rfc2616
Network Working Group R. Fielding
Request for Comments: 2616 UC Irvine
Obsoletes: 2068 J. Gettys Category: Standards Track Compaq/W3C J. Mogul Compaq H. Frystyk W3C/MIT L. Masinter Xerox P. Leach
Microsoft
T. Berners-Lee W3C/MIT
June 1999
Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved. Abstract
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level
protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks beyond its use for hypertext, such as name servers and distributed object management systems, through extension of its request methods, error codes and headers [47]. A feature of HTTP is the typing and negotiation of data representation, allowing systems to be built independently of the data being transferred.
HTTP has been in use by the World-Wide Web global information
initiative since 1990. This specification defines the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.1", and is an update to RFC 2068 [33]. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ...................................................7 1.1 Purpose......................................................7 1.2 Requirements .................................................8 1.3 Terminology ..................................................8 1.4 Overall Operation ...........................................12 2 Notational Conventions and Generic Grammar ....................14 2.1 Augmented BNF ...............................................14 2.2 Basic Rules .................................................15 3 Protocol Parameters ...........................................17 3.1 HTTP Version ................................................17 3.2 Uniform Resource Identifiers ................................18 3.2.1 General Syntax ...........................................19 3.2.2 http URL .................................................19 3.2.3 URI Comparison ...........................................20 3.3 Date/Time Formats ...........................................20 3.3.1 Full Date ................................................20 3.3.2 Delta Seconds ............................................21 3.4 Character Sets ..............................................21 3.4.1 Missing Charset ..........................................22 3.5 Content Codings .............................................23 3.6 Transfer Codings ............................................24 3.6.1 Chunked Transfer Coding ..................................25 3.7 Media Types .................................................26 3.7.1 Canonicalization and Text Defaults .......................27 3.7.2 Multipart Types ..........................................27 3.8 Product Tokens ..............................................28 3.9 Quality Values ..............................................29 3.10 Language Tags ...............................................29 3.11 Entity Tags .................................................30 3.12 Range Units .................................................30 4 HTTP Message ..................................................31 4.1 Message Types ...............................................31 4.2 Message Headers .............................................31 4.3 Message Body ................................................32 4.4 Message Length ..............................................33 4.5 General Header Fields .......................................34 5 Request .......................................................35 5.1 Request-Line ................................................35 5.1.1 Method ...................................................36 5.1.2 Request-URI ..............................................36 5.2 The Resource Identified by a Request ........................38 5.3 Request Header Fields .......................................38 6 Response ......................................................39 6.1 Status-Line .................................................39 6.1.1 Status Code and Reason Phrase ............................39 6.2 Response Header Fields ......................................41 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]
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7 Entity ........................................................42 7.1 Entity Header Fields ........................................42 7.2 Entity Body .................................................43 7.2.1 Type .....................................................43 7.2.2 Entity Length ............................................43 8 Connections ...................................................44 8.1 Persistent Connections ......................................44 8.1.1 Purpose ..................................................44 8.1.2 Overall Operation ........................................45 8.1.3 Proxy Servers ............................................46 8.1.4 Practical Considerations .................................46 8.2 Message Transmission Requirements ...........................47 8.2.1 Persistent Connections and Flow Control ..................47 8.2.2 Monitoring Connections for Error Status Messages .........48 8.2.3 Use of the 100 (Continue) Status .........................48 8.2.4 Client Behavior if Server Prematurely Closes Connection ..50 9 Method Definitions ............................................51 9.1 Safe and Idempotent Methods .................................51 9.1.1 Safe Methods .............................................51 9.1.2 Idempotent Methods .......................................51 9.2 OPTIONS .....................................................52 9.3 GET .........................................................53 9.4 HEAD ........................................................54 9.5 POST ........................................................54 9.6 PUT .........................................................55 9.7 DELETE ......................................................56 9.8 TRACE .......................................................56 9.9 CONNECT .....................................................57 10 Status Code Definitions ......................................57 10.1 Informational 1xx ...........................................57 10.1.1 100 Continue .............................................58 10.1.2 101 Switching Protocols ..................................58 10.2 Successful 2xx ..............................................58 10.2.1 200 OK ...................................................58 10.2.2 201 Created ..............................................59 10.2.3 202 Accepted .............................................59 10.2.4 203 Non-Authoritative Information ........................59 10.2.5 204 No Content ...........................................60 10.2.6 205 Reset Content ........................................60 10.2.7 206 Partial Content ......................................60 10.3 Redirection 3xx .............................................61 10.3.1 300 Multiple Choices .....................................61 10.3.2 301 Moved Permanently ....................................62 10.3.3 302 Found ................................................62 10.3.4 303 See Other ............................................63 10.3.5 304 Not Modified .........................................63 10.3.6 305 Use Proxy ............................................64 10.3.7 306 (Unused) .............................................64 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 3]
