RFC 3977, "Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)", October 2006

Note: This RFC has been updated by RFC 6048

Errata ID: 1527
Status: Held for Document Update
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Julien Élie
Date Reported: 2008-09-24
Held for Document Update by: Lisa Dusseault

Section 3.2.1 says:

401: The client must change the state of the connection in some other
   manner.  The first argument of the response MUST be the capability
   label (see Section 5.2) of the facility that provides the
   necessary mechanism (usually an extension, which may be a private
   extension).  The server MUST NOT use this response code except as
   specified by the definition of the capability in question.

Notes:

The 401 code is never dealt with in the whole RFC 3977. Even the definition of the MODE-READER capability does not indicate when the 401 return code should be used.
It should be said that it MUST be used in answers to commands only available after having sent MODE READER. Maybe section 5.3.2 that described the MODE READER command, is the right place to use in order to specify that behaviour.

[C] CAPABILITIES
[S] 101 Capability list:
[S] VERSION 2
[S] IHAVE
[S] MODE-READER
[S] .
[C] POST
[S] 401 MODE-READER
[C] MODE READER
[S] 200 Reader mode, posting permitted
[C] CAPABILITIES
[S] 101 Capability list:
[S] VERSION 2
[S] READER
[S] POST
[S] .
[C] POST
[S] 340 Input article; end with <CR-LF>.<CR-LF>
[C] From: "Demo User" <nobody@example.net>
[C] Newsgroups: misc.test
[C] Subject: I am just a test article
[C] Organization: An Example Net
[C]
[C] This is just a test article.
[C] .
[S] 240 Article received OK

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