[Nut-upsuser] ISE review of I-D: deprecate command VER?

[Manuel Wolfshant]

On 3/21/22 15:08, Greg Troxel wrote:
> Matus UHLAR - fantomas<uhlar at fantomas.sk>  writes:
>
>> On 20.03.22 16:02, Roger Price wrote:
>>> I received the following comment from the Independent Submissions Editor (ISE):
>>>
>>> The command VER is hazardous because it encourages exploiting of
>>> implementation peculiarities that are not well documented in a
>>> protocol.  The best example of such a failure is the browser version
>>> field in HTTP.  A complete disaster.  You should warn against use of
>>> this command, or even better, deprecate it.
>>>
>>> I was not aware of the disaster in the browser version field, but I
>>> will warn against use of VER, and deprecate it, if you agree.
>> Isn't this designed for announcing protocol version for compatibility?
> Protocol version is one thing and should be defined by the RFC.  All
> implementations of the protocol should advertise the same version.

That is 
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-rprice-ups-management-protocol-07.html#name-protver 
...


>
> Software type/version of the implementation is something else.

... versus 
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-rprice-ups-management-protocol-07.html#name-ver 
which is a different beast


> Yes, everything may be from nut sources, but having a protocol RFC is
> about moving from "the protocol is defined by the code" to "the protocol
> is defined by the spec".


I agree with that. But I still see no problem in advertising the 
software version. After all, each time I boot I see:

    Mar 20 22:19:03 wolfy3 kernel: Linux version
    3.10.0-1160.59.1.el7.x86_64 (mockbuild at kbuilder.bsys.centos.org)
    (gcc version 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-44) (GCC) ) #1 SMP Wed
    Feb 23 16:47:03 UTC 2022

I know not only the kernel version and distribution but even the 
compiler version that was in use. Which, incidentally, is important in 
some contexts

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