ietf-nntp MODE READER

[Russ Allbery]

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

> Do any common servers apart from innd actually use the command ?

Does Diablo?  I'm not aware of any other server that has multiple modes,
beyond the streaming stuff, but I seem to recall that Diablo might.

> For each such server (including innd), what does "reader mode" actually
> affect ?

In innd, a separate nnrpd process is forked off with the open network
connection on stdin and then innd closes its side of the connection.
nnrpd figures out the remote host from getpeername and then consults its
access files, printing out the standard banner based on the access granted
to that remote host.

(In the presence of a requirement for authentication, nnrpd presents the
most optimistic case; in other words, if it's possible for that host to
obtain POST access, nnrpd will greet with 200.  This was due to problems
encountered with some news readers that, upon seeing 201, would assume
that the connection was always going to be read-only and wouldn't attempt
POST even after authenticating.)

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