ietf-nntp HDR

[Russ Allbery]

Sorry about the delay in responding to this mail.

Stan O Barber <sob at verio.net> writes:
> "Clive D.W. Feather" wrote:

>> * The text "See RFC-1036 for a list of valid header lines" remains
>> confusing. Are we saying:
>>   - the header must be one listed explicitly in RFC 1036, or
>>   - 1036 gives examples of headers you might want to use
>> ?

> Good question. The reference implementation does not care, so it would
> be consistent with the latter clause.

I vote for simply striking the sentence "See RFC-1036 for a list of valid
header lines."

>> * Must the command work for any header, or can the server reject some
>> headers on the grounds that it doesn't store them in its internal
>> database ?  If the latter:
>> - we should say so and note that 503 will be used for unrecognised
>>   headers;
>> - are there any headers that must always be supported (e.g. Subject) ?

> This is confusing to me. Which "internal database" are you talking
> about? Do you mean Overview? Historically, HDR didn't depend on OVERVIEW
> (and in fact preceeded OVERVIEW by many years).

I'm ambivalent on the question of whether HDR must support any header or
can be limited by the implementation.  If the possibility of limitation is
added, I believe we should state that the implementation MUST support HDR
for From, Subject, Date, Message-ID, and References.  I agree with Clive's
proposal of 503 for the error code for use of HDR on a header that isn't
supported, if this limitation is allowed.

> This is a good question. The reference implementation does not require a
> newsgroup be selected first. This example could be eliminated if folks
> don't want to see it work in the manner suggested by the example.

I don't think that it should be required to select a newsgroup first;
neither the reference implementation nor INN require this.

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