This is the most recent version of the SEAT protocol developed by a group
of interested people in the Sysop's Technet STN.STANDARDS/STN.WG.DEV echos.
With more input, we feel it could serve the BBS community well for
transferring mail through the internet via email. Comments and criticisms
are welcome and appreciated.
Simple E-Mail Attach Transport (S.E.A.T.)
A Proposed Standard For The BBS Community
Revision: 001.001
First Draft: October 14, 1997
Current Draft: January 11, 1998
Contributors: Charles Cruden cruden{at}cs.ualberta.ca
Vincent Danen vdanen{at}accessweb.com
Brent Shellenberg brents{at}sk.sympatico.ca
Ramon van der Winkel ramon{at}wsd.wline.se
The Purpose
-----------
With the popularity of the internet being utilized as a replacement for long
distance calls to transfer FTN style mail, came about a problem. Though the
idea is exciting and beneficial to all, every developer that went this route
did their work on their own (thus creating a large sea of software that wasn't
compatible with anything else).
The purpose of this document (and discussions that have been ongoing in the
Sysop's Tech Net) is to define a basic standard of common ground that can
ensure that everyone's software has the ability to communicate with others.
As much as the FTS-1 document of Fidonet makes sure that FTN style mailers
can communicate, this document is to do the same thing for internet e-mail
attachment software.
Reading This Document
---------------------
This document uses examples to show working "real life" copies of what a
properly formatted S.E.A.T. message looks like. Unlike other technical
documents, this approach makes it easier to get a visual idea of how the
whole thing works. Any paragraph that contains a pipe character (|) prior
to the start of a line, indicates that the information in that portion of
the document is new to this revision.
Implementation
--------------
The guidelines and examples in this document are to be used to the letter of
the law. Having the possibility of "some implementations may/may not" will
merely cause confusion of what is needed to get the job done. Future revisions
of this proposed standard will allow for software specific extensions, as well
as enhancements to the existing methods. This current document, however, is
the "bare bones" starting point, and must be followed exactly.
Some items are
declared to be optional, meaning encoders/decoders that use this method may
disregard certain features.
Attachment Example
------------------
All control information for each attached file is placed in the message body
text. The only exception to this is the subject line, which must always start
with a fixed character string to identify (to mailer software) the e-mail
message as a SEAT packet.
Control lines must be confined to more than 255 characters in total length,
and may not have any "white space" (ie: no blank characters other than the
space that directly follows the control line identifier). This document
displays the use of basic uuencoding of files. All implementations must
provide it as a bare minimum.
--snip--
From: ARCmail
To: Steven Lager
Subject: FTN Mail Transport
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 02:26:47
Organization: GUNN Data Systems
Reply-To: Brent Shellenberg
X-Mailer: INetFTN v0.02-Beta
Ftn-File: AA3D1EAC.TH0
Ftn-File-Id: AA3D1EAC.TH0.876796006.50DC7A2B
Ftn-Date: 876796006
Ftn-Crc32: 50DC7A2B
Ftn-Encoding: uuencode
Ftn-Seg: 1-1
Ftn-Seg-Id: 50DC7A2B-1-1-brents{at}sk.sympatico.ca
Ftn-Seg-Crc32: 50DC7A2B
begin 644 AA3D1EAC.TH0
M4$L#!!0````(`%834".2#K[O=0$``#("```,````,C,U,#$S-4(N4$M4;5$]
M;]LP$*7LK0"+S)EN:1$K%D4QK>UPBF3+:H?80:D.G0K:D2W!BAB(=!!O^;GY
M#UE""G6+MCE^X'B\]^[XZ"$/2?0.G:`>.D5#]/2AAY[[+_WW/?3+;NUPYC*/
MOK->%W&Y[A2-8+DV<#D&H(RS$:<4Q76-DK9H#(BRJ.NB617M%N6%-BC^EL8\
MFXF?29K'V,N_SCB(+%V7"AX8H33,5'U[CKUKD;FKB%)N%PTCF--I,IZ.(^S=
M=*!2F>V^^0N5EY4&.R486XM{at}3`C!MADP90$K&QKB_]K"V/UPBF3+:H?80:D.G0K:D2W!BAB(=!!O^;GY
M#UE""G6+MCE^X'B\]^[XZ"$/2?0.G:`>.D5#]/2AAY[[+_WW/?3+;NUPYC*/
MOK->%W&Y[A2-8+DV<#D&H(RS$:<4Q76-DK9H#(BRJ.NB617M%N6%-BC^EL8\
MFXF?29K'V,N_SCB(+%V7"AX8H33,5'U[CKUKD;FKB%)N%PTCF--I,IZ.(^S=
M=*!2F>V^^0N5EY4&.R486XM{at}3`C!MADP90$K&QKB_]K"V/http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc/files.
|
| For ease of implementation, developers must ensure that the Content-*
| lines are sent in the order given above.
Below is our documented working example, using MIME headers. Please
note that the encoded text used in this example is not really Base64
text. The writer of this document was just lazy and copied the
uuencoded text into the block for an example of the formatting.
--snip--
From: ARCmail
To: Steven Lager
Subject: FTN Mail Transport
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 02:26:47
Organization: GUNN Data Systems
Reply-To: Brent Shellenberg
X-Mailer: INetFTN v0.02-Beta
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=SomeUniqueStringThing
Ftn-File: AA3D1EAC.TH0
Ftn-File-Id: AA3D1EAC.TH0.876796006.50DC7A2B
Ftn-Date: 876796006
Ftn-Crc32: 50DC7A2B
Ftn-Encoding: Base64
Ftn-Seg: 1-1
Ftn-Seg-Id: 50DC7A2B-1-1-brents{at}sk.sympatico.ca
Ftn-Seg-Crc32: 50DC7A2B
--SomeUniqueStringThing
Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=AA3D1EAC.TH0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Base64
Content-Disposition: inline; filename=AA3D1EAC.TH0
M4$L#!!0````(`%834".2#K[O=0$``#("```,````,C,U,#$S-4(N4$M4;5$]
M;]LP$*7LK0"+S)EN:1$K%D4QK>UPBF3+:H?80:D.G0K:D2W!BAB(=!!O^;GY
M#UE""G6+MCE^X'B\]^[XZ"$/2?0.G:`>.D5#]/2AAY[[+_WW/?3+;NUPYC*/
MOK->%W&Y[A2-8+DV<#D&H(RS$:<4Q76-DK9H#(BRJ.NB617M%N6%-BC^EL8\
MFXF?29K'V,N_SCB(+%V7"AX8H33,5'U[CKUKD;FKB%)N%PTCF--I,IZ.(^S=
M=*!2F>V^^0N5EY4&.R486XM{at}3`C!MADP90$K&QKB_]K"V/ * Origin: Xanadu: an odd little spot in Edmonton, Alberta (1:342/806)
SEEN-BY: 20/10 200/0 201/0 100 200 209 300 400 505 600 203/600 204/450 205/0
SEEN-BY: 206/0 270/101 490/21 633/267 270
@PATH: 342/806 5013 61 3615/50 396/1 270/101 201/505 633/267
|