computer science

Network News Transfer Protocol

Network News Transfer Protocol is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Network News Transfer Protocol rather than just read about it. In short: The Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) is an application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles (netnews) between news servers, and for reading/posting articles by the end user client applications. Brian Kantor of the University of California, San Diego, and Phil Lapsley of the University of California, Berkeley, wrote RFC 977, the specification for the Network News Transfer Protocol, in March 1986.

Key takeaways

Network News Transfer Protocol belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Network News Transfer Protocol to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Network News Transfer Protocol from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) is an application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles (netnews) between news servers, and for reading/posting articles by the end user client applications. Brian Kantor of the University of California, San Diego, and Phil Lapsley of the University of California, Berkeley, wrote RFC 977, the specification for the Network News Transfer Protocol, in March 1986. Other contributors included Stan O. Barber from the Baylor College of Medicine and Erik Fair of Apple Computer. Usenet was originally designed based on the UUCP network, with most article transfers taking place over direct point-to-point telephone links between news servers, which were powerful time-sharing systems. Readers and posters logged into these computers reading the articles directly from the local disk. As local area networks and Internet participation proliferated, it became desirable to allow newsreaders to be run on personal computers connected to local networks. The resulting protocol was NNTP, which resembled the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) but was tailored for exchanging newsgroup articles. A newsreader, also known as a news client, is a software application that reads articles on Usenet, either directly from the news server's disks or via the NNTP. The well-known TCP port 119 is reserved for NNTP. Well-known TCP port 433 (NNSP) may be used when doing a bulk transfer of articles from one server to another. When clients connect to a news server with Transport Layer Security (TLS), TCP port 563 is often used. This is sometimes referred to as NNTPS. Alternatively, a plain-text connection over port 119 may be changed to use TLS via the STARTTLS command. In October 2006, the IETF released RFC 3977, which updates NNTP and codifies many of the additions made over the years since RFC 977. At the same time, the IETF also released RFC 4642, which specifies the use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) via NNTP over STARTTLS.

Network News Reader Protocol During an abortive attempt to update the NNTP standard in the early 1990s, a specialized form of NNTP intended specifically for use by clients, NNRP, was proposed. This protocol was never completed or fully implemented, but the name persisted in InterNetNews's (INN) nnrpd program. As a result, the subset of standard NNTP commands useful to clients is sometimes still referred to as "NNRP".

NNTP server software Leafnode InterNetNews C News Apache James Synchronet yProxy DIABLO, a backbone news transit system, designed to replace INND on backbone machines.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Network News Transfer Protocol

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Network News Transfer Protocol claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Network News Transfer Protocol before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Network News Transfer Protocol ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Network News Transfer Protocol

In research: Network News Transfer Protocol appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Network News Transfer Protocol in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Network News Transfer Protocol is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Application layer protocols, Internet Standards, Usenet, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Network News Transfer Protocol outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Network News Transfer Protocol in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Network News Transfer Protocol means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Network News Transfer Protocol out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Network News Transfer Protocol in simple terms?

Why does Network News Transfer Protocol matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Network News Transfer Protocol?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Network News Transfer Protocol.