[Nut-upsuser] Fwd: [Apcupsd-users] OpenNMC: New open source SmartUPS smart card coming to market

[Roger Price]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2026, Jim Klimov wrote:

>   By the way, while we are on this standards-related topic: there was an idea to extend the protocol with a notification
> from client to server like "LOGOUT PENDING" (now probably also "DETACH PENDING"), so the server would know not to wait
> somehow for a lost client - tracked in https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/issues/3102. Does any wording in RFC 9271, and
> the practice about standardized protocols in general, prevent such extensions of existing commands with new options (or
> introduction of new commands like "LOGOUT_PENDING", if extensions are a no-no)?

RFC 9271 is Informational.  It is fixed and cannot be revised.  Updating RFC 
9271 requires a rewrite, a new IETF approval process and a new number.  Given

 * the continuing interest in the RFC, 
 * the habit of treating the RFC as if it were a Standard,
 * the emergence of UPS's with an Attachment Daemon (upsd) included, 
 * the interest in conformance suites, 
 * the renewed interest in security, 
 * the proposal to introduce new Commands, 

the NUT project could well consider a rewrite of 9271 as Standards Track work, 
but this requires a more formal and structured effort working in parallel with 
development.  Not just one guy in a corner with his text.

The 9271 text would obviously be version 1 of NUT-Standard. (9271 went through 
15 versions.) 

In a possible future NUT-Standard working group, the editor must follow the IETF 
process. The IETF allow XML input to the publication process, and there is a 
tool xml2rfc to validate the XML before submission. This is converted to HTML 
with the style file included in the HTML for publication on the rfc-editor.org 
site.  XML is a poor and complex language so I worked in SGML with a relaxed 
grammar (DTD) which is much easier once one passes the learning curve. I used 
the well known SGML parser sgmlnorm to compile to the IETF's XML.  The Makefile 
also checked the XML with tool xml2rfc.

No, I am not a volunteer to be the editor of the new RFC. Cheers, Roger