Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
RFC 3977
| Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(October 2006; Errata)
Updated by RFC 6048
Obsoletes RFC 977
Updates RFC 2980
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Last updated | 2020-01-21 | ||
| Stream | IETF | ||
| Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized with errata bibtex | ||
| Stream | WG state | (None) | |
| Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
| IESG | IESG state | RFC 3977 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | |||
| Responsible AD | Scott Hollenbeck | ||
| Send notices to | (None) | ||
Network Working Group C. Feather
Request for Comments: 3977 THUS plc
Obsoletes: 977 October 2006
Updates: 2980
Category: Standards Track
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
The Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) has been in use in the
Internet for a decade, and remains one of the most popular protocols
(by volume) in use today. This document is a replacement for
RFC 977, and officially updates the protocol specification. It
clarifies some vagueness in RFC 977, includes some new base
functionality, and provides a specific mechanism to add standardized
extensions to NNTP.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Author's Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Basic Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Commands and Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.1. Multi-line Data Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2. Response Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.1. Generic Response Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2.1.1. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3. Capabilities and Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.1. Capability Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.2. Standard Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3.3. Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3.4. Initial IANA Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4. Mandatory and Optional Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Feather Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 3977 Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) October 2006
3.4.1. Reading and Transit Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.4.2. Mode Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.5. Pipelining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.5.1. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.6. Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4. The WILDMAT Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.1. Wildmat Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2. Wildmat Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3. Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5. Session Administration Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.1. Initial Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.2. CAPABILITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.3. MODE READER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.4. QUIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6. Article Posting and Retrieval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.1. Group and Article Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6.1.1. GROUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6.1.2. LISTGROUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6.1.3. LAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
6.1.4. NEXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.2. Retrieval of Articles and Article Sections . . . . . . . 45
6.2.1. ARTICLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.2.2. HEAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
6.2.3. BODY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
6.2.4. STAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.3. Article Posting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.3.1. POST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.3.2. IHAVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
7. Information Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
7.1. DATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
7.2. HELP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
7.3. NEWGROUPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7.4. NEWNEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7.5. Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
7.5.1. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
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