Subject: Re: NOOP command - your feedback needed

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 17:18:33 -0500

Steve:
Since you are proposing that servers can drop idle connections or idle 
connections that are just kept alive with NOOP commands, what is the 
practical use of keeping the NOOP?
Can't the CUA request a longer idle interval? In which case the original 
use of NOOP is minimized, wouldn't it?
-- Frank

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From: [email-masked] (Steve Mansour)
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 14:39:01 -0800

> practical use of keeping the NOOP?

Yes, that's basically how I see it.  The benefits of not having it are:
less commands and less chance for misuse. I posted the question to make
sure we're not overlooking something.

> Can't the CUA request a longer idle interval?

hmm... I don't know. This seems like it something that the server would
want to limit. I don't see why a server would want to honor a request
like this from a client.

> In which case the original use of NOOP is minimized, wouldn't it?

yep

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From: David Madeo <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 17:56:18 -0500

> practical use of keeping the NOOP?

One additional use of a NOOP is to check if the server is still
responding for diagnostic purposes.  

We routinely create mechanisms which know how to log onto a service and
check its health.  While I'd like all vendors to make diagnostic
information available from the command line/API, I'll settle with "I'm
still accepting commands and doing something with them".  NOOP fulfills
that purpose in a standard non-implementation specific way.

dmadeo