Specifications
RFC Compliance
CoffeeLink News Server follows the draft NNTP working document published by the IETF. As this document is updated, CoffeeLink News Server will be modified to track the changes until a new RFC is published.
In addition, CoffeeLink News Server implements several of the extensions outlined in the IETF's "Common NNTP Extensions" paper. These extensions allow many older news clients to interact with CoffeeLink News Server.
Compatible News Readers
CoffeeLink News Server has been tested with Netscape Communicator 4.x, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Emacs GNUS.
Supported NNTP Commands
ARTICLE
AUTHINFO USER
AUTHINFO PASS
BODY
DATE
GROUP
HEADER
HELP
IHAVE
LAST
LIST
LIST ACTIVE
LIST ACTIVE.TIMES
LIST DISTRIBUTIONS
LIST DISTRIB.PATS
LIST EXTENSIONS
LIST NEWSGROUPS |
LIST OVERVIEW.FMT
LIST SUBSCRIPTIONS
LISTGROUP
MODE READER
NEWGROUPS
NEWNEWS
NEXT
OVER
PAT
POST
QUIT
STAT
XHDR
XLISTGROUP
XMODE READER
XOVER |
Message Repository
Lightweight relational database with BTree indexing. Database integrity protected using roll-back/roll-forward mechanism to survive program/OS crashes. Database uses normal Java datatypes, so the database format is identical on all platforms. Concurrent access to repository managed using single-writer/multiple-reader locking.
Security
CoffeeLink News Server controls access to newsgroups using a sophisticated role based authorization system. A role defines a set of privileges. Each user can be assigned to one or more roles. CoffeeLink now allows administrators to define their own roles for maximum flexibility in access control.
Users can only see newsgroups for which they have read permission. Users can only retrieve messages if they can read at least one group to which the message was posted. This allows open and restricted discussion groups to be hosted safely on the same server.
For UNIX: Native libraries (source included) for Solaris and Linux allow the server to be started as root to bind to port 119 and change to some other user id for normal operation.
Limitations
| Max. Simultaneous Connections |
Limited by max. threads for Java VM on target platform. Can be adjusted by user to impose site specific limits. |
| Max. Message Size |
Maximum 8 MB per message. Can be adjusted lower by user to impose site specific limits. |
| Max. Discussion Groups |
virtually unlimited |
| Max. Messages (Total) |
virtually unlimited |
| Max. Messages Per Group |
virtually unlimited |
| Max. Users |
virtually unlimited |
| Max. Roles |
virtually unlimited |
| Max. News Feeds |
CoffeeLink News Server is not a Usenet server. Feeds to other servers are not supported. |
Year 2000 Compliance
CoffeeLink News Server stores dates internally using year 2000 compliant, 4 digit years. Dates contained in the headers of messages are not modified or used by the server in any way.
Per the NNTP protocol draft spec, two digit years received at the NNTP protocol level are "windowed" to provide backwards compatibility with non-Y2K compliant NNTP news readers. |