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10.3.8 307 Temporary Redirect ...................................65 10.4 Client Error 4xx ............................................65 10.4.1 400 Bad Request .........................................65 10.4.2 401 Unauthorized ........................................66 10.4.3 402 Payment Required ....................................66 10.4.4 403 Forbidden ...........................................66 10.4.5 404 Not Found ...........................................66 10.4.6 405 Method Not Allowed ..................................66 10.4.7 406 Not Acceptable ......................................67 10.4.8 407 Proxy Authentication Required .......................67 10.4.9 408 Request Timeout .....................................67 10.4.10 409 Conflict ............................................67 10.4.11 410 Gone ................................................68 10.4.12 411 Length Required .....................................68 10.4.13 412 Precondition Failed .................................68 10.4.14 413 Request Entity Too Large ............................69 10.4.15 414 Request-URI Too Long ................................69 10.4.16 415 Unsupported Media Type ..............................69 10.4.17 416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable .....................69 10.4.18 417 Expectation Failed ..................................70 10.5 Server Error 5xx ............................................70 10.5.1 500 Internal Server Error ................................70 10.5.2 501 Not Implemented ......................................70 10.5.3 502 Bad Gateway ..........................................70 10.5.4 503 Service Unavailable ..................................70 10.5.5 504 Gateway Timeout ......................................71 10.5.6 505 HTTP Version Not Supported ...........................71 11 Access Authentication ........................................71 12 Content Negotiation ..........................................71 12.1 Server-driven Negotiation ...................................72 12.2 Agent-driven Negotiation ....................................73 12.3 Transparent Negotiation .....................................74 13 Caching in HTTP ..............................................74 13.1.1 Cache Correctness ........................................75 13.1.2 Warnings .................................................76 13.1.3 Cache-control Mechanisms .................................77 13.1.4 Explicit User Agent Warnings .............................78 13.1.5 Exceptions to the Rules and Warnings .....................78 13.1.6 Client-controlled Behavior ...............................79 13.2 Expiration Model ............................................79 13.2.1 Server-Specified Expiration ..............................79 13.2.2 Heuristic Expiration .....................................80 13.2.3 Age Calculations .........................................80 13.2.4 Expiration Calculations ..................................83 13.2.5 Disambiguating Expiration Values .........................84 13.2.6 Disambiguating Multiple Responses ........................84 13.3 Validation Model ............................................85 13.3.1 Last-Modified Dates ......................................86 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 4]
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13.3.2 Entity Tag Cache Validators ..............................86 13.3.3 Weak and Strong Validators ...............................86 13.3.4 Rules for When to Use Entity Tags and Last-Modified Dates.89 13.3.5 Non-validating Conditionals ..............................90 13.4 Response Cacheability .......................................91 13.5 Constructing Responses From Caches ..........................92 13.5.1 End-to-end and Hop-by-hop Headers ........................92 13.5.2 Non-modifiable Headers ...................................92 13.5.3 Combining Headers ........................................94 13.5.4 Combining Byte Ranges ....................................95 13.6 Caching Negotiated Responses ................................95 13.7 Shared and Non-Shared Caches ................................96 13.8 Errors or Incomplete Response Cache Behavior ................97 13.9 Side Effects of GET and HEAD ................................97 13.10 Invalidation After Updates or Deletions ...................97 13.11 Write-Through Mandatory ...................................98 13.12 Cache Replacement .........................................99 13.13 History Lists .............................................99 14 Header Field Definitions ....................................100 14.1 Accept .....................................................100 14.2 Accept-Charset .............................................102 14.3 Accept-Encoding ............................................102 14.4 Accept-Language ............................................104 14.5 Accept-Ranges ..............................................105 14.6 Age ........................................................106 14.7 Allow ......................................................106 14.8 Authorization ..............................................107 14.9 Cache-Control ..............................................108 14.9.1 What is Cacheable .......................................109 14.9.2 What May be Stored by Caches ............................110 14.9.3 Modifications of the Basic Expiration Mechanism .........111 14.9.4 Cache Revalidation and Reload Controls ..................113 14.9.5 No-Transform Directive ..................................115 14.9.6 Cache Control Extensions ................................116 14.10 Connection ...............................................117 14.11 Content-Encoding .........................................118 14.12 Content-Language .........................................118 14.13 Content-Length ...........................................119 14.14 Content-Location .........................................120 14.15 Content-MD5 ..............................................121 14.16 Content-Range ............................................122 14.17 Content-Type .............................................124 14.18 Date .....................................................124 14.18.1 Clockless Origin Server Operation ......................125 14.19 ETag .....................................................126 14.20 Expect ...................................................126 14.21 Expires ..................................................127 14.22 From .....................................................128 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 5]
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14.23 Host .....................................................128 14.24 If-Match .................................................129 14.25 If-Modified-Since ........................................130 14.26 If-None-Match ............................................132 14.27 If-Range .................................................133 14.28 If-Unmodified-Since ......................................134 14.29 Last-Modified ............................................134 14.30 Location .................................................135 14.31 Max-Forwards .............................................136 14.32 Pragma ...................................................136 14.33 Proxy-Authenticate .......................................137 14.34 Proxy-Authorization ......................................137 14.35 Range ....................................................138 14.35.1 Byte Ranges ...........................................138 14.35.2 Range Retrieval Requests ..............................139 14.36 Referer ..................................................140 14.37 Retry-After ..............................................141 14.38 Server ...................................................141 14.39 TE .......................................................142 14.40 Trailer ..................................................143 14.41 Transfer-Encoding..........................................143 14.42 Upgrade ..................................................144 14.43 User-Agent ...............................................145 14.44 Vary .....................................................145 14.45 Via ......................................................146 14.46 Warning ..................................................148 14.47 WWW-Authenticate .........................................150 15 Security Considerations .......................................150 15.1 Personal Information....................................151 15.1.1 Abuse of Server Log Information .........................151 15.1.2 Transfer of Sensitive Information .......................151 15.1.3 Encoding Sensitive Information in URI's .................152 15.1.4 Privacy Issues Connected to Accept Headers ..............152 15.2 Attacks Based On File and Path Names .......................153 15.3 DNS Spoofing ...............................................154 15.4 Location Headers and Spoofing ..............................154 15.5 Content-Disposition Issues .................................154 15.6 Authentication Credentials and Idle Clients ................155 15.7 Proxies and Caching ........................................155 15.7.1 Denial of Service Attacks on Proxies....................156 16 Acknowledgments .............................................156 17 References ..................................................158 18 Authors' Addresses ..........................................162 19 Appendices ..................................................164 19.1 Internet Media Type message/http and application/http ......164 19.2 Internet Media Type multipart/byteranges ...................165 19.3 Tolerant Applications ......................................166 19.4 Differences Between HTTP Entities and RFC 2045 Entities ....167 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 6]
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19.4.1 MIME-Version ............................................167 19.4.2 Conversion to Canonical Form ............................167 19.4.3 Conversion of Date Formats ..............................168 19.4.4 Introduction of Content-Encoding ........................168 19.4.5 No Content-Transfer-Encoding ............................168 19.4.6 Introduction of Transfer-Encoding .......................169 19.4.7 MHTML and Line Length Limitations .......................169 19.5 Additional Features ........................................169 19.5.1 Content-Disposition .....................................170 19.6 Compatibility with Previous Versions .......................170 19.6.1 Changes from HTTP/1.0 ...................................171 19.6.2 Compatibility with HTTP/1.0 Persistent Connections ......172 19.6.3 Changes from RFC 2068 ...................................172 20 Index .......................................................175 21 Full Copyright Statement ....................................176 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level
protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP has been in use by the World-Wide Web global information initiative since 1990. The first version of HTTP, referred to as HTTP/0.9, was a simple protocol for raw data transfer across the Internet. HTTP/1.0, as defined by RFC 1945 [6], improved
the protocol by allowing messages to be in the format of MIME-like
messages, containing metainformation about the data transferred and modifiers on the request/response semantics. However, HTTP/1.0 does
not sufficiently take into consideration the effects of hierarchical
proxies, caching, the need for persistent connections, or virtual hosts. In addition, the proliferation of incompletely-implemented applications calling themselves "HTTP/1.0" has necessitated a
protocol version change in order for two communicating applications
to determine each other's true capabilities. This specification defines the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.1". This protocol includes more stringent requirements than HTTP/1.0 in order to ensure reliable implementation of its features.
Practical information systems require more functionality than simple
retrieval, including search, front-end update, and annotation. HTTP
allows an open-ended set of methods and headers that indicate the
purpose of a request [47]. It builds on the discipline of reference provided by the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) [3], as a location (URL) [4] or name (URN) [20], for indicating the resource to which a Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 7]
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method is to be applied. Messages are passed in a format similar to that used by Internet mail [9] as defined by the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) [7].
HTTP is also used as a generic protocol for communication between
user agents and proxies/gateways to other Internet systems, including those supported by the SMTP [16], NNTP [13], FTP [18], Gopher [2], and WAIS [10] protocols. In this way, HTTP allows basic hypermedia access to resources available from diverse applications. 1.2 Requirements The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [34].
An implementation is not compliant if it fails to satisfy one or more
of the MUST or REQUIRED level requirements for the protocols it
implements. An implementation that satisfies all the MUST or REQUIRED
level and all the SHOULD level requirements for its protocols is said
to be "unconditionally compliant"; one that satisfies all the MUST
level requirements but not all the SHOULD level requirements for its
protocols is said to be "conditionally compliant." 1.3 Terminology
This specification uses a number of terms to refer to the roles
played by participants in, and objects of, the HTTP communication.
connection
A transport layer virtual circuit established between two programs
for the purpose of communication. message The basic unit of HTTP communication, consisting of a structured
sequence of octets matching the syntax defined in section 4 and
transmitted via the connection. request An HTTP request message, as defined in section 5. response An HTTP response message, as defined in section 6. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 8]
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resource A network data object or service that can be identified by a URI, as defined in section 3.2. Resources may be available in multiple representations (e.g. multiple languages, data formats, size, and resolutions) or vary in other ways. entity
The information transferred as the payload of a request or
response. An entity consists of metainformation in the form of entity-header fields and content in the form of an entity-body, as described in section 7.
representation
An entity included with a response that is subject to content
negotiation, as described in section 12. There may exist multiple representations associated with a particular response status.
content negotiation
The mechanism for selecting the appropriate representation when
servicing a request, as described in section 12. The
representation of entities in any response can be negotiated
(including error responses). variant A resource may have one, or more than one, representation(s) associated with it at any given instant. Each of these representations is termed a varriant'. Use of the term variant'
does not necessarily imply that the resource is subject to content
negotiation. client
A program that establishes connections for the purpose of sending
requests.
