NNTP Drafts

The following Internet-Drafts related to the Network News Transfer Protocol have been published via the IETF process. The information here copies information also available from the IETF Internet-Draft Archive Tool, but focuses only on drafts related to NNTP.

Follow the IETF link for each draft to see all historic versions available from the IETF archive and diffs between versions.

Individual Drafts

The following drafts were submitted by individuals outside of the official work of an IETF working group, but are relevant or related to the NNTP protocol.

NNTP Full-text Search Extension (IETF)

This document describes a set of enhancements to the Network News Transport Protocol [NNTP-977] that allows full-text searching of news articles in multiple newsgroups. The proposed SEARCH command supports functionality similar to the [IMAP4] SEARCH command, minus user specific search keys (i.e., ANSWERED, DRAFT, FLAGGED, KEYWORD, NEW, OLD, RECENT, SEEN) and minus search keys based on headers that do not exist in news (i.e., CC, BCC, TO).

This proposed protocol was never widely implemented. Search is a very hard problem. The IETF NNTP working group gave up on trying to standardize PAT due to problems with whitespace and internationalization. Doing a proper job of a search extension will be a substantial amount of work.

draft-ballou-nntpsrch-04.txt 1997-09 18KB
draft-ballou-nntpsrch-03.txt 1997-05-01 18KB
draft-ballou-nntpsrch-02.txt 1997-01-29 15KB
draft-ballou-nntpsrch-01.txt 1997-01-29 15KB
draft-ballou-nntpsrch-00.txt 1996-11-15 15KB
The 'news' and 'nntp' URI Schemes (IETF)

This memo specifies the 'news' and 'nntp' Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) schemes that were originally defined in RFC 1738. The purpose of this document is to allow RFC 1738 to be made obsolete while keeping the information about these schemes on standards track.

This draft wasn't picked up by an IETF working group but is still being actively worked on for hopeful eventual publication as an independent submission.

This draft was based on earlier versions by Charles Lindsey and by Paul Hoffman. See the IETF pages for draft-lindsey-news-nntp-uri and draft-hoffman-news-nntp-uri.

draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-11.txt 2008-04-02 43KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-10.txt 2008-03-18 42KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-09.txt 2008-02-23 42KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-08.txt 2007-11-14 40KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-07.txt 2007-11-05 39KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-06.txt 2007-10-30 38KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-05.txt 2007-02-19 34KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-04.txt 2006-12-01 32KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-03.txt 2006-11-19 31KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-02.txt 2006-11-05 31KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-01.txt 2006-10-22 23KB
draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-00.txt 2005-05-18 14KB
draft-lindsey-news-nntp-uri-00.txt 2005-05 13KB
draft-hoffman-news-nntp-uri-04.txt 2005-01 9KB
draft-hoffman-news-nntp-uri-03.txt 2004-11-30 9KB
draft-hoffman-news-nntp-uri-02.txt 2004-10-20 9KB
draft-hoffman-news-nntp-uri-01.txt 2004-09-18 7KB
draft-hoffman-news-nntp-uri-00.txt 2004-08-17 7KB
NNTP LIST Additions (IETF)

This document describes a set of enhancements to the Network News Transport Protocol [NNTP-977] that allows extended server specific information to be obtained by the client. These enhancements will be made as new arguments to the existing LIST verb described in the NNTP protocol [NNTP-977].

These LIST extensions weren't incorporated into the eventual RFC 3977. Some of them are relatively widely impelemented and are still worth standardizing at some point.

draft-hernacki-nntplist-02.txt 1997-07-15 10KB
draft-hernacki-nntplist-01.txt 1996-11-25 8KB
draft-hernacki-nntplist-00.txt 1996-10-21 8KB

Drafts of Published RFCs

The following drafts are earlier versions of documents that were eventually published as RFCs.

Network News Transfer Protocol (IETF)

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.

