I-D ACTION:draft-gahrns-imap-referrals-01.txt

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       Title     : IMAP4 Referrals                                         
       Author(s) : M. Gahrns
       Filename  : draft-gahrns-imap-referrals-01.txt
       Pages     : 7
       Date      : 02/10/1997

When dealing with large amounts of users, messages and geographically 
dispersed IMAP4 [RFC-2060] servers, it is often desirable to distribute 
messages and users amongst different servers within an organization.  For 
example an administrator may choose to store user's personal mailboxes on a
local IMAP4 server, while storing shared mailboxes remotely on another 
server.  This type of configuration is common when it is uneconomical to 
store all data centrally due to limited bandwidth or disk resources.  By 
examining the REFERRALS response code in response to a SELECT command, a 
client can seamlessly access mailboxes distributed across several IMAP4 
servers.   

Additionally, users may be frequently moved from one IMAP4 
server to another because of hardware failures or organizational changes.  
By examining the REFERRAL response code at connection startup or in 
response to a LOGIN or AUTHENTICATE command, an IMAP4 client can 
transparently connect to an alternate IMAP4 server.  

A referral mechanism can provide efficiencies over the alternative
"proxy method", in which the local IMAP4 server contacts the remote
server on behalf of the client, and then transfers the data from the
remote server to itself, and then on to the client.  The referral
mechanism's direct client connection to the remote server is often a
more efficient use of bandwidth, and does not require the local
server to impersonate the client when authenticating to the remote
server.

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ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-gahrns-imap-referrals-01.txt"><ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-gahrns-imap-referrals-01.txt>