ietf-nntp Response codes - debugging, authentication & unknown

[Russ Allbery]

Clive D W Feather <clive at demon.net> writes:

> I still have one outstanding problem with the main text:

>>        A server MUST respond to a command issued when 
>>        the session is in an incorrect state by responding with a 
>>        negative status indicator. This may be from either the 4xx or 
>>        5xx group as appropriate. 

> Is this meant to mean that a server can issue *any* of these two hundred
> codes whenever it likes ? Or is it meant to mean that each command
> documents specific "incorrect state" responses. Or something else ?

I would hope that it means each command would specify the status code in
its description.

> The other thing I note is that a lot of commands have a 502 response
> defined as "service unavailable". It seems to me that this actually
> means "you are not permitted to execute this command (with these
> arguments)".  Should that be a general response described in 4.1 (just
> like 501 for parsing errors is), rather than with each command ?

I would be in favor of that.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>