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Re: Allowing IP addresses as path-identiites


Frank Ellermann wrote:
Forrest J. Cavalier III wrote:


When someone votes "NO - IP Addresses should not be allowed
as path-identity" are they voting that Relaying servers are
supposed to reject articles which have an IP in the Path:
header field?



We're not "voting".  It's only a poll, you can start your own
if you don't like Harald's.  When I posted "NO" what I meant
was this:

NO - I don't want IPs as "path identity", neither in the Path:
nor in Xref:, let alone nntp-URLs or Injection-Info.  It should
be easy to use a proper FQDN as name for _servers_ - and where
that's not the case we still offer the "traditional name" with
the necessary caveat that this won't work for conflicts.

The poll wasn't for "server-name", it was for "path-identity."

Does that mean that someone saying NO for path-identity is also
saying that they reject uses of IP for diagnostics in path-list, since
the grammar says a path-list contains path-identities, not server-names?

You may argue that an implementor knows whether they are inserting
a server name or a diagnostic, and that there is no issue.  But the
grammar only allows path-identity, folded white space, keywords, and
delimiters.  (Well, it allows a tail entry which is a path-identity.)

So where do IP addresses for diagnostics fit in?

If people think they want IP addresses for diagnostics, but not
servers, it is another example of syntax that is easy to construct,
but impossible to determine if something is a server identity or a diagnostic
when parsing.  (I object to all syntax that is "write only", including
a References: header field which cannot be used to determine followups.)

If people don't want to allow IP addresses for path-identities, then
they should poll on whether it is a MUST NOT, SHOULD NOT, MUST REJECT,
MUST NOT RELAY.

Charles was correct in pointing out that I should reconsider and
indicate MUST ACCEPT, SHOULD NOT generate when used in path-list.  Or, if the
path-list syntax is changed to distinguish diagnostics (such as a prefix
keyword starting with ".") then MUST ACCEPT, MUST NOT generate, MAY use the keyword
prefix + IP address.

But MUST NOT for server-name, and SHOULD NOT when path-identity for Injection-info.

Harald can count that as a "YES", "NO", or a "NO RESPONSE" however he
likes.  He can interpret precise language into his imprecise choices.