[ietf-nntp] I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-00.txt

[Ken Murchison]

Clive D.W. Feather wrote:

> Russ Allbery said:
> 
>>>>>I would drop the bit about 480, which contradicts the base
>>>>>document. Apart from QUIT, a server *can* give 480 to anything,
>>>>>including HELP. At least, the client shouldn't fall over if it gets a
>>>>>480, and we've previously suggested 480-to-everything as meaning "you
>>>>>need to log in".
>>>>
>>>>I think we need to forbid it for QUIT, AUTHINFO, and LIST EXTENSIONS
>>>>for protocol reasons.
>>>
>>>That requires a change to the base document. Um:
>>
>>>    The client MUST be prepared to receive any of these responses for
>>>    any command (except, of course, that the server MUST NOT generate a
>>>    500 response code for mandatory commands).
>>
>>I don't think it does require a change there.  You're just saying that the
>>client MUST be prepared to receive a 480 response in places where it
>>doesn't make sense, but we're separately saying that sending it doesn't
>>make any sense and the server MUST NOT send it.
> 
> 
> I think we're interpreting words in slightly different ways. For AUTHINFO,
> we can say in this document that the server MUST NOT send 480.
> 
> However, I can see nothing that forbids the server responding 480 to QUIT
> or LIST EXTENSIONS. We need to change the base document to address that.

I see Clive's point and I tend to agree.  This particular extension doc 
has no business changing the use of 480 which falls outside of its 
scope.  In other words, dictating the use of 480 w.r.t. AUTHINFO is 
fine, but touching on 480's use with other commands is clearly out of 
scope.  My guess is that this text is leftover from when 480 was *only* 
discussed in this doc.

-- 
Kenneth Murchison     Oceana Matrix Ltd.
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