user agent
The client which initiates a request. These are often browsers, editors, spiders (web-traversing robots), or other end user tools. server
An application program that accepts connections in order to
service requests by sending back responses. Any given program may be capable of being both a client and a server; our use of these
terms refers only to the role being performed by the program for a
particular connection, rather than to the program's capabilities in general. Likewise, any server may act as an origin server, proxy, gateway, or tunnel, switching behavior based on the nature of each request. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 9]
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origin server
The server on which a given resource resides or is to be created. proxy
An intermediary program which acts as both a server and a client
for the purpose of making requests on behalf of other clients. Requests are serviced internally or by passing them on, with possible translation, to other servers. A proxy MUST implement both the client and server requirements of this specification. A "transparent proxy" is a proxy that does not modify the request or
response beyond what is required for proxy authentication and
identification. A "non-transparent proxy" is a proxy that modifies
the request or response in order to provide some added service to
the user agent, such as group annotation services, media type transformation, protocol reduction, or anonymity filtering. Except
where either transparent or non-transparent behavior is explicitly
stated, the HTTP proxy requirements apply to both types of proxies. gateway A server which acts as an intermediary for some other server. Unlike a proxy, a gateway receives requests as if it were the origin server for the requested resource; the requesting client may not be aware that it is communicating with a gateway. tunnel
An intermediary program which is acting as a blind relay between
two connections. Once active, a tunnel is not considered a party to the HTTP communication, though the tunnel may have been initiated by an HTTP request. The tunnel ceases to exist when both ends of the relayed connections are closed. cache A program's local store of response messages and the subsystem that controls its message storage, retrieval, and deletion. A
cache stores cacheable responses in order to reduce the response
time and network bandwidth consumption on future, equivalent requests. Any client or server may include a cache, though a cache cannot be used by a server that is acting as a tunnel.
cacheable
A response is cacheable if a cache is allowed to store a copy of
the response message for use in answering subsequent requests. The
rules for determining the cacheability of HTTP responses are
defined in section 13. Even if a resource is cacheable, there may
be additional constraints on whether a cache can use the cached
copy for a particular request. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 10]
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first-hand
A response is first-hand if it comes directly and without
unnecessary delay from the origin server, perhaps via one or more proxies. A response is also first-hand if its validity has just been checked directly with the origin server.
explicit expiration time
The time at which the origin server intends that an entity should
no longer be returned by a cache without further validation.
heuristic expiration time
An expiration time assigned by a cache when no explicit expiration
time is available. age The age of a response is the time since it was sent by, or successfully validated with, the origin server.
freshness lifetime
The length of time between the generation of a response and its
expiration time. fresh
A response is fresh if its age has not yet exceeded its freshness
lifetime. stale A response is stale if its age has passed its freshness lifetime.
semantically transparent
A cache behaves in a "semantically transparent" manner, with respect to a particular response, when its use affects neither the requesting client nor the origin server, except to improve performance. When a cache is semantically transparent, the client
receives exactly the same response (except for hop-by-hop headers)
that it would have received had its request been handled directly
by the origin server.
validator
A protocol element (e.g., an entity tag or a Last-Modified time)
that is used to find out whether a cache entry is an equivalent
copy of an entity.
upstream/downstream
Upstream and downstream describe the flow of a message: all messages flow from upstream to downstream. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 11]
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inbound/outbound
Inbound and outbound refer to the request and response paths for
messages: "inbound" means "traveling toward the origin server", and "outbound" means "traveling toward the user agent" 1.4 Overall Operation The HTTP protocol is a request/response protocol. A client sends a request to the server in the form of a request method, URI, and protocol version, followed by a MIME-like message containing request modifiers, client information, and possible body content over a connection with a server. The server responds with a status line, including the message's protocol version and a success or error code, followed by a MIME-like message containing server information, entity metainformation, and possible entity-body content. The relationship between HTTP and MIME is described in appendix 19.4.
Most HTTP communication is initiated by a user agent and consists of
a request to be applied to a resource on some origin server. In the simplest case, this may be accomplished via a single connection (v) between the user agent (UA) and the origin server (O). request chain ------------------------>
UA -------------------v------------------- O
<----------------------- response chain
A more complicated situation occurs when one or more intermediaries
are present in the request/response chain. There are three common forms of intermediary: proxy, gateway, and tunnel. A proxy is a forwarding agent, receiving requests for a URI in its absolute form, rewriting all or part of the message, and forwarding the reformatted request toward the server identified by the URI. A gateway is a receiving agent, acting as a layer above some other server(s) and, if necessary, translating the requests to the underlying server's protocol. A tunnel acts as a relay point between two connections without changing the messages; tunnels are used when the
communication needs to pass through an intermediary (such as a
firewall) even when the intermediary cannot understand the contents
of the messages. request chain -------------------------------------->
UA -----v----- A -----v----- B -----v----- C -----v----- O
<------------------------------------- response chain The figure above shows three intermediaries (A, B, and C) between the user agent and origin server. A request or response message that travels the whole chain will pass through four separate connections.
This distinction is important because some HTTP communication options
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 12]
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may apply only to the connection with the nearest, non-tunnel neighbor, only to the end-points of the chain, or to all connections along the chain. Although the diagram is linear, each participant may be engaged in multiple, simultaneous communications. For example, B may be receiving requests from many clients other than A, and/or forwarding requests to servers other than C, at the same time that it is handling A's request.
Any party to the communication which is not acting as a tunnel may
employ an internal cache for handling requests. The effect of a cache
is that the request/response chain is shortened if one of the
participants along the chain has a cached response applicable to that
request. The following illustrates the resulting chain if B has a
cached copy of an earlier response from O (via C) for a request which
has not been cached by UA or A. request chain ---------->
UA -----v----- A -----v----- B - - - - - - C - - - - - - O
<--------- response chain Not all responses are usefully cacheable, and some requests may contain modifiers which place special requirements on cache behavior.
