making it available point out that it is far better to actually secure an SMTP server rather than hope that trying to conceal known vulnerabilities by hiding the server's precise identity will provide more protection. Sites are encouraged to evaluate the tradeoff with that issue in mind; implementations are strongly encouraged to minimally provide for making type and version information available in some way to other network hosts.

7.5 Information Disclosure in Trace Fields

In some circumstances, such as when mail originates from within a LAN whose hosts are not directly on the public Internet, trace ("Received") fields produced in conformance with this specification may disclose host names and similar information that would not normally be available. This ordinarily does not pose a problem, but sites with special concerns about name disclosure should be aware of it. Also, the optional FOR clause should be supplied with caution or not at all when multiple recipients are involved lest it inadvertently disclose the identities of "blind copy" recipients to others.
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7.6 Information Disclosure in Message Forwarding

As discussed in section 3.4, use of the 251 or 551 reply codes to identify the replacement address associated with a mailbox may inadvertently disclose sensitive information. Sites that are concerned about those issues should ensure that they select and configure servers appropriately.

7.7 Scope of Operation of SMTP Servers

It is a well-established principle that an SMTP server may refuse to accept mail for any operational or technical reason that makes sense to the site providing the server. However, cooperation among sites and installations makes the Internet possible. If sites take excessive advantage of the right to reject traffic, the ubiquity of email availability (one of the strengths of the Internet) will be threatened; considerable care should be taken and balance maintained if a site decides to be selective about the traffic it will accept and process. In recent years, use of the relay function through arbitrary sites has been used as part of hostile efforts to hide the actual origins of mail. Some sites have decided to limit the use of the relay function to known or identifiable sources, and implementations SHOULD provide the capability to perform this type of filtering. When mail is rejected for these or other policy reasons, a 550 code SHOULD be used in response to EHLO, MAIL, or RCPT as appropriate.

8. IANA Considerations

IANA will maintain three registries in support of this specification. The first consists of SMTP service extensions with the associated keywords, and, as needed, parameters and verbs. As specified in section 2.2.2, no entry may be made in this registry that starts in an "X". Entries may be made only for service extensions (and associated keywords, parameters, or verbs) that are defined in standards-track or experimental RFCs specifically approved by the IESG for this purpose. The second registry consists of "tags" that identify forms of domain literals other than those for IPv4 addresses (specified in RFC 821 and in this document) and IPv6 addresses (specified in this document). Additional literal types require standardization before being used; none are anticipated at this time. The third, established by RFC 821 and renewed by this specification, is a registry of link and protocol identifiers to be used with the "via" and "with" subclauses of the time stamp ("Received: header")
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   described in section 4.4.  Link and protocol identifiers in addition
   to those specified in this document may be registered only by
   standardization or by way of an RFC-documented, IESG-approved,
   Experimental protocol extension.

9. References

[1] American National Standards Institute (formerly United States of America Standards Institute), X3.4, 1968, "USA Code for Information Interchange". ANSI X3.4-1968 has been replaced by newer versions with slight modifications, but the 1968 version remains definitive for the Internet. [2] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet hosts - application and support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989. [3] Butler, M., Chase, D., Goldberger, J., Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "Post Office Protocol - version 2", RFC 937, February 1985. [4] Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H. and R. Thayer, "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 2440, November 1998. [5] Crispin, M., "Interactive Mail Access Protocol - Version 2", RFC 1176, August 1990. [6] Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol - Version 4", RFC 2060, December 1996. [7] Crocker, D., "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages", RFC 822, August 1982. [8] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, Eds., "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, November 1997. [9] De Winter, J., "SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting", RFC 1985, August 1996. [10] Fajman, R., "An Extensible Message Format for Message Disposition Notifications", RFC 2298, March 1998. [11] Freed, N, "Behavior of and Requirements for Internet Firewalls", RFC 2979, October 2000. [12] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies", RFC 2045, December 1996.
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   [13] Freed, N., "SMTP Service Extension for Command Pipelining", RFC
        2920, September 2000.

   [14] Galvin, J., Murphy, S., Crocker, S. and N. Freed, "Security
        Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and Multipart/Encrypted",
        RFC 1847, October 1995.

   [15] Gellens, R. and J. Klensin, "Message Submission", RFC 2476,
        December 1998.

   [16] Kille, S., "Mapping between X.400 and RFC822/MIME", RFC 2156,
        January 1998.

   [17] Hinden, R and S. Deering, Eds. "IP Version 6 Addressing
        Architecture", RFC 2373, July 1998.

   [18] Klensin, J., Freed, N. and K. Moore, "SMTP Service Extension for
        Message Size Declaration", STD 10, RFC 1870, November 1995.

   [19] Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., Stefferud, E. and D. Crocker,
        "SMTP Service Extensions", STD 10, RFC 1869, November 1995.

