Project: Webinterface II - Msgbase Structures: Zvon - RFC 2980 [Common NNTP Extensions] - Common Implementation Issues
5. Common Implementation Issues
Many NNTP implementations do not follow the specifications in RFC
977prop. In this section, some common implementation issues are
summarized.
5.1. The Response to the LIST command
RFC 977prop says that the fourth field of the "list of valid newsgroups
associated information" returned must be "either 'y' or 'n'
indicating whether posting to this newsgroup is allowed ('y') or
prohibited ('n'). Most implementations simply output the exact
contents of the transport system's active newsgroup list. For more
implementations, the fourth field usually has more values that 'y' or
'n'.
5.2. The Required Headers in an Article and the POST command
RFC 977prop notes in section 3.10.1 that articles presented "should
include all required header lines." In fact, modern implementations
only require From, Subject, and Newsgroups header lines and will
supply the rest; further, many implementers believe that it is best
for clients to generate as few headers as possible, since clients
often do not format other headers correctly.
This implementation behavior is consistent with both Bnews and Cnews
which would supply missing headers for articles directly submitted to
them.
5.3. Article Numbering
RFC 977prop does not directly address the rules concerning articles
number. However, the current practice is simple: article numbers are
monotonically increasing, articles may disappear, and therefore the
high and low water marks returned in a GROUP command should be
treated as maximum minima, and minimum maxima, respectively.
5.4. Availability of commands defined in RFC 977prop
Some implementations permit administrators to disable commands
defined RFC 977prop. Some implementations have some set of commands
disabled by default. This means that client implementations cannot
depend on the availability of the disabled set of commands. This
increases the complexity of the client and does not encourage
implementors to optimize the implementation of commands that don't
perform well.
NEWNEWS is one of the commands frequently disabled.
5.5. The Distribution header and NEWNEWS
In section 12.4 of RFC 977prop, the optional distributions argument is
described. This argument, according to RFC 977prop, would limit the
responses to articles that were in newsgroups with prefixes that
matched the optional distributions argument.
Some implementations implement this by matching the Distributions
header in articles to the distribution argument. Others do the match
against segments of the newsgroup's name.
This variation is probably best explained by the evolution of the
USENET article format. At the time RFC 977prop was specified, the
newsgroup name defined how the group was distributed throughout
USENET. RFC 1036 changed this convention. So, those that are
strictly implementing RFC 977prop would match the newsgroup name prefix
against the distribution argument and only display matches. Those
that implement against the intent of the command (as modified by the
redefinition of the article format)would match the Distributions
header against the distribution argument and only display those
matches.