HTTP requirements for cache behavior and cacheable responses are
defined in section 13. In fact, there are a wide variety of architectures and configurations
of caches and proxies currently being experimented with or deployed
across the World Wide Web. These systems include national hierarchies of proxy caches to save transoceanic bandwidth, systems that broadcast or multicast cache entries, organizations that distribute subsets of cached data via CD-ROM, and so on. HTTP systems are used in corporate intranets over high-bandwidth links, and for access via PDAs with low-power radio links and intermittent connectivity. The goal of HTTP/1.1 is to support the wide diversity of configurations
already deployed while introducing protocol constructs that meet the
needs of those who build web applications that require high
reliability and, failing that, at least reliable indications of failure. HTTP communication usually takes place over TCP/IP connections. The default port is TCP 80 [19], but other ports can be used. This does
not preclude HTTP from being implemented on top of any other protocol
on the Internet, or on other networks. HTTP only presumes a reliable transport; any protocol that provides such guarantees can be used; the mapping of the HTTP/1.1 request and response structures onto the
transport data units of the protocol in question is outside the scope
of this specification. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 13]
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In HTTP/1.0, most implementations used a new connection for each request/response exchange. In HTTP/1.1, a connection may be used for one or more request/response exchanges, although connections may be closed for a variety of reasons (see section 8.1). 2 Notational Conventions and Generic Grammar 2.1 Augmented BNF
All of the mechanisms specified in this document are described in
both prose and an augmented Backus-Naur Form (BNF) similar to that
used by RFC 822 [9]. Implementors will need to be familiar with the notation in order to understand this specification. The augmented BNF includes the following constructs: name = definition
The name of a rule is simply the name itself (without any
enclosing "<" and ">") and is separated from its definition by the equal "=" character. White space is only significant in that
indentation of continuation lines is used to indicate a rule
definition that spans more than one line. Certain basic rules are in uppercase, such as SP, LWS, HT, CRLF, DIGIT, ALPHA, etc. Angle
brackets are used within definitions whenever their presence will
facilitate discerning the use of rule names. "literal" Quotation marks surround literal text. Unless stated otherwise, the text is case-insensitive. rule1 | rule2 Elements separated by a bar ("|") are alternatives, e.g., "yes | no" will accept yes or no. (rule1 rule2) Elements enclosed in parentheses are treated as a single element. Thus, "(elem (foo | bar) elem)" allows the token sequences "elem foo elem" and "elem bar elem". rule The character "" preceding an element indicates repetition. The full form is "
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N rule Specific repetition: "
can be shown as
1#element Wherever this construct is used, null elements are allowed, but do not contribute to the count of elements present. That is, "(element), , (element) " is permitted, but counts as only two elements. Therefore, where at least one element is required, at least one non-null element MUST be present. Default values are 0 and infinity so that "#element" allows any number, including zero; "1#element" requires at least one; and "1#2element" allows one or two. ; comment A semi-colon, set off some distance to the right of rule text, starts a comment that continues to the end of line. This is a
simple way of including useful notes in parallel with the
specifications. implied *LWS The grammar described by this specification is word-based. Except where noted otherwise, linear white space (LWS) can be included between any two adjacent words (token or quoted-string), and between adjacent words and separators, without changing the interpretation of a field. At least one delimiter (LWS and/or
separators) MUST exist between any two tokens (for the definition
of "token" below), since they would otherwise be interpreted as a single token. 2.2 Basic Rules
The following rules are used throughout this specification to
describe basic parsing constructs. The US-ASCII coded character set is defined by ANSI X3.4-1986 [21]. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 15]
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OCTET = <any 8-bit sequence of data> CHAR = <any US-ASCII character (octets 0 - 127)> UPALPHA = <any US-ASCII uppercase letter "A".."Z"> LOALPHA = <any US-ASCII lowercase letter "a".."z"> ALPHA = UPALPHA | LOALPHA DIGIT = <any US-ASCII digit "0".."9"> CTL = <any US-ASCII control character (octets 0 - 31) and DEL (127)> CR = <US-ASCII CR, carriage return (13)> LF = <US-ASCII LF, linefeed (10)> SP = <US-ASCII SP, space (32)> HT = <US-ASCII HT, horizontal-tab (9)> <"> = <US-ASCII double-quote mark (34)> HTTP/1.1 defines the sequence CR LF as the end-of-line marker for all protocol elements except the entity-body (see appendix 19.3 for tolerant applications). The end-of-line marker within an entity-body is defined by its associated media type, as described in section 3.7. CRLF = CR LF HTTP/1.1 header field values can be folded onto multiple lines if the continuation line begins with a space or horizontal tab. All linear white space, including folding, has the same semantics as SP. A
recipient MAY replace any linear white space with a single SP before
interpreting the field value or forwarding the message downstream. LWS = [CRLF] 1*( SP | HT )
The TEXT rule is only used for descriptive field contents and values
that are not intended to be interpreted by the message parser. Words of *TEXT MAY contain characters from character sets other than ISO 8859-1 [22] only when encoded according to the rules of RFC 2047
[14].
