ietf-nntp Response code 501

Paul Overell paulo at turnpike.com
Mon Jul 24 02:29:20 PDT 2000


(Third attempt, apologies if the previous two turn up.)


In article <200007140545.AAA19326 at academ.com>, Stan Barber
<sob at academ.com> writes
>
>A new draft of the base document has been sent to the Internet Drafts folks.
>

In 4.1 Response Codes

>For unrecognized commands, the 500 response code MUST be returned

[snip]

>For recognized commands where the syntax is wrong, the 501 response
>code MUST be returned

This is clear, 500 means unrecognized, 501 means syntax error.

but in 9.4.2 LIST ACTIVE.TIMES, 9.4.3 LIST DISTRIBUTIONS, 9.4.4 LIST
DISTRIB.PATS, and 9.4.5 LIST NEWSGROUPS the follow phrase is used:

>If the server does not recognize the command, it SHOULD return the 501
>error response.

If it is the intention that a conforming implementation MUST recognize
these commands then the above phrase should be removed.  If it is the
intention that conforming implementations can omit - MAY recognize -
these commands then surely the return code should be 500.


---------------------------


In 9.5.2.1 LIST OVERVIEW.FMT

>If the OVER extension is not implemented, then this command MUST NOT
>be implemented. If that case, the server MUST return a 501

Again shouldn't this be a 500.

---------------------------


In 8.1.4 Responses from servers without extensions

>A server NNTP that conforms to this memo but does not support
>the extensions specified here will not recognize the LIST
>EXTENSIONS command and MUST consequently return code 500 or
>code 501.

Surely a server that does "not support the extensions specified here"
can support extensions specified elsewhere, in which case it will
recognize the LIST EXTENSIONS command.  Again the return code for
unrecognized command should be 500, not 501.  I suggest recast to

        An NNTP server that conforms to this memo but does not support
        any extensions will not recognize the LIST EXTENSIONS command
        and MUST consequently return code 500.


Regards
-- 
Paul Overell                                             T U R N P I K E



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