Re: draft-hoffman-rfc2487bis-03.txt

Lutz Jaenicke <[email protected]> Tue, 29 Aug 2000 20:13:35 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.ietf.apps-tls
Organization	BTU Cottbus, Allgemeine Elektrotechnik
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 10:03:08AM +0200, Bodo Moeller wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 24, 2000 at 05:18:35PM +0200, Lutz Jaenicke wrote:
> > Hmm. I think I/we do need some clarification. Section 4 states:
> >     The STARTTLS keyword is used to tell the SMTP client that the SMTP
> >     server is currently able to negotiate the use of TLS. It takes no
> >     parameters.
> > Section 5 however allows
> >     454 TLS not available due to temporary reason
> > 
> > So actually, section 5 implicitly allows the server to step back from its
> > STARTTLS offer.
> 
> No.  This 454 is a reply that clients may see in response to STARTTLS
> when STARTTLS was not offered in the EHLO reply.

My understanding is that a client should not use the STARTTLS command if
it was not offered. It may see a 5xx reply in that case.

Best regards,
	Lutz
-- 
Lutz Jaenicke                             [email protected]
BTU Cottbus               http://www.aet.TU-Cottbus.DE/personen/jaenicke/
Lehrstuhl Allgemeine Elektrotechnik                  Tel. +49 355 69-4129
Universitaetsplatz 3-4, D-03044 Cottbus              Fax. +49 355 69-4153