   [20] Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., Stefferud, E. and D. Crocker,
        "SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport", RFC 1652, July
        1994.

   [21] Lambert, M., "PCMAIL: A distributed mail system for personal
        computers", RFC 1056, July 1988.

   [22] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
        specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.

        Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities", STD
        13, RFC 1034, November 1987.

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

   [24] Moore, K., "SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status
        Notifications", RFC 1891, January 1996.

   [25] Moore, K., and G. Vaudreuil, "An Extensible Message Format for
        Delivery Status Notifications", RFC 1894, January 1996.

   [26] Myers, J. and M. Rose, "Post Office Protocol - Version 3", STD
        53, RFC 1939, May 1996.
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   [27] Partridge, C., "Mail routing and the domain system", RFC 974,
        January 1986.

   [28] Partridge, C., "Duplicate messages and SMTP", RFC 1047, February
        1988.

   [29] Postel, J., ed., "Transmission Control Protocol - DARPA Internet
        Program Protocol Specification", STD 7, RFC 793, September 1981.

   [30] Postel, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 821, August
        1982.

   [31] Ramsdell, B., Ed., "S/MIME Version 3 Message Specification", RFC
        2633, June 1999.

   [32] Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822, April
        2001.

   [33] Vaudreuil, G., "SMTP Service Extensions for Transmission of
        Large and Binary MIME Messages", RFC 1830, August 1995.

   [34] Vaudreuil, G., "Enhanced Mail System Status Codes", RFC 1893,
        January 1996.

10. Editor's Address

John C. Klensin AT&T Laboratories 99 Bedford St Boston, MA 02111 USA Phone: 617-574-3076 EMail: klensin@research.att.com

11. Acknowledgments

Many people worked long and hard on the many iterations of this document. There was wide-ranging debate in the IETF DRUMS Working Group, both on its mailing list and in face to face discussions, about many technical issues and the role of a revised standard for Internet mail transport, and many contributors helped form the wording in this specification. The hundreds of participants in the many discussions since RFC 821 was produced are too numerous to mention, but they all helped this document become what it is.
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APPENDICES

A. TCP Transport Service

The TCP connection supports the transmission of 8-bit bytes. The SMTP data is 7-bit ASCII characters. Each character is transmitted as an 8-bit byte with the high-order bit cleared to zero. Service extensions may modify this rule to permit transmission of full 8-bit data bytes as part of the message body, but not in SMTP commands or responses.

B. Generating SMTP Commands from RFC 822 Headers

Some systems use RFC 822 headers (only) in a mail submission protocol, or otherwise generate SMTP commands from RFC 822 headers when such a message is handed to an MTA from a UA. While the MTA-UA protocol is a private matter, not covered by any Internet Standard, there are problems with this approach. For example, there have been repeated problems with proper handling of "bcc" copies and redistribution lists when information that conceptually belongs to a mail envelopes is not separated early in processing from header information (and kept separate). It is recommended that the UA provide its initial ("submission client") MTA with an envelope separate from the message itself. However, if the envelope is not supplied, SMTP commands SHOULD be generated as follows: 1. Each recipient address from a TO, CC, or BCC header field SHOULD be copied to a RCPT command (generating multiple message copies if that is required for queuing or delivery). This includes any addresses listed in a RFC 822 "group". Any BCC fields SHOULD then be removed from the headers. Once this process is completed, the remaining headers SHOULD be checked to verify that at least one To:, Cc:, or Bcc: header remains. If none do, then a bcc: header with no additional information SHOULD be inserted as specified in [32]. 2. The return address in the MAIL command SHOULD, if possible, be derived from the system's identity for the submitting (local) user, and the "From:" header field otherwise. If there is a system identity available, it SHOULD also be copied to the Sender header field if it is different from the address in the From header field. (Any Sender field that was already there SHOULD be removed.) Systems may provide a way for submitters to override the envelope return address, but may want to restrict its use to privileged users. This will not prevent mail forgery, but may lessen its incidence; see section 7.1.
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   When an MTA is being used in this way, it bears responsibility for
   ensuring that the message being transmitted is valid.  The mechanisms
   for checking that validity, and for handling (or returning) messages
   that are not valid at the time of arrival, are part of the MUA-MTA
   interface and not covered by this specification.

   A submission protocol based on Standard RFC 822 information alone
   MUST NOT be used to gateway a message from a foreign (non-SMTP) mail
   system into an SMTP environment.  Additional information to construct
   an envelope must come from some source in the other environment,
   whether supplemental headers or the foreign system's envelope.

   Attempts to gateway messages using only their header "to" and "cc"
   fields have repeatedly caused mail loops and other behavior adverse
   to the proper functioning of the Internet mail environment.  These
   problems have been especially common when the message originates from
   an Internet mailing list and is distributed into the foreign
   environment using envelope information.  When these messages are then
   processed by a header-only remailer, loops back to the Internet
   environment (and the mailing list) are almost inevitable.

