RE: Problems with Microsoft Exchange Server

[Karen Rosenthal <karenr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From:	Terry Harding [SMTP:tharding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent:	Tuesday, March 17, 1998 7:04 AM
To:	karenr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; edipilot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; 
ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx; Dave Darnell
Cc:	'erikash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject:	Re: Problems with Microsoft Exchange Server

Karen, Dave

These problems only happen when receiving messages.

Possible solutions are to use base64 encoding for the second problem and
to use a PKCS#7 SignedData  for the first.  I have not looked at the MDN
spec to see if the SignedData message formating is a valid option for the 
MDN problem.

[Reply: Karen Rosenthal]  We just tested receipt of a multipart/signed with 
the 1st part being a base64 encoded application/edi-x12, gateway'd through 
Exchange 5.5, and it (Exchange) mutilated the outer MIME header (so badly 
that trying to pass the mutated message as an attachment out through MS 
Outlook, crashed MS Outlook!)

It would be great for us to be able to say we don't support Exchange as a 
gateway, but this would only be a negative reflection on our products, not 
Microsoft/Exchange, and a lot of our customers use it.  Ideally Microsoft 
would FIX the gateway (what are the odds - any response from Erik?). 
 Realistically, and as Terry touches upon, perhaps we need to be able to 
send (optionally) our multipart/signed constructs (data w/signature only, 
and signed MDNs) within PKCS#7 SignedData - although that puts a lot of 
pressure on vendors (and adds a LOT of confusion to customers) to 
optionally support both MPS and SignedData for signed data and signed 
receipts.  I really don't know what the right answer is...

For the interop tests we are routing all incoming messages through a
standard POP3 server bypassing Exchange completely.

--
Terry Harding
Security Group - Interoperability Testing
Cyclone Software