The NNTP protocol is specified in RFC 977. The NNTP protocol server listens at a well-known port 199/TCP.
Once again, as the NNTP protocol commands are in ASCII, it is possible to use the Telnet program (for example, from Windows 2000/XP) to communicate with the news server:
C:\WINNT>telnet news.provider.com 119
After a connection is established, the server will introduce itself as follows:
200 news.provider.com InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.4.1 ready (posting ok).
The first line of a reply is always a status line indicating how successful we were. The status line begins with a three-digit status code. The three-digit status codes are similar to those in the FTP and HTTP protocols:
100 help text follows 199 debug output 200 server ready posting allowed 201 server ready no posting allowed 202 slave status noted 205 closing connection goodbye! 211 n f l s group selected (n = estimated number of articles in group, f = first article number in the group, l = last article...