TEXT = <any OCTET except CTLs, but including LWS>
A CRLF is allowed in the definition of TEXT only as part of a header
field continuation. It is expected that the folding LWS will be replaced with a single SP before interpretation of the TEXT value. Hexadecimal numeric characters are used in several protocol elements. HEX = "A" | "B" | "C" | "D" | "E" | "F"
| "a" | "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" | DIGIT
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Many HTTP/1.1 header field values consist of words separated by LWS or special characters. These special characters MUST be in a quoted
string to be used within a parameter value (as defined in section
3.6). token = 1*
| "," | ";" | ":" | "" | <">
| "/" | "[" | "]" | "?" | "="
| "{" | "}" | SP | HT
Comments can be included in some HTTP header fields by surrounding
the comment text with parentheses. Comments are only allowed in fields containing "comment" as part of their field value definition. In all other fields, parentheses are considered part of the field value. comment = "(" *( ctext | quoted-pair | comment ) ")" ctext = <any TEXT excluding "(" and ")">
A string of text is parsed as a single word if it is quoted using
double-quote marks. quoted-string = ( <"> *(qdtext | quoted-pair ) <"> ) qdtext = <any TEXT except <">> The backslash character ("") MAY be used as a single-character quoting mechanism only within quoted-string and comment constructs. quoted-pair = "" CHAR 3 Protocol Parameters 3.1 HTTP Version HTTP uses a "
the sender to indicate the format of a message and its capacity for
understanding further HTTP communication, rather than the features obtained via that communication. No change is made to the version
number for the addition of message components which do not affect
communication behavior or which only add to extensible field values. The
protocol add features which do not change the general message parsing
algorithm, but which may add to the message semantics and imply additional capabilities of the sender. The
incremented when the format of a message within the protocol is
changed. See RFC 2145 [36] for a fuller explanation. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 17]
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The version of an HTTP message is indicated by an HTTP-Version field
in the first line of the message. HTTP-Version = "HTTP" "/" 1DIGIT "." 1DIGIT
Note that the major and minor numbers MUST be treated as separate
integers and that each MAY be incremented higher than a single digit. Thus, HTTP/2.4 is a lower version than HTTP/2.13, which in turn is lower than HTTP/12.3. Leading zeros MUST be ignored by recipients and MUST NOT be sent.
An application that sends a request or response message that includes
HTTP-Version of "HTTP/1.1" MUST be at least conditionally compliant with this specification. Applications that are at least conditionally
compliant with this specification SHOULD use an HTTP-Version of
"HTTP/1.1" in their messages, and MUST do so for any message that is not compatible with HTTP/1.0. For more details on when to send specific HTTP-Version values, see RFC 2145 [36].
The HTTP version of an application is the highest HTTP version for
which the application is at least conditionally compliant.
Proxy and gateway applications need to be careful when forwarding
messages in protocol versions different from that of the application.
Since the protocol version indicates the protocol capability of the
sender, a proxy/gateway MUST NOT send a message with a version indicator which is greater than its actual version. If a higher version request is received, the proxy/gateway MUST either downgrade the request version, or respond with an error, or switch to tunnel behavior. Due to interoperability problems with HTTP/1.0 proxies discovered since the publication of RFC 2068[33], caching proxies MUST, gateways MAY, and tunnels MUST NOT upgrade the request to the highest version they support. The proxy/gateway's response to that request MUST be in the same major version as the request. Note: Converting between versions of HTTP may involve modification of header fields required or forbidden by the versions involved. 3.2 Uniform Resource Identifiers URIs have been known by many names: WWW addresses, Universal Document Identifiers, Universal Resource Identifiers [3], and finally the combination of Uniform Resource Locators (URL) [4] and Names (URN)
[20]. As far as HTTP is concerned, Uniform Resource Identifiers are
simply formatted strings which identify--via name, location, or any other characteristic--a resource. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 18]
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3.2.1 General Syntax
URIs in HTTP can be represented in absolute form or relative to some
known base URI [11], depending upon the context of their use. The two
forms are differentiated by the fact that absolute URIs always begin
with a scheme name followed by a colon. For definitive information on URL syntax and semantics, see "Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax and Semantics," RFC 2396 [42] (which replaces RFCs 1738 [4] and RFC 1808 [11]). This specification adopts the definitions of "URI-reference", "absoluteURI", "relativeURI", "port", "host","abs_path", "rel_path", and "authority" from that specification.
The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of
a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server
SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer
than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15). Note: Servers ought to be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations might not properly support these lengths. 3.2.2 http URL The "http" scheme is used to locate network resources via the HTTP protocol. This section defines the scheme-specific syntax and semantics for http URLs. http_URL = "http:" "//" host [ ":" port ] [ abs_path [ "?" query ]] If the port is empty or not given, port 80 is assumed. The semantics
are that the identified resource is located at the server listening
for TCP connections on that port of that host, and the Request-URI for the resource is abs_path (section 5.1.2). The use of IP addresses in URLs SHOULD be avoided whenever possible (see RFC 1900 [24]). If the abs_path is not present in the URL, it MUST be given as "/" when used as a Request-URI for a resource (section 5.1.2). If a proxy receives a host name which is not a fully qualified domain name, it MAY add its domain to the host name it received. If a proxy receives a fully qualified domain name, the proxy MUST NOT change the host name. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 19]
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3.2.3 URI Comparison When comparing two URIs to decide if they match or not, a client
SHOULD use a case-sensitive octet-by-octet comparison of the entire
URIs, with these exceptions:
- A port that is empty or not given is equivalent to the default
port for that URI-reference; - Comparisons of host names MUST be case-insensitive;
- Comparisons of scheme names MUST be case-insensitive;
- An empty abs_path is equivalent to an abs_path of "/".
Characters other than those in the "reserved" and "unsafe" sets (see
RFC 2396 [42]) are equivalent to their ""%" HEX HEX" encoding.