C. Source Routes

Historically, the <reverse-path> was a reverse source routing list of hosts and a source mailbox. The first host in the <reverse-path> SHOULD be the host sending the MAIL command. Similarly, the <forward-path> may be a source routing lists of hosts and a destination mailbox. However, in general, the <forward-path> SHOULD contain only a mailbox and domain name, relying on the domain name system to supply routing information if required. The use of source routes is deprecated; while servers MUST be prepared to receive and handle them as discussed in section 3.3 and F.2, clients SHOULD NOT transmit them and this section was included only to provide context. For relay purposes, the forward-path may be a source route of the form "@ONE,@TWO:JOE@THREE", where ONE, TWO, and THREE MUST BE fully- qualified domain names. This form is used to emphasize the distinction between an address and a route. The mailbox is an absolute address, and the route is information about how to get there. The two concepts should not be confused. If source routes are used, RFC 821 and the text below should be consulted for the mechanisms for constructing and updating the forward- and reverse-paths.
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   The SMTP server transforms the command arguments by moving its own
   identifier (its domain name or that of any domain for which it is
   acting as a mail exchanger), if it appears, from the forward-path to
   the beginning of the reverse-path.

   Notice that the forward-path and reverse-path appear in the SMTP
   commands and replies, but not necessarily in the message.  That is,
   there is no need for these paths and especially this syntax to appear
   in the "To:" , "From:", "CC:", etc. fields of the message header.
   Conversely, SMTP servers MUST NOT derive final message delivery
   information from message header fields.

   When the list of hosts is present, it is a "reverse" source route and
   indicates that the mail was relayed through each host on the list
   (the first host in the list was the most recent relay).  This list is
   used as a source route to return non-delivery notices to the sender.
   As each relay host adds itself to the beginning of the list, it MUST
   use its name as known in the transport environment to which it is
   relaying the mail rather than that of the transport environment from
   which the mail came (if they are different).

D. Scenarios

This section presents complete scenarios of several types of SMTP sessions. In the examples, "C:" indicates what is said by the SMTP client, and "S:" indicates what is said by the SMTP server.

D.1 A Typical SMTP Transaction Scenario

This SMTP example shows mail sent by Smith at host bar.com, to Jones, Green, and Brown at host foo.com. Here we assume that host bar.com contacts host foo.com directly. The mail is accepted for Jones and Brown. Green does not have a mailbox at host foo.com. S: 220 foo.com Simple Mail Transfer Service Ready C: EHLO bar.com S: 250-foo.com greets bar.com S: 250-8BITMIME S: 250-SIZE S: 250-DSN S: 250 HELP C: MAIL FROM:<Smith@bar.com> S: 250 OK C: RCPT TO:<Jones@foo.com> S: 250 OK C: RCPT TO:<Green@foo.com> S: 550 No such user here C: RCPT TO:<Brown@foo.com>
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      S: 250 OK
      C: DATA
      S: 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
      C: Blah blah blah...
      C: ...etc. etc. etc.
      C: .
      S: 250 OK
      C: QUIT
      S: 221 foo.com Service closing transmission channel

D.2 Aborted SMTP Transaction Scenario

S: 220 foo.com Simple Mail Transfer Service Ready C: EHLO bar.com S: 250-foo.com greets bar.com S: 250-8BITMIME S: 250-SIZE S: 250-DSN S: 250 HELP C: MAIL FROM:<Smith@bar.com> S: 250 OK C: RCPT TO:<Jones@foo.com> S: 250 OK C: RCPT TO:<Green@foo.com> S: 550 No such user here C: RSET S: 250 OK C: QUIT S: 221 foo.com Service closing transmission channel

D.3 Relayed Mail Scenario

Step 1 -- Source Host to Relay Host S: 220 foo.com Simple Mail Transfer Service Ready C: EHLO bar.com S: 250-foo.com greets bar.com S: 250-8BITMIME S: 250-SIZE S: 250-DSN S: 250 HELP C: MAIL FROM:<JQP@bar.com> S: 250 OK C: RCPT TO:<@foo.com:Jones@XYZ.COM> S: 250 OK C: DATA S: 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF> C: Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 05:33:29 -0700
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      C: From: John Q. Public <JQP@bar.com>
      C: Subject:  The Next Meeting of the Board
      C: To: Jones@xyz.com
      C:
      C: Bill:
      C: The next meeting of the board of directors will be
      C: on Tuesday.
      C:                         John.
      C: .
      S: 250 OK
      C: QUIT
      S: 221 foo.com Service closing transmission channel

