[news.software.nntp] Restricting access to groups on a per user basis

brad@ds3.bradley.edu (Bradley E. Smith) (11/14/90)

Are the NNTP people working on a way so that you can restrict a news
group to certain people (on certain machines)?  If not can we get
it started?  I would be willing to help if needed.

Discussion anyone?


brad smith
brad@bradley.edu

brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) (11/14/90)

In article <1990Nov13.162016.15172@bradley2.bradley.edu> brad@ds3.bradley.edu (Bradley E. Smith) writes:
>Are the NNTP people working on a way so that you can restrict a news
>group to certain people (on certain machines)?  If not can we get
>it started?  I would be willing to help if needed.

Yes.  The V2 spec contains a transaction ("AUTHINFO USER userid") that
allows an NNTP client to tell the server who is running it, so that the
server can then make a decision (probably on some locally-defined set of
access control lists) as to whether a particular command is to be
allowed.  In your case, that would be whether a "GROUP groupname"
command would be permitted for certain values of <groupname>.

The RFC is currently undergoing review by Jon Postel.  Dunno when it'll
be ready for publication.
	- Brian