[NNTP] Additions to the LIST capability
Julien ÉLIE
julien at trigofacile.com
Thu Oct 15 13:34:05 PDT 2009
Hi,
I think it would be useful to document a few additions to the LIST capability:
- LIST ACTIVE -> field status "j", "x" and "=news.group";
- LIST DISTRIBUTIONS;
- LIST MODERATORS;
- LIST MOTD;
- LIST SUBSCRIPTIONS.
I've begun to write an Internet-Draft and would like to have a few comments
on it. Feel free to point out lame wording and any issue you see.
** First of all, do you see other keywords we should add to LIST? Is it OK
to put everything in the same I.-D. ?
Abstract
This document defines a set of enhancements to the Network News
Transfer Protocol (NNTP) that allows a client to request extended
information maintained by NNTP servers as for local use and
distribution policy. These enhancements are made as new keywords to
the existing LIST capability described in RFC 3977.
This memo updates and formalizes the LIST DISTRIBUTIONS and LIST
SUBSCRIPTIONS commands specified in RFC 2980. It also adds the LIST
MODERATORS and LIST MOTD commands, and specifies additional values
returned by the existing LIST ACTIVE command for the status of a
newsgroup.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Additions to the LIST Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1. Advertising the New LIST Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. Additions to the LIST ACTIVE Command . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.1. Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.2. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. LIST DISTRIBUTIONS Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3.1. Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3.2. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3.3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. LIST MODERATORS Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4.1. Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4.2. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4.3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5. LIST MOTD Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5.1. Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5.2. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5.3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6. LIST SUBSCRIPTIONS Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6.1. Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6.2. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6.3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Augmented BNF Syntax for the New LIST Commands . . . . . . . . 7
3.1. Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2. Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 12
** Does it look good?
Any comment about the use of "LIST Extension" and "LIST Command"?
"This" with a capital letter and "the" with a small letter?
** Should a "Security Considerations" section be added? (E-mail issues
with LIST MODERATORS? Another thing?)
1. Introduction
The NNTP specification [RFC3977] defines the LIST capability and a
few keywords which can be used with that command: ACTIVE,
ACTIVE.TIMES, DISTRIB.PATS, HEADERS, NEWSGROUPS and OVERVIEW.FMT. As
other widely used keywords exist, they are formalized in this
document.
The DISTRIBUTIONS and SUBSCRIPTIONS keywords have originally been
documented in [RFC2980]. The LIST DISTRIBUTIONS command is sent by a
news client to obtain a list of relevant distributions known by a
news server along with their descriptions. The LIST SUBSCRIPTIONS
command is sent by a news client when first connecting to a news
server so as to obtain a list of recommended newsgroups available on
it. Both of these commands are intended to be used in place of
hard-coding news clients to use specific distributions or look for
specific default newsgroups.
The MOTD keyword has originally been documented in
[I-D.draft-hernacki-nntplist] (which also defines the SUBSCRIPTIONS
keyword). The LIST MOTD command is sent by a news client to obtain a
"message of the day" containing useful information regarding the
current state of a news server.
The MODERATORS keyword was not documented before. The LIST
MODERATORS command is sent by a news client to obtain a list of
associations between moderated newsgroups and their submission
address.
The ACTIVE keyword has already been documented in [RFC3977] but the
meaning of only three status fields in response to the LIST ACTIVE
command has been specified: "y", "n" and "m". This memo defines
three other widespread values for the status field: "j", "x" and "="
followed by the name of a newsgroup.
** Any comment? Is is enough for an introduction?
--
Julien ÉLIE
« Argumentum baculinum. » (Sganarelle)
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