NNTP Overview and General Operation

As I explained earlier in this chapter, Usenet started out as an informal network of UNIX computers using dial-up UUCP connections to transmit messages between servers. This arrangement arose out of necessity, and it worked fairly well, though it had a number of problems. Once the Internet became widely used in the 1980s, it provided the ideal opportunity for a more efficient means of distributing Usenet articles. NNTP was developed as a special TCP/IP protocol for sending these messages. Now NNTP carries billions of copies of Usenet messages from computer to computer every day.

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION NNTP is similar to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) in many ways, including its basic operation and ...

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