Sieve Mail Filtering Language (sieve)

Last Modified: 2008-08-21

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/sieve

Chair(s):

  • Cyrus Daboo <cyrus@daboo.name>

  • Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@isode.com>

    Applications Area Director(s):

  • Chris Newman <chris.newman@sun.com>
  • Lisa Dusseault <lisa@osafoundation.org>

    Applications Area Advisor:

  • Lisa Dusseault <lisa@osafoundation.org>

    Mailing Lists:

    General Discussion: ietf-mta-filters@imc.org
    To Subscribe: ietf-mta-filters-request@imc.org
    In Body: body=subscribe
    Archive: http://www.imc.org/ietf-mta-filters/mail-archive/

    Description of Working Group:

    The sieve mail filtering language specified in RFC 3028 has now been
    implemented in a wide variety of user agents (UAs), mail delivery
    agents (MDAs), and mail transfer agents (MTAs). Several extensions have
    been specified (RFCs 3431, 3598, 3685, 3894) and have also been widely
    implemented. Several additional sieve extensions have been defined in
    various internet-drafts.

    All of these documents are individual submissions; up to this point
    work on sieve has been done informally and not under the auspices of
    any IETF working group.

    The sieve working group is being chartered to:

    (1) Revise the base sieve specification, RFC 3028, with the intention
    of moving it to draft standard. Substantive additions or revisions to
    the base specification are out of scope of this working group. However,
    the need to loosen current restrictions on side effects of tests as
    well
    as the need for a normative reference to the newly-defined comparators
    registry may necessitate a recycle at proposed.

    (2) Produce updated sieve relational (RFC 3431), subaddress (RFC 3598),
    spamtest/virustest (RFC 3685), and copy (RFC 3894) extension
    specifications, again with the intention of making a move to
    draft standard possible. It may be necessary to recycle some or all
    of these documents at proposed, depending on the scope of any changes.

    (3) Finalize and publish the sieve extensions as proposed standards:

    (a) Variables (draft-homme-sieve-variables-04.txt)
    (b) Vacation action (draft-showalter-sieve-vacation-05.txt)
    (c) Message body tests (draft-degener-sieve-body-02.txt)
    (d) Regular expressions (draft-murchison-sieve-regex-07.txt)
    (e) MIME part tests (draft-daboo-sieve-mime-00.txt)
    (f) Notification action (draft-martin-sieve-notify-02.txt)
    (g) IMAP flags (draft-melnikov-sieve-imapflags-06.txt)
    (h) Header editing actions (draft-degener-sieve-editheader-01.txt)
    (i) Reject before delivery (draft-elvey-refuse-sieve-01.txt)

    Additional drafts may be added this list, but only via a charter
    revision. There must also be demonstrable willingness in the sieve
    development community to actually implement a given extension before
    it can be added to this charter.

    Some aspects of sieve have complex internationalization issues; the
    working group will seek out internationalization expertise as needed
    to complete its work.

    Goals and Milestones:

    Done  Submit revised variables draft.
    Done  Submit revised vacation draft.
    Done  WG last call for variables draft.
    Done  Initial submission of RFC 3028bis.
    Done  WG last call for RFC 3028bis.
    Done  Initial submission of revised relational draft.
    Done  Initial submission of revised subaddress draft.
    Done  Initial submission of revised spamtest/virustest draft.
    Done  Submit revised editheader draft.
    Done  Submit revised imapflags draft.
    Done  WG last call of revised subaddress draft.
    Done  Submit revised body test draft.
    Done  WG last call for editheader draft.
    Done  Submit revised reject before delivery draft.
    Done  WG last call for body test draft.
    Done  WG last call for refuse draft
    Done  WG last call of revised spamtest draft
    Done  Submit variables draft to IESG
    Done  Submit revised notification action draft
    Done  WG last call of revised relational draft
    Done  WG last call for imap-flags draft
    Done  WG last call for vacation draft
    Done  Submit revised loop draft
    Done  Submit revised relational draft to IESG
    Done  Submit vacation draft to IESG
    Done  WG last call of revised subaddress draft
    Done  Submit revised subaddress draft to IESG
    Done  Submit imapflags draft to IESG
    Done  Submit revised spamtest draft to IESG
    Done  Submit 3028bis to IESG
    Done  Submit editheader draft to IESG
    Jun 2006  Submit revised regex draft
    Done  Submit body test draft to IESG
    Jul 2006  Submit refuse draft to IESG
    Jul 2006  WG last call of regex draft
    Done  WG last call for notification action draft
    Done  Submit notification action draft to IESG
    Aug 2006  3028bis interop report framework/matrix
    Aug 2006  WG last call for loop draft
    Sep 2006  Submit loop draft to IESG
    Sep 2006  Submit regex action draft to IESG

    Internet-Drafts:

    Sieve Email Filtering: Reject and Extended Reject Extensions (27093 bytes)
    SIEVE Email Filtering: Extension for Notifications (43896 bytes)
    Sieve Notification Mechanism: mailto (26383 bytes)
    Sieve Notification Mechanism: xmpp (30936 bytes)
    Sieve Email Filtering: MIME part Tests, Iteration, Extraction, Replacement and Enclosure (33461 bytes)

    Request For Comments:

    Sieve: An Email Filtering Language (RFC 5228) (87531 bytes) updated by RFC 5229
    SIEVE Email Filtering: Spamtest and Virustest Extensions (RFC 5235) (25957 bytes) obsoletes RFC 3685
    Sieve Email Filtering: Variables Extension (RFC 5229) (20023 bytes) updates RFC 5228/ updated by RFC 5173
    Sieve Email Filtering: Vacation Extension (RFC 5230) (29822 bytes)
    Sieve Email Filtering: Relational Extension (RFC 5231) (15243 bytes) obsoletes RFC 3431
    SIEVE Email Filtering: IMAP4flag Extension (RFC 5232) (21964 bytes)
    Sieve Email Filtering: Subaddress Extension (RFC 5233) (12448 bytes) obsoletes RFC 3598
    Sieve Email Filtering: Body Extension (RFC 5173) (17429 bytes) updates RFC 5229
    Sieve Email Filtering: Editheader Extension (RFC 5293) (17674 bytes)

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