For example, the following three URIs are equivalent: http://abc.com:80/˜smith/home.html http://ABC.com/%7Esmith/home.html http://ABC.com:/%7esmith/home.html 3.3 Date/Time Formats 3.3.1 Full Date
HTTP applications have historically allowed three different formats
for the representation of date/time stamps: Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT ; RFC 822, updated by RFC 1123 Sunday, 06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT ; RFC 850, obsoleted by RFC 1036 Sun Nov 6 08:49:37 1994 ; ANSI C's asctime() format
The first format is preferred as an Internet standard and represents
a fixed-length subset of that defined by RFC 1123 [8] (an update to
RFC 822 [9]). The second format is in common use, but is based on the
obsolete RFC 850 [12] date format and lacks a four-digit year. HTTP/1.1 clients and servers that parse the date value MUST accept all three formats (for compatibility with HTTP/1.0), though they MUST
only generate the RFC 1123 format for representing HTTP-date values
in header fields. See section 19.3 for further information. Note: Recipients of date values are encouraged to be robust in
accepting date values that may have been sent by non-HTTP
applications, as is sometimes the case when retrieving or posting messages via proxies/gateways to SMTP or NNTP. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 20]
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All HTTP date/time stamps MUST be represented in Greenwich Mean Time
(GMT), without exception. For the purposes of HTTP, GMT is exactly equal to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). This is indicated in the first two formats by the inclusion of "GMT" as the three-letter abbreviation for time zone, and MUST be assumed when reading the asctime format. HTTP-date is case sensitive and MUST NOT include
additional LWS beyond that specifically included as SP in the
grammar. HTTP-date = rfc1123-date | rfc850-date | asctime-date rfc1123-date = wkday "," SP date1 SP time SP "GMT" rfc850-date = weekday "," SP date2 SP time SP "GMT" asctime-date = wkday SP date3 SP time SP 4DIGIT date1 = 2DIGIT SP month SP 4DIGIT ; day month year (e.g., 02 Jun 1982) date2 = 2DIGIT "-" month "-" 2DIGIT ; day-month-year (e.g., 02-Jun-82) date3 = month SP ( 2DIGIT | ( SP 1DIGIT )) ; month day (e.g., Jun 2) time = 2DIGIT ":" 2DIGIT ":" 2DIGIT ; 00:00:00 - 23:59:59 wkday = "Mon" | "Tue" | "Wed"
| "Thu" | "Fri" | "Sat" | "Sun"
weekday = "Monday" | "Tuesday" | "Wednesday"
| "Thursday" | "Friday" | "Saturday" | "Sunday"
month = "Jan" | "Feb" | "Mar" | "Apr"
| "May" | "Jun" | "Jul" | "Aug"
| "Sep" | "Oct" | "Nov" | "Dec"
Note: HTTP requirements for the date/time stamp format apply only to their usage within the protocol stream. Clients and servers are not required to use these formats for user presentation, request logging, etc. 3.3.2 Delta Seconds
Some HTTP header fields allow a time value to be specified as an
integer number of seconds, represented in decimal, after the time that the message was received. delta-seconds = 1*DIGIT 3.4 Character Sets HTTP uses the same definition of the term "character set" as that described for MIME: Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 21]
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The term "character set" is used in this document to refer to a
method used with one or more tables to convert a sequence of octets
into a sequence of characters. Note that unconditional conversion in the other direction is not required, in that not all characters may
be available in a given character set and a character set may provide
more than one sequence of octets to represent a particular character.
This definition is intended to allow various kinds of character
encoding, from simple single-table mappings such as US-ASCII to complex table switching methods such as those that use ISO-2022's techniques. However, the definition associated with a MIME character
set name MUST fully specify the mapping to be performed from octets
to characters. In particular, use of external profiling information to determine the exact mapping is not permitted. Note: This use of the term "character set" is more commonly referred to as a "character encoding." However, since HTTP and MIME share the same registry, it is important that the terminology also be shared. HTTP character sets are identified by case-insensitive tokens. The
complete set of tokens is defined by the IANA Character Set registry
[19].
charset = token
Although HTTP allows an arbitrary token to be used as a charset
value, any token that has a predefined value within the IANA Character Set registry [19] MUST represent the character set defined by that registry. Applications SHOULD limit their use of character sets to those defined by the IANA registry. Implementors should be aware of IETF character set requirements [38]
[41].
3.4.1 Missing Charset Some HTTP/1.0 software has interpreted a Content-Type header without charset parameter incorrectly to mean "recipient should guess."
Senders wishing to defeat this behavior MAY include a charset
parameter even when the charset is ISO-8859-1 and SHOULD do so when
it is known that it will not confuse the recipient. Unfortunately, some older HTTP/1.0 clients did not deal properly with an explicit charset parameter. HTTP/1.1 recipients MUST respect the charset label provided by the sender; and those user agents that have a provision to "guess" a charset MUST use the charset from the Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 22]
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content-type field if they support that charset, rather than the recipient's preference, when initially displaying a document. See section 3.7.1. 3.5 Content Codings
Content coding values indicate an encoding transformation that has
been or can be applied to an entity. Content codings are primarily
used to allow a document to be compressed or otherwise usefully
transformed without losing the identity of its underlying media type
and without loss of information. Frequently, the entity is stored in coded form, transmitted directly, and only decoded by the recipient. content-coding = token All content-coding values are case-insensitive. HTTP/1.1 uses content-coding values in the Accept-Encoding (section 14.3) and Content-Encoding (section 14.11) header fields. Although the value describes the content-coding, what is more important is that it
indicates what decoding mechanism will be required to remove the
encoding.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) acts as a registry for
content-coding value tokens. Initially, the registry contains the following tokens:
gzip An encoding format produced by the file compression program
"gzip" (GNU zip) as described in RFC 1952 [25]. This format is a Lempel-Ziv coding (LZ77) with a 32 bit CRC. compress
The encoding format produced by the common UNIX file compression
program "compress". This format is an adaptive Lempel-Ziv-Welch coding (LZW).