This document was published as RFC 3977.

draft-ietf-nntpext-base-27.txt 2005-06-08 243KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-26.txt 2005-05-20 241KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-25.txt 2005-02-10 225KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-24.txt 2004-08-03 206KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-23.txt 2004-08-26 206KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-22.txt 2004-03-21 199KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-21.txt 2004-03-08 196KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-20.txt 2003-10-16 187KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-19.txt 2003-08-01 169KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-18.txt 2003-04-25 165KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-17.txt 2003-03-01 153KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-16.txt 2003-01 134KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-15.txt 2002-01 161KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-14.txt 2001-11 132KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-13.txt 2001-03 145KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-12.txt 2000-11 142KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-11.txt 2000-10 143KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-10.txt 2000-07 141KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-09.txt 1999-11 133KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-08.txt 1999-08 128KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-07.txt 1998-12 93KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-06.txt 1998-08 92KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-05.txt 1998-03 101KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-04.txt 1998-03 101KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-03.txt 1997-12 96KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-02.txt 1997-09 83KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-01.txt 1997-09 83KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-base-00.txt 1997-09 83KB
NNTP Extension for Authentication (IETF)

This document defines an extension to the Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) which allows a client to indicate an authentication mechanism to the server, perform an authentication protocol exchange, and optionally negotiate a security layer for subsequent protocol interactions during the remainder of an NNTP session.

This document was published as RFC 4643.

draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-10.txt 2005-08 52KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-09.txt 2005-06 52KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-08.txt 2005-05 51KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-07.txt 2005-03 50KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-06.txt 2005-01 51KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-05.txt 2004-10 48KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-04.txt 2004-08 46KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-03.txt 2004-08 46KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-02.txt 2004-07 45KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-01.txt 2004-06 46KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-authinfo-00.txt 2004-04 43KB
NNTP Extension for Streaming Feeds (IETF)

This memo defines an extension to the Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) to provide asynchronous (otherwise known as "streaming") transfer of articles. This allows servers to transfer articles to other servers with much greater efficiency.

This document was published as RFC 4644.

draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-06.txt 2005-06 27KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-05.txt 2005-05 27KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-04.txt 2005-03 27KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-03.txt 2005-01 26KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-02.txt 2004-10 26KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-01.txt 2004-02 17KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-00.txt 2003-06 16KB
Using TLS with NNTP (IETF)

This memo defines an extension to the Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) to allow an NNTP client and server to use Transport Layer Security (TLS). The primary goal is to provide encryption for single-link confidentiality purposes, but data integrity, (optional) certificate-based peer entity authentication, and (optional) data compression are also possible.

This document was published as RFC 4642.

draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-09.txt 2005-09 30KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-08.txt 2005-08 30KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-07.txt 2005-06 29KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-06.txt 2005-05 30KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-05.txt 2005-03 30KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-04.txt 2005-01 31KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-03.txt 2004-10 29KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-02.txt 2004-09 28KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-01.txt 2003-10 25KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-tls-nntp-00.txt 2003-02 25KB
Netnews Administration System (NAS) (IETF)

The Netnews Administration System (NAS) is a framework to simplify the administration and usage of network news (also known as Netnews) on the Internet. Data for the administration of newsgroups and hierarchies are kept in a distributed hierarchical database and are available through a client-server-protocol. The database is accessible by news servers and news administrators as well as by news readers. News servers can update their configuration automatically; administrators are able to get the data manually. News reader programs are able to get certain information from an NAS server, automatically or at a user's discretion, to provide detailed information about groups and hierarchies to the user.

This document was published as RFC 4707. This is an experimental track RFC and I don't believe this protocol was widely implemented.

draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-07.txt 2005-07 77KB
draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-06.txt 2003-06 74KB
draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-05.txt 2002-11 74KB
draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-04.txt 2001-09 73KB
draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-03.txt 2001-05 73KB
draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-02.txt 2000-11 73KB
draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-01.txt 2000-05 80KB
draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-00.txt 2000-01 72KB
Common NNTP Extensions (IETF)

In this document, a number of popular extensions to the NNTP protocol defined in RFC977 are documented and discussed. While this document is not intended to serve as a standard of any kind, it will hopefully serve as a reference document for future implementers of the NNTP protocol. In the role, this document would hopefully create the possibility for some level of interoperability among implementations that make use of extensions.

This document was published as RFC 2980. It's now mostly obsolete. The most interesting commands described here were included in the standards-track RFCs that updated the protocol.

draft-ietf-nntpext-imp-03.txt 1998-08 52KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-imp-02.txt 1998-05 56KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-imp-01.txt 1997-12 53KB
draft-ietf-nntpext-imp-00.txt 1997-10 53KB
Last modified and spun 2008-11-10