Re: [dispatch] Internet Draft for NNTP additions submitted

[Julien ÉLIE <[e-mail]>]

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



>    4.1.  XPAT
As for improvements in extended wildmat searches, we'll need 
standardizing how uwildmat works.  Hopefully this is quite well 
explained in INN's documentation:
   https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/uwildmat.html

The major challenge though PAT is how to deal with whitespace and 
MIME-encoded strings in header fields, and of course also 
internationalized header fields.
Examples:

   Subject: 
=?UTF-8?Q?CNFS_sur_INN2_was:_Et_l=c3=a0=2c_=c3=a7a_refonctionne_=3f?=
      =?UTF-8?Q?_-_no_reply_-_ignore?=

   Newsgroups: trigofacile.test.ᾅ



>    4.2.  WHOAMI
A IANA registry for returned information (and future new information) 
will be useful to add in our current NNTP IANA registry.

Note the behaviour of (unstandardized) XUID command in news.individual.net:

XUID
280 User information
     User-ID: 90977
     EID: none
     Access: [90977]
     Client: denver.dinauz.org (37.59.56.11)
     Reading: allowed
     Posting: allowed
     Newnews: allowed
     Posting into readonly groups: not allowed
     Setting Approved header: not allowed
     Cancel-Lock addition: enabled
     Setting individual path header: not allowed
     Sending cancel control messages and supersedes: allowed
     Sending newgroup/rmgroup control messages: not allowed
     LIST ACTIVE does not include control.cancel
     Organization: extern
     Subscription: expires in 361 days (2021-04-01)
     UID check for cancel messages: yes
     UID check for supersedes messages: yes

     Amount of articles posted today: 0 (Maximum: 100)
.


And similar useful information could be given to peers, giving them 
known configuration (max article size, fed newsgroups, path, spam 
policy...).



>    5.  Dynamic Feeds
I see that you re-integrated ideas from old draft for Dynamic Feed 
Adjustment.  That's great!
     http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/nntp/drafts/draft-court-dynfeed-01.txt



>    6.  Header Related Commands
Besides IHAVEHDR, we should have a look at how Diablo implements its 
"MODE HEADFEED" to correctly standardize header-only feed.
Maybe CHECKHDR and TAKEHDR will also be useful.



> Maybe we can also work on USEFOR/USAGE in some way if it interestes  the 
> participants - however we want to be NNTP focused since it is a NNTP 
> working group after all.

We'll have to prioritize efforts between needed NNTP extensions and 
improvements in article format.

FWIW, other possible work I had in mind:
- DANE/DNSSEC for NNTP (to advertise the use of NNTP/TLS on port 563)
- BATCH command, with rnews format
- update to RFC 3977 (either NNTP Version 3 or integrate all errata somehow)
- full-text search extension (in bodies)
- internationalized Netnews headers (newsgroups, distributions, mails...)
- USEAGE (Usenet Best Practice)
- format of NoCeM articles (for cancels)
- format and use of PGPMoose (signing articles)
- format of signed control articles / pgpverify stuff


Well, that's a great amount of job!

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

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