   Step 2  --  Relay Host to Destination Host

      S: 220 xyz.com Simple Mail Transfer Service Ready
      C: EHLO foo.com
      S: 250 xyz.com is on the air
      C: MAIL FROM:<@foo.com:JQP@bar.com>
      S: 250 OK
      C: RCPT TO:<Jones@XYZ.COM>
      S: 250 OK
      C: DATA
      S: 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
      C: Received: from bar.com by foo.com ; Thu, 21 May 1998
      C:     05:33:29 -0700
      C: Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 05:33:22 -0700
      C: From: John Q. Public <JQP@bar.com>
      C: Subject:  The Next Meeting of the Board
      C: To: Jones@xyz.com
      C:
      C: Bill:
      C: The next meeting of the board of directors will be
      C: on Tuesday.
      C:                         John.
      C: .
      S: 250 OK
      C: QUIT
      S: 221 foo.com Service closing transmission channel

D.4 Verifying and Sending Scenario

S: 220 foo.com Simple Mail Transfer Service Ready C: EHLO bar.com S: 250-foo.com greets bar.com S: 250-8BITMIME S: 250-SIZE S: 250-DSN
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      S: 250-VRFY
      S: 250 HELP
      C: VRFY Crispin
      S: 250 Mark Crispin <Admin.MRC@foo.com>
      C: SEND FROM:<EAK@bar.com>
      S: 250 OK
      C: RCPT TO:<Admin.MRC@foo.com>
      S: 250 OK
      C: DATA
      S: 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
      C: Blah blah blah...
      C: ...etc. etc. etc.
      C: .
      S: 250 OK
      C: QUIT
      S: 221 foo.com Service closing transmission channel

E. Other Gateway Issues

In general, gateways between the Internet and other mail systems SHOULD attempt to preserve any layering semantics across the boundaries between the two mail systems involved. Gateway- translation approaches that attempt to take shortcuts by mapping, (such as envelope information from one system to the message headers or body of another) have generally proven to be inadequate in important ways. Systems translating between environments that do not support both envelopes and headers and Internet mail must be written with the understanding that some information loss is almost inevitable.

F. Deprecated Features of RFC 821

A few features of RFC 821 have proven to be problematic and SHOULD NOT be used in Internet mail.

F.1 TURN

This command, described in RFC 821, raises important security issues since, in the absence of strong authentication of the host requesting that the client and server switch roles, it can easily be used to divert mail from its correct destination. Its use is deprecated; SMTP systems SHOULD NOT use it unless the server can authenticate the client.
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F.2 Source Routing

RFC 821 utilized the concept of explicit source routing to get mail from one host to another via a series of relays. The requirement to utilize source routes in regular mail traffic was eliminated by the introduction of the domain name system "MX" record and the last significant justification for them was eliminated by the introduction, in RFC 1123, of a clear requirement that addresses following an "@" must all be fully-qualified domain names. Consequently, the only remaining justifications for the use of source routes are support for very old SMTP clients or MUAs and in mail system debugging. They can, however, still be useful in the latter circumstance and for routing mail around serious, but temporary, problems such as problems with the relevant DNS records. SMTP servers MUST continue to accept source route syntax as specified in the main body of this document and in RFC 1123. They MAY, if necessary, ignore the routes and utilize only the target domain in the address. If they do utilize the source route, the message MUST be sent to the first domain shown in the address. In particular, a server MUST NOT guess at shortcuts within the source route. Clients SHOULD NOT utilize explicit source routing except under unusual circumstances, such as debugging or potentially relaying around firewall or mail system configuration errors.

F.3 HELO

As discussed in sections 3.1 and 4.1.1, EHLO is strongly preferred to HELO when the server will accept the former. Servers must continue to accept and process HELO in order to support older clients.

F.4 #-literals

RFC 821 provided for specifying an Internet address as a decimal integer host number prefixed by a pound sign, "#". In practice, that form has been obsolete since the introduction of TCP/IP. It is deprecated and MUST NOT be used.

F.5 Dates and Years

When dates are inserted into messages by SMTP clients or servers (e.g., in trace fields), four-digit years MUST BE used. Two-digit years are deprecated; three-digit years were never permitted in the Internet mail system.
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F.6 Sending versus Mailing

In addition to specifying a mechanism for delivering messages to user's mailboxes, RFC 821 provided additional, optional, commands to deliver messages directly to the user's terminal screen. These commands (SEND, SAML, SOML) were rarely implemented, and changes in workstation technology and the introduction of other protocols may have rendered them obsolete even where they are implemented. Clients SHOULD NOT provide SEND, SAML, or SOML as services. Servers MAY implement them. If they are implemented by servers, the implementation model specified in RFC 821 MUST be used and the command names MUST be published in the response to the EHLO command.
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Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001).  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
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   the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
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   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
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   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
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Acknowledgement

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.