Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
Hello there, In relation to event notifications that include a mailbox uri (almost all of them), I have the following questions; - For a user-prefix, the owner of the personal namespace is used, if any, such that a user john doing something to a user jane mailbox, ends up in the URI as follows: imap://j...@imap.example.org/Other Users/jane while it was actually not 'jane' doing anything. - Like in the aforementioned URI, the "external" mailbox name seems to be used, from the perspective of the user triggering the action. It seems to me that j...@imap.example.org though has no "Other Users/jane", this would rather be the INBOX for her. For those of you using event notifications, I'm wondering how you make other software interpret these things -- our "other" software looks at everything from the administrative perspective, and so we'd opt for a format of imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org -- but I'm suspecting this may have implications I'm unaware of. Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen -- Systems Architect, Kolab Systems AG e: vanmeeuwen at kolabsys.com m: +41 79 951 9003 w: http://www.kolabsys.com pgp: 9342 BF08
Re: Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
On Wed, Nov 5, 2014, at 09:28 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems) wrote: > Hello there, > > In relation to event notifications that include a mailbox uri (almost > all of them), I have the following questions; > >- For a user-prefix, the owner of the personal namespace is used, if > any, such that a user john doing something to a user jane mailbox, ends > up in the URI as follows: > > imap://j...@imap.example.org/Other Users/jane > > while it was actually not 'jane' doing anything. > >- Like in the aforementioned URI, the "external" mailbox name seems to > be used, from the perspective of the user triggering the action. > > It seems to me that j...@imap.example.org though has no "Other > Users/jane", this would rather be the INBOX for her. > > For those of you using event notifications, I'm wondering how you make > other software interpret these things -- our "other" software looks at > everything from the administrative perspective, and so we'd opt for a > format of imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org -- but I'm > suspecting this may have implications I'm unaware of. Totally agree, that's how it should be. I guess we aren't using altnamespace, so we didn't notice - but I'd agree with both the location of the domain (notice how I'm wanting that elsewhere too) and of course the use of non-alt namespace for administrative things like events. Bron. -- Bron Gondwana br...@fastmail.fm
Re: Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
On 2014-11-05 11:35, Bron Gondwana wrote: On Wed, Nov 5, 2014, at 09:28 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems) wrote: For those of you using event notifications, I'm wondering how you make other software interpret these things -- our "other" software looks at everything from the administrative perspective, and so we'd opt for a format of imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org -- but I'm suspecting this may have implications I'm unaware of. Totally agree, that's how it should be. I guess we aren't using altnamespace, so we didn't notice - but I'd agree with both the location of the domain (notice how I'm wanting that elsewhere too) and of course the use of non-alt namespace for administrative things like events. Could you tell me more about how you are using event notifications? We use event notifications for the sake of audit trails, in that client applications do not currently "consume" the event notifications nor their payload, so what URI is being used in the notification payload is preferably (for us) a consistent URI (i.e. the one from a "global", not domain-specific administrator). Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen -- Systems Architect, Kolab Systems AG e: vanmeeuwen at kolabsys.com m: +41 79 951 9003 w: http://www.kolabsys.com pgp: 9342 BF08
Re: Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
On Wed, Nov 5, 2014, at 10:00 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems) wrote: > On 2014-11-05 11:35, Bron Gondwana wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 5, 2014, at 09:28 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems) > > wrote: > >> For those of you using event notifications, I'm wondering how you make > >> other software interpret these things -- our "other" software looks at > >> everything from the administrative perspective, and so we'd opt for a > >> format of imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org -- but I'm > >> suspecting this may have implications I'm unaware of. > > > > Totally agree, that's how it should be. I guess we aren't using > > altnamespace, > > so we didn't notice - but I'd agree with both the location of the > > domain (notice > > how I'm wanting that elsewhere too) and of course the use of non-alt > > namespace > > for administrative things like events. > > > > Could you tell me more about how you are using event notifications? > > We use event notifications for the sake of audit trails, in that client > applications do not currently "consume" the event notifications nor > their payload, so what URI is being used in the notification payload is > preferably (for us) a consistent URI (i.e. the one from a "global", not > domain-specific administrator). So we do a ton of stuff with them now :) Most importantly, they feed into the EventSource pipeline for web browser clients to get immediate updates, and likewise the Apple and Google push notification channels if you have logged in with our app on those platforms. We also have alarms from the calendar as events. It's kind of our go-to hammer ;) Bron. -- Bron Gondwana br...@fastmail.fm
Re: Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
On 2014-11-05 12:27, Bron Gondwana wrote: So we do a ton of stuff with them now :) Most importantly, they feed into the EventSource pipeline for web browser clients to get immediate updates, and likewise the Apple and Google push notification channels if you have logged in with our app on those platforms. We also have alarms from the calendar as events. It's kind of our go-to hammer ;) Does the payload for and/or format of the uri parameter matter anywhere? Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen -- Systems Architect, Kolab Systems AG e: vanmeeuwen at kolabsys.com m: +41 79 951 9003 w: http://www.kolabsys.com pgp: 9342 BF08
Re: Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
