A few notes about NNTP compliance

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi,

Here are a few notes about NNTP compliance according to doc/compliance-nntp:


* Summary: innd doesn't require whitespace between commands and arguments
* Summary: innd may return 480 instead of 500 for unrecognized commands
* Summary: innd doesn't diagnose repeated AUTHINFO USER commands
* Summary: INN doesn't check argument length

They will be fixed when RFC 3977 has been implemented in innd.
I renamed the last one to "innd doesn't check argument length" because nnrpd
now does.


* Summary: innd doesn't support LIST EXTENSIONS

Not a problem any longer with RFC 3977.  Removed.


* Summary: innd improperly caches DNS returns

It is ticket #76.


* Summary: innd and nnrpd do not advertise IHAVE for the entire session

I added that one because CAPABILITIES will act only upon the availability
of IHAVE and not if is has already been advertised.


* Summary: innd always sends 200 for an accepted connection

Interesting one.
If we are in a noreader mode, 201 must be sent.  Otherwise, it is not clear
to me, especially how we can find out what nnrpd will answer after MODE READER.
I have just asked for a few clarifications in news.software.nntp.


* Summary: Reply codes other than x9x used for private extensions

I think it is a "won't fix" because it would break existing implementations
if we sent other reply codes for XGTITLE and XBATCH.
The same goes for MODE CANCEL (which is likely to be renamed to XCANCEL or
CANCEL, if we want to standardize it in an Internet-Draft).


* Summary: nnrpd doesn't return 423 errors when there is no overview info

Renamed to "nnrpd doesn't return 420 errors for XOVER".
423 is properly implemented for OVER.
I think it is now a "won't fix" because it would break existing implementations.


* Summary: HDR can return message IDs rather than article numbers

Removed.  HDR, as implemented in nnrpd, returns "0" for a message-ID.
It is different from XHDR (anyway, XHDR complies with RFC 2980:  it can
return message-IDs rather than article numbers).





I have not added the following reports mentioned in Trac:

- MUST
    #101 Advertise overview fields for which the database is consistent

- SHOULD
    #92 Add support for TLS server_name extension
    #93 Possibility to disable unsecured authentication

- MAY
    #30 nnrpd doesn't support passwords with spaces

I believe there are other things mentioned neither in doc/compliance-nntp
nor in Trac (especially for innd, or even innfeed and utilities).
Should all doc/compliance-nntp not marked as "won't fix" be put into Trac?
The contrary (Trac -> doc/compliance-nntp) is perhaps not necessary.

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

« Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses :
  L'espace d'un matin. » (François de Malherbe)