innd and rejects of dates

Julien ÉLIE julien at trigofacile.com
Sat Sep 25 22:24:11 UTC 2010


Hi all,

According to RFC 5537, a relaying agent processes an article as follows:

   2.  It MUST examine the Injection-Date header field or, if absent,
       the Date header field, and reject the article if that date is
       more than 24 hours into the future.  It MAY reject articles with
       dates in the future with a smaller margin than 24 hours.


Therefore, we would have the following behaviour in INN 2.5.3:

nnrpd (injecting agent) rejects:
 * an Injection-Date: header field too old
 * an Injection-Date: header field in the future
 * a Date: header field too old
 * a Date: header field in the future

innd (relaying agent) rejects:
 * an Injection-Date: header field too old
 * an Injection-Date: header field in the future
and only where there is no Injection-Date: header field:
 * a Date: header field too old
 * a Date: header field in the future

That is to say that the Date: header field can be set to anything when
an Injection-Date header field exists.  There is no obligation to
check whether it has a valid content ("It MAY reject any article that
contains header fields that do not have valid contents.")


A Date: in 2000 or a Date: in 2020 would then be accepted by innd
for an Injection-Date: in 2010.  And an invalid date too.
Is it wise to let such articles pass through?

I fear side-effects in news clients...  I wonder how they will
display the date...

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

« -- On nage dans le lac, on escalade les montagnes...
  -- Ben quoi ? Nous ne sommes pas en vacances ! » (Astérix) 




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