> In relation to event notifications that include a mailbox uri (almost all of > them), I have the following questions; > > - For a user-prefix, the owner of the personal namespace is used, if any, > such that a user john doing something to a user jane mailbox, ends up in the > URI as follows: > > imap://j...@imap.example.org/Other Users/jane > > while it was actually not 'jane' doing anything. > > - Like in the aforementioned URI, the "external" mailbox name seems to be > used, from the perspective of the user triggering the action. > > It seems to me that j...@imap.example.org though has no "Other > Users/jane", this would rather be the INBOX for her. We didn't faced this issue because we aren't using Other and Shared namespaces :( > For those of you using event notifications, I'm wondering how you make other > software interpret these things -- our "other"software looks at everything > from the administrative perspective, and so we'd opt for a format of > imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org -- but I'm suspecting this may > have implications I'm unaware of. Not sure that 'imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org' is right because the format defined in the RFC 5092 - IMAP URL : > > imap:///[][][][] > > The component common to all types of absolute IMAP URLs > has > the following syntax expressed in ABNF [ABNF]: > [iuserinfo "@"] host [ ":" port ] If user john is doing something to a user jane mailbox, the notification should contain the user john in the field "user" and the URI imap://j...@imap.example.org/INBOX in the fields "uri" and "mailboxID". This is how I understand the RFC 5423. I'm very glad that Event Notification feature is useful outside of our organization
Re: Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
On 2014-11-05 15:16, Sébastien Michel wrote: For those of you using event notifications, I'm wondering how you make other software interpret these things -- our "other"software looks at everything from the administrative perspective, and so we'd opt for a format of imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org -- but I'm suspecting this may have implications I'm unaware of. Not sure that 'imap://imap.example.org/user/j...@example.org' is right because the format defined in the RFC 5092 - IMAP URL : imap:///[][][][] The component common to all types of absolute IMAP URLs has the following syntax expressed in ABNF [ABNF]: [iuserinfo "@"] host [ ":" port ] If I understand this correctly, the uri here then is defined to have to be a uri that a client could interpret and follow and end up OK with? This makes me wonder why it would be the mailbox owner being in the spot of , because imap://j...@imap.example.org/Other Users/jane will not likely be understood correctly by clients -- as "jane", "Other Users/jane" will not exist. As not jane, the notification is not necessarily invalid nor irrelevant. Neither would, I suppose, imap://j...@imap.example.org/INBOX make all that much sense -- not unless a client is taught to understand "jane@'s INBOX is Other Users/jane". The jane@ part should go away or be substituted for the actual user that had the perspective of Jane's INBOX being at "Other Users/jane" when triggering the event notification. If user john is doing something to a user jane mailbox, the notification should contain the user john in the field "user" and the URI imap://j...@imap.example.org/INBOX in the fields "uri" and "mailboxID". This is how I understand the RFC 5423. Many of the event notifications have turned out to not contain the "user" triggering the event at all, and I suppose I'll need to double-check if it is in fact the authenticated user id being used, or the mailbox owner. Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen -- Systems Architect, Kolab Systems AG e: vanmeeuwen at kolabsys.com m: +41 79 951 9003 w: http://www.kolabsys.com pgp: 9342 BF08
Re: Mailbox URI format in Event Notifications
> > If I understand this correctly, the uri here then is defined to have to be a > uri that a client could interpret and follow and end up OK with? Below the definition of the uri parameter from RFC 5423: uri Included with all notifications. A reference to the IMAP server, a mailbox, or a message. Typically an IMAP URL. This can include the name of the server used to access the mailbox/message, the mailbox name, the UIDVALIDITY of the mailbox, and the UID of a specific message. The goal is to give access to the targeted object (mailbox, mail). However I don't understand why the uri parameter should be included with all notifications because mailboxID is included in events that affect mailboxes (same information twice) > This makes me wonder why it would be the mailbox owner being in the spot of > , because imap://j...@imap.example.org/Other Users/jane will not > likely be understood correctly by clients -- as "jane", "Other Users/jane" > will not exist. As not jane, the notification is not necessarily invalid nor > irrelevant. the value "imap://j...@imap.example.org/Other Users/jane" is wrong and should be fixed > Neither would, I suppose, imap://j...@imap.example.org/INBOX make all that > much sense -- not unless a client is taught to understand "jane@'s INBOX is > Other Users/jane". > > The jane@ part should go away or be substituted for the actual user that had > the perspective of Jane's INBOX being at "Other Users/jane" when triggering > the event notification. The field is used as the argument to the IMAP4 "SELECT"or "EXAMINE" command. So I suppose it depends on the namespace configuration So we would have the choice between imap://j...@imap.exemple.org/INBOX and imap://imap.example.org/MAILBOX_NAME with MAILBOX_NAME that could be "jane" "user.jane" or "user/jane" >> If user john is doing something to a user jane mailbox, the >> notification should contain the user john in the field "user" and the >> URI imap://j...@imap.example.org/INBOX in the fields "uri" and >> "mailboxID". This is how I understand the RFC 5423. >> > > Many of the event notifications have turned out to not contain the "user" > triggering the event at all, and I suppose I'll need to double-check if it > is in fact the authenticated user id being used, or the mailbox owner. > It seems that RFC 5423 is not clear on how to manage notifications on Other and Shared mailboxes. I think that it depends on the type of event but it should not be an issue for most of them Do you need to know how has added or deleted a folder or mail in someone else mailbox ? The issue is probably for MessageRead when someone read the mail in the mailbox of someone else. May be we should add the user parameter for that event ? Regards, Sébastien
