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<h1>The Usenet Article Format and Protocols</h1>
<blockquote class="quote"><p class="short">
Usenet interprets management as damage and routes around it.
</p><p class="attribution">
Peter da Silva
</p></blockquote>
<h2>Standards</h2>
<p>
The current standard for the format of Usenet (Netnews) articles is
<a href="rfcs/rfc5536.txt">RFC 5536</a>, published in November of 2009. The
standard for the architecture and protocols of Netnews, including how
articles are modified and checked when traveling from system to system, is
<a href="rfcs/rfc5537.txt">RFC 5537</a>, published at the same time. I was the
document editor for RFC 5537. Both of these documents are built on
<a href="rfcs/rfc5322.txt">RFC 5322</a>, the current standard for mail messages.
Netnews articles are compliant mail messages with some additional fields
and a few additional restrictions.
</p>
<p>
These RFCs obsolete the previous standard for the format of Usenet
articles, <a href="rfcs/rfc1036.txt">RFC 1036</a>, and the draft document known
as "Son-of-1036" which was published as <a href="rfcs/rfc1849.txt">RFC 1849</a>.
All software should now follow the newer standards, but RFC 1036 and RFC
1849 may be of interest in understanding the behavior of older standards.
</p>
<p>
There is one additional Netnews-specific RFC: <a href="rfcs/rfc8315.txt">RFC
8315</a>, which standardizes Cancel-Locks for Netnews articles.
</p>
<p>
See my <a href="rfcs/">Netnews standards index</a> for a hopefully-complete list
of Netnews-related standards, and the <a href="https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/usefor/">usefor</a> mailing list
archives for the discussion that led up to the current documents.
</p>
<h2>Header Registry</h2>
<p>
Usenet (Netnews) articles use the same basic header format as e-mail
messages and HTTP headers and share the same <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/message-headers/message-headers.xhtml">IANA registry
for header field names</a>. Most of the references here for Netnews header
field names are to the current article format standards.
</p>
<p>
There is a separate <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/netnews-parameters/netnews-parameters.xhtml">IANA registry for parameters specific
to Netnews</a>, currently used only by Cancel-Lock hash algorithms.
</p>
<h2>Protocol Drafts</h2>
<p>
Four Netnews-related drafts were never published as RFCs but may be of
interest:
</p>
<ul>
<li class="packed"><a href="drafts/draft-ietf-usefor-useage-01.txt">Usenet Best Practice</a> (2KiB)</li>
<li class="packed"><a href="drafts/draft-ietf-usefor-message-id-01.txt">Recommendations for Generating Message IDs</a> (215B)</li>
<li class="packed"><a href="drafts/draft-ietf-usefor-posted-mailed-01.txt">Identification of Messages Delivered Via Both Mail and News</a> (215B)</li>
<li class="packed"><a href="drafts/draft-lindsey-usefor-signed-01.txt">Signed Headers in Mail and Netnews</a> (215B)</li>
</ul>
<p>
If you're curious about the history of these documents, or want to see the
other drafts that have gone into the working group discussions, you can
review my <a href="drafts/">draft archive</a>. I may have missed a few, but
most of them should be here. Also see the IETF Internet-Draft search for
<a href="https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-usefor">USEFOR working group
drafts</a>.
</p>
<h2>Other Documents</h2>
<dl>
<dt><a href="other/moderators-handbook">Netnews Moderator's Handbook</a></dt>
<dd><p>
This is a set of best-practice guidelines for Netnews moderators
written back in 1994. This was intended to be published as an RFC,
but was never completed. Some of the advice is out of date, but much
of this information is still relevant.
</p></dd>
<dt><a href="other/pgpmoose">PGP Moose</a></dt>
<dd><p>
The PGP Moose protocol specifies a mechanism for signing articles
including certain key headers so that the resulting signature can
be used to check several key header fields and the newsgroups to which
the article was posted. This protocol is used primarily to validate
approvals to moderated groups.
</p>
<p>
This document is the original README by Greg Rose that accompanied the
reference implementation of PGP Moose. The canonical version is on
<a href="http://seer-grog.net/">Greg Rose's web site</a>.
</p></dd>
<dt><a href="other/pgpverify">Signing Control Messages (pgpverify)</a></dt>
<dd><p>
The pgpverify protocol is another protocol for signing a Usenet
article that includes a different set of metadata and header fields
than the PGP Moose protocol. It's used primarily (and very widely) to
authenticate control messages.
</p>
<p>
This document is the FORMAT document for the pgpcontrol software. The
canonical version is in the
<a href="ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/pgpcontrol/FORMAT">pgpcontrol distribution
site</a>.
</p></dd>
</dl>
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