ietf-nntp Streaming

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Russ Allbery said:
>>   If the specific description of a command describes it as "not
>>   streamable", that command MUST end any stream of commands. That is,
>>   the client MUST NOT send any following command until receiving the
>>   CRLF at the end of the response from the command. The server MAY
>>   ignore any data received after the command and before the CRLF at the
>>   end of the response is sent to the client.
> 
> IHAVE, POST, MODE READER, LIST EXTENSIONS, and QUIT are not streamable and
> if this text is adopted, this should be noted in their descriptions.

I understand the last three, but I don't follow your reasoning for the
first two.

> I'm not sure about GROUP.  If GROUP fails, it could cause cascade failure
> of a lot of the remaining commands in the stream, although this isn't as
> bad as if IHAVE or POST fail.

A client using streaming has to be prepared for a failed command and,
therefore, cascade failure. However, that's a different issue.

My starting point was that there is normally no grounds for a server to
throw away data. I understand the need when a second process is taking
over - as in MODE READER - but I see no reason for GROUP to be special.

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