KB151417 - XCON: Latin-1 X.400 Bodypart Encoding Causes NDR

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Foreign MTAs may expect the ISO-8859-1 body part invoked, using four additional characters before the actual content (1b 28 42 0f). These four characters shall contain the escape sequence invoking the G0 subset of the ISO Latin 1 set. ISO/IEC 10021-7 Annex B, B.2 defines the General Text (extended) Bodypart. It refers to the G0 character set designators as follows:

The defaults for the G0 and C0 character set designators are those assumed as designated and invoked by the ASN.1 Basic Encoding Rules (ISO 8825) for a General String.

The Latin-1 character set itself is defined in ISO 8859-1 and also defines the Escape sequences as follows: ISO 8859-1, 8 Designation of the character set

When required by other coding standards, for example ISO 2022 or ISO 4873, the following pair of escape sequences shall be used: ESC 02/08 04/02 ESC 02/13 04/01 to designate the G0 and the G1 sets, respectively. According to ISO 2022, the character SPACE does not require designation.

ITU' s 1988 X series of recommendations also known as the Blue Book refer to these character set designators as follows: Rec. X.209, 23.5:

23.5 The octet string shall contain the octets specified in ISO 2022 for encodings in an 8-bit environment, using the escape sequence and character codings registered in accordance with ISO 2375. ..."

The following is a sample of a resulting error as generated by Digital' s MAILbus 400:

   Event:Converter Unavailable
         from:Node DEC:.abc.defgh MTA
         at  :1996-12-13-14:49:07.851+01:00I-----

         Converter Name                    = "latin1toiso6937"
         Step                              = ""
         Error Log                         =
   "/var/mta/bad_msgs/latin1toiso69370008A832B15E"
   Saved Bodypart                    =
   "/var/mta/bad_msgs/isolatin10008A832B15E"
   Message Identifier                =
             [
   Country = "CH" ,
   Administration Domain = "400NET" ,
   Private Domain = "PRMD" ,
   Local Identifier = "ABCD-970113135033Z-8"
             ]
   Source                            =
             [
   Type = Domain ,
   Domain Name = "DOM88"
             ]
   Originator                        = "C=CH; A@0NET; P_ABCD;
   OU1=EXAB;OU2^; O=CDE; G=Abcd; S-efghijklmn;
   /OrganizationName_A/OrganizationalUnit_BCDEFGH/CommonName=RECIPIENTS/Com
   monName=AbcdB"
   Error                             = Conversion Failed
   # #Print the error log:
   # more /var/mta/bad_msgs/latin1toiso69370008A832B15E
   Input error - required character set not invoked prior to use
   #

MAILbus 400 is manufactured by Digital Equipment Corp., a vendor independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding this product's performance or reliability.

XCON: Latin-1 X.400 Bodypart Encoding Causes NDR

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