ietf-nntp Update to base spec posted

Charles Lindsey chl at clw.cs.man.ac.uk
Tue Mar 6 04:43:54 PST 2001


In <3AA2BFBC.F9B3F638 at verio.net> "Stan O. Barber" <sob at verio.net> writes:


>You can get a copy of base-13 from
>ftp://ftp.academ.com/pub/nntp/ietf/nntpext.txt.

>This version incorporates the following changes:

>Section 4 has been changed in the manner suggested by Clive Feather.

OK.

But you STILL have not changed Section 5 (Wildmats). Clive submitted a
text which we were all agreed on, but it is still not in. I have been
trying to get a clear definition of wildmat into the draft for 2 years
now, but we still have the same broken and ambiguous text in there.

{Actually, now that PAT has gone, Clive's wildmat text could be simplified
a bit, but that is a second order change.}

>Section 7 has been changed in a manner suggested by Clieve Feather and Russ
>Alberry.

Yes, MODE READER is now clear (still a mess, but that was inevitable :-( ).

However, in 7.2:

            Servers are encouraged to not require this command even though
                                   ^^^^^^
				   not to
(split infinitive :-( )

>Section 8 has been changed in a manner similar to that suggested by Clive
>Feather.

In section 9:

            During this step, two basic types of transactions occur:
	                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^
						 transaction

In 9.4.5:
               multiple groups may be specified by using a wildmat(see
                                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^
							   wildmat (see

And in section 9, PAT has gone, and we have HDR in its place. That is
good, but there are a few niggles:

          9.5.3 The HDR Extension
            This extension provides one new command, HDR. The label for
            this extension is PAT.
                              ^^^
			      Eh?

          9.5.3.1 HDR

            HDR range|<message-id>
	       ^
	       header

            The HDR command is used to retrieve specific headers from
            specific articles in the currently selected group.
	                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Why does there have to be a currently selected group in the case where the
article is specified by <message-id>?

            The required header parameter is the name of a header line
            (e.g.  "subject") in a newsgroup article. See RFC-1036 for a
	                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            list of valid header lines. The required range argument may be
	    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            any of the following:

I would remove the ^^^^^^ bit. All sorts of headers are regularly used
that were never mentioned in RFC-1036. The HDR command should work for any
header (known or otherwise) - if that header is present in the article, it
gets reported. If not, it doesn't. Or else you could say that
implementations MAY restrict the headers they search for to those available
in their overview (see LIST OVERVIEW.FMT command).

               . an article number
               . an article number followed by a dash to indicate all
                 following
               . an article number followed by a dash followed by another
                 article number.

            The required message-id argument indicates a specific article.
            The range and message-id arguments are mutually exclusive.

            A successful response consists of a 221 code followed by the
            output from the command. The output consists of one line for
            each article where the relevant header line exists. The line
            consists of the article number, a US-ASCII space, and then the
            contents of the header (without the header name). A valid
            response includes an empty list (indicating that there were no
            matches). Once the output is complete, a period is sent on a
            line by itself. If the optional argument is a message-id and
            no such article exists, a 430 error response shall be
	                                                 ^^^^^
							 MUST
            returned. A 502 response shall be returned if the client only
            has permission to transfer articles. A 500 response SHOULD be
            issued by all servers that do not recognize this command.

However, I would be much happier to see the article number '0' returned
after a <message-id> request, and to let it succeed if that article was
found in ANY group on the server. That seems to be consistent with usage
elsewhere in the draft.

          9.5.3.1.1 Responses

                 221 Header follows
                 412 no newsgroup selected
                 430 no such article
                 500 Command not recognized
                 502 Service Unavailable

          9.5.3.1.2 Examples

            Example of a successful retrieval of subject lines from a
            range of articles


                    [S] 200 NNTP Service Ready
                    [C] GROUP misc.test
                    [S] 211 1234 3000234 3002322 misc.test
                    [C] HDR Subject 3000234-300238
                    [S] 221 Header Follows
                    [S] 3000234 I am just a test article
                    [S] 3000237 Re: I am just a test article
                    [S] 3000238 Ditto
                    [S] .

            Example of a successful retrieval of header from an article by
            message-id
                    [S] 200 NNTP Service Ready
                    [C] GROUP misc.test
                    [S] 211 1234 3000234 3002322 misc.test
                    [C] HDR subject <i.am.a.test.article at nowhere.to>
                    [S] 221 Header information follows
                    [S] 3000345 I am just a test article
                    [S] .

            Example of an unsuccessful retrieval of a header from an
            article by message-id
                    [S] 200 NNTP Service Ready
                    [C] HDR subject <i.am.not.there at nowhere.to>
                    [S] 430 No Such Article Found

            Example of an unsuccessful retrieval of headers from articles
            by number because no newsgroup was selected first
                    [S] 200 NNTP Service Ready
                    [C] HDR subject 300256-
                    [S] 412 No newsgroup selected

            Example of an unsuccessful retrieval of headers from articles
            by message-id because no newsgroup was selected first
                    [S] 200 NNTP Service Ready
                    [C] HDR subject <i.am.a.test.article at nowhere.to>
                    [S] 412 No newsgroup selected

That example would go if my suggestion above was adopted.

            Example of retrieving header information when the current
            group selected is empty
                    [S] 200 NNTP Service Ready
                    [C] GROUP example.empty.newsgroup
                    [S] 211 0 0 0 example.empty.newsgroup
                    [C] HDR subject 0-
                    [S] 221 Headers follow
                        .

            Example of a failure due to restrictions configured into the
            server
                    [S] 200 NNTP Service Ready
                    [C] GROUP news.group
                    [S] 211 1234 3000234 3002322 misc.test
                    [C] HDR Subject 3000234-300238
                    [S] 502 Service Unavailable

>Section 10 has been changed in the manner suggested by Clive Feather.
>"UTC" token has been deleted from NEWNEWS and NEWGROUPS. DATE, NEWNEWS and
>NEWGROUPS use of 
>Coordinated Universal Time has been clarified.

Yes, the new wording in DATE is fine.

But NEWNEWS is still not right (assuming we adopt Clive's wildmat
wording):

          11.4 NEWNEWS 
           
            NEWNEWS newsgroups date time [GMT]
	            ^^^^^^^^^^
		    wildmat

            A list of message-ids of articles posted or received to the 
            specified newsgroup or groups since "date" will be listed. The
	    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	    newsgroups that match the wildmat

            format of the listing will be one message-id per line, as
            though text were being sent. Each message-id SHALL appear only
            once in a response. The order of the response has no specific
            significance and may vary from response to response in the
            same session. A single line consisting solely of one period
            followed by CR-LF will terminate the list.

            Date and time are in the same format as the NEWGROUPS command.
            The newsgroups parameter MUST be in wildmat format and MAY
	    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            consist of multiple wildmat constructs separated by an US-
	    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            ASCII comma character.
	    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Omit all that ^^^^^^^ stuff. The 'comma' is automatically included in the
wildmat as soon as we adopt Clive's text.

>Various typos pointed out by Clive Feather have been addressed (along with a few
>others).

>This will be the document discussed at IETF 50. I will also be specifying a
>mechanism for
>so that those that can't attend the meeting can help drive consensus more
>directly.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl at clw.cs.man.ac.uk      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5



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