What Is NNTP?

Date First Published: 27th April 2022

Topic: Computer Networking

Subtopic: Internet Protocols

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 9/10

Learn more about what NNTP is in this article.

Not to be confused with NTP (Network Time Protocol).

Short for the Network News Transfer Protocol, NNTP is a protocol used for transferring Usenet articles, news, and files from one server to another. NNTP works in a similar way to SMTP, but it is solely designed for Usenet articles, news, and files. NNTP is an application-layer protocol that communicates over port 119, and was defined in RFC 977. Port 563 is used when clients establish a connection to a news server over TLS and port 433 (NNSP) may be used when performing a larger transfer of articles from one server to another.

NNTP Commands

A list of commands that the Network News Transfer Protocol uses include:

• POST - To post a message or reply to an existing one.
• ARTICLE - To retrieve an article from a Usenet server.
• NEWNEWS - To receive a list of articles created after a specified date and time.
• NEWSGROUPS - To receive a list of newsgroups created after a specified date and time.
• LIST - To retrieve a list of newsgroups that are available on the server.
• IHAVE - To notify the server that the client has an article it might need.
• GROUP - To select a specific newsgroup.
• NEXT - To go to the next message in a newsgroup.

Network News Reader Protocol (NNRP)

NNRP, a developed version of NNTP specifically intended for use by clients was proposed during an unsuccessful attempt to update the NNTP standard in the early 1990s. The name showed up in InterNetNews’s nnrpd program, but was never fully implemented.

History

RFC 977, the specification for NNTP was written by Brian Kantor of the University of California, San Diego, and Phil Lapsley of the University of California, Berkeley in March 1986. Originally, NNTP was based on the UUCP network. At that time, the transmission of most articles was performed over direct point-to-point telephone links between news servers. These were powerful real-time sharing systems.

The growth of LANs and internet participation caused it to become necessary to allow newsreaders to be run on PCs that were connected to local networks. As a result, NNTP was introduced, resembling SMTP, but solely designed for sharing newsgroup articles.