Re: [dispatch] [NNTP] Internet Draft for NNTP additions submitted

[Ken Murchison <[e-mail]>]

On 4/5/20 7:38 AM, Julien ÉLIE wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>> I have made the first I-D for the NNTP additions. It has been 
>> submitted to the IETF datatracker. The file name is 
>> draft-sam-nntpupdates-00.txt
>
> https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-sam-nntpupdates-00.txt
>
>
> Here are a few comments:
>
>>    Article numbers MUST lie between 1 and 9,223,372,036,854,775,807, 
>>    inclusive.  The client and server MAY use leading zeroes in    
>> specifying article numbers but MUST NOT use more than 19 digits.
> We'll need to define a capability to advertise that new feature.
>
> Note that Ken Murchison once suggested (in 2005) a LARGEGROUP 
> extension, which seems to be a reasonable implementation according to 
> a few discussions since that time:
> https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/ietf-nntp/2005-July/005720.html
>
> *************************************************
> - Servers which support 64-bit (large) article counters advertise a
> capability such as 'LARGEGROUP' (or some better named capability).
>
> - Servers always hide (411 response for [LIST]GROUP, ommission from LIST
> ACTIVE response) groups which have exceeded the 32-bit article count
> from clients until the client tells the server that it can support such
> groups.
>
> - A client tells the server that it supports large groups by using the
> new keyword 'LARGEGROUP' as an argument to the CAPABILITY command.
>
> - The server can then use the existing response codes for the
> [LIST]GROUP and LIST ACTIVE commands.
> *************************************************
>
>
> Also note Clive Feather's BIGNUM proposal:
> https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/ietf-nntp/2005-July/005802.html


At this point, why not just define a NNTP VERSION 3 capability which 
indicates that all commands that accept/return article numbers can be 63 
bit?  This requires no changes to existing commands, and clients will 
know right away from the capabilities whether they should proceed or not.


-- 
Kenenth Murchison
Senior Software Developer
Fastmail US LLC