ietf-nntp Response from ARTICLE

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Mon Oct 5 05:56:51 PDT 1998


Charles Lindsey said:
>>   4xx - something's broken right now, try again later
>>   5xx - you might as well give up; some configuration thing would
>>         have to change or you'd have to use a different parameter
>>         for this to work
> Yes, that is my informal reading of the wording in the present draft.

Good.

>> Thus for mail, recipient unavailable is a 4xx issue while nonexistent
>> domain is a 5xx one. On this basis, 5xx is the right group for permission
>> denied.
> Well No! It is the right return for "permission denied because you are
> unwelcome to speak to this server", but it seems an overkill for
> "permission denied to read this particular article, but please feel free
> to ask for other articles (for which permission will likely be granted)".

I disagree. You will never be able to read *this* article (the one with the
number or ID requested) without a configuration change at the server. The
fact that another command beginning ARTICLE might work is irrelevant.

What's the code for "you haven't issued a GROUP yet" ? That ought to be a
5xx by the above logic. 4xx is reserved for "keep trying and it'll work
eventually".

> Seemingly, I am not trusted to read net.*. But my software (a much hacked
> version of nntpxfer) decided any 5xx return was fatal (I have fixed it
> now, of course).

That's your software at fault. The 5xx does *not* mean that a *different*
article command wouldn't work.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather       | Work: <clive at linx.org>   | Tel: +44 1733 705000
Regulation Officer       |   or: <clive at demon.net>  |  or: +44 973 377646
London Internet Exchange | Home: <clive at davros.org> | Fax: +44 1733 353929
(on secondment from Demon Internet)



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