Protocol Action: IMAP4 to Proposed Standard

[IESG Secretary <[e-mail]>]

[This is a re-send.  The subject line of the original announcement
mistakenly suggested that only the "authentication mechanisms"
document was becoming a Proposed Standard.]

  The IESG has approved the Internet-Drafts:
  
    o "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4"
      <draft-ietf-imap-imap4-05.txt>

    o "IMAP4 Authentication mechanisms" <draft-ietf-imap-auth-01.txt>

  as Proposed Standards.  The IESG also recommends to the RFC Editor
  that the Internet-Drafts:

    o "IMAP4 COMPATIBILITY WITH IMAP2 AND IMAP2BIS"
      <draft-ietf-imap-compat-00.txt>

    o "DISTRIBUTED ELECTRONIC MAIL MODELS IN IMAP4"
      <draft-ietf-imap-model-00.txt>
  
  be published as Informational RFCs.

  These documents are the product of the Internet Message Access
  Protocol Working Group.  The IESG contact person is John Klensin.
 
Protocol Write-Up
 
  The Internet Message Access Protocol, Version 4 (IMAP4) allows a
  client to access and manipulate electronic mail messages on a server.
  IMAP4 permits manipulation of remote message folders, called
  "mailboxes", in a way that is functionally equivalent to local
  mailboxes.  IMAP4 also provides the capability for an offline client
  to resynchronize with the server.

  IMAP4 includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming
  mailboxes; checking for new messages; permanently removing messages;
  setting and clearing flags; RFC 822 and MIME parsing; searching; and
  selective fetching of message attributes, texts, and portions
  thereof.  Messages in IMAP4 are accessed by a set of either sequence
  numbers (relative position from 1 to the number of messages in the
  mailbox) or immutable unique identifiers.

  IMAP4 is designed to be upwards compatible from the protocol.

  This set of documents specifies the IMAP4 protocol and authentication
  mechanisms for use with it, and provides information about
  compatibility with earlier versions and suggestions about
  disconnected use.

  The working group reached consensus on all significant issues.  The
  protocol was reviewed for IESG by the Area Director, John Klensin.