The Message Tracking MIB working group will produce two standards track documents: a message tracking model document and a MIB document. The model will describe the message tracking problem by identifying the entities involved (e.g., message relays or "MTAs", management agents), define relationships between the entities, define approaches for inter-domain message tracking, and address security issues. Messages will be tracked from the time an MTA accepts a message, up through the time it delivers the message on to another entity, which could be another MTA, a message store, or other possibilities. Some of these destinations will generate subsequent messages (status notifications, list expansions, etc.), which need to be related to the original message for further tracking. The types of messages to be tracked include RFC 822bis messages, and optionally others. The MIB will contain SNMP MIB variables used to track messages (e.g. message tracking request identifier, message identifier, recipient name, delivery time), will describe specific elements of procedure for using those MIB variables, and will discuss security. A mechanism will be developed whereby a manager may request specific message tracking information using a variety of criteria (e.g. message identifier, originator name, time range, wild-cards), and obtain information about messages that satisfy those criteria. Such information is useful for fault, performance, and security purposes.