Use of program names for the identification of encoding formats
is not desirable and is discouraged for future encodings. Their use here is representative of historical practice, not good design. For compatibility with previous implementations of HTTP, applications SHOULD consider "x-gzip" and "x-compress" to be equivalent to "gzip" and "compress" respectively. deflate The "zlib" format defined in RFC 1950 [31] in combination with the "deflate" compression mechanism described in RFC 1951 [29]. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 23]
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identity The default (identity) encoding; the use of no transformation whatsoever. This content-coding is used only in the Accept Encoding header, and SHOULD NOT be used in the Content-Encoding header. New content-coding value tokens SHOULD be registered; to allow interoperability between clients and servers, specifications of the
content coding algorithms needed to implement a new value SHOULD be
publicly available and adequate for independent implementation, and conform to the purpose of content coding defined in this section. 3.6 Transfer Codings
Transfer-coding values are used to indicate an encoding
transformation that has been, can be, or may need to be applied to an entity-body in order to ensure "safe transport" through the network.
This differs from a content coding in that the transfer-coding is a
property of the message, not of the original entity. transfer-coding = "chunked" | transfer-extension transfer-extension = token *( ";" parameter ) Parameters are in the form of attribute/value pairs. parameter = attribute "=" value attribute = token value = token | quoted-string All transfer-coding values are case-insensitive. HTTP/1.1 uses transfer-coding values in the TE header field (section 14.39) and in the Transfer-Encoding header field (section 14.41). Whenever a transfer-coding is applied to a message-body, the set of transfer-codings MUST include "chunked", unless the message is terminated by closing the connection. When the "chunked" transfer coding is used, it MUST be the last transfer-coding applied to the message-body. The "chunked" transfer-coding MUST NOT be applied more than once to a message-body. These rules allow the recipient to determine the transfer-length of the message (section 4.4).
Transfer-codings are analogous to the Content-Transfer-Encoding
values of MIME [7], which were designed to enable safe transport of binary data over a 7-bit transport service. However, safe transport has a different focus for an 8bit-clean transfer protocol. In HTTP,
the only unsafe characteristic of message-bodies is the difficulty in
determining the exact body length (section 7.2.2), or the desire to encrypt data over a shared transport. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 24]
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The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) acts as a registry for
transfer-coding value tokens. Initially, the registry contains the following tokens: "chunked" (section 3.6.1), "identity" (section 3.6.2), "gzip" (section 3.5), "compress" (section 3.5), and "deflate" (section 3.5).
New transfer-coding value tokens SHOULD be registered in the same way
as new content-coding value tokens (section 3.5).
A server which receives an entity-body with a transfer-coding it does
not understand SHOULD return 501 (Unimplemented), and close the connection. A server MUST NOT send transfer-codings to an HTTP/1.0 client. 3.6.1 Chunked Transfer Coding
The chunked encoding modifies the body of a message in order to
transfer it as a series of chunks, each with its own size indicator, followed by an OPTIONAL trailer containing entity-header fields. This
allows dynamically produced content to be transferred along with the
information necessary for the recipient to verify that it has
received the full message. Chunked-Body = *chunk
last-chunk
trailer CRLF chunk = chunk-size [ chunk-extension ] CRLF
chunk-data CRLF
chunk-size = 1HEX last-chunk = 1("0") [ chunk-extension ] CRLF chunk-extension= *( ";" chunk-ext-name [ "=" chunk-ext-val ] ) chunk-ext-name = token chunk-ext-val = token | quoted-string chunk-data = chunk-size(OCTET) trailer = *(entity-header CRLF)
The chunk-size field is a string of hex digits indicating the size of
the chunk. The chunked encoding is ended by any chunk whose size is zero, followed by the trailer, which is terminated by an empty line.
The trailer allows the sender to include additional HTTP header
fields at the end of the message. The Trailer header field can be
used to indicate which header fields are included in a trailer (see
section 14.40). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 25]
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A server using chunked transfer-coding in a response MUST NOT use the
trailer for any header fields unless at least one of the following is
true: a)the request included a TE header field that indicates "trailers" is acceptable in the transfer-coding of the response, as described in section 14.39; or, b)the server is the origin server for the response, the trailer fields consist entirely of optional metadata, and the recipient
could use the message (in a manner acceptable to the origin server)
without receiving this metadata. In other words, the origin server
is willing to accept the possibility that the trailer fields might
be silently discarded along the path to the client.
This requirement prevents an interoperability failure when the
message is being received by an HTTP/1.1 (or later) proxy and forwarded to an HTTP/1.0 recipient. It avoids a situation where
compliance with the protocol would have necessitated a possibly
infinite buffer on the proxy.
An example process for decoding a Chunked-Body is presented in
appendix 19.4.6.
All HTTP/1.1 applications MUST be able to receive and decode the "chunked" transfer-coding, and MUST ignore chunk-extension extensions they do not understand. 3.7 Media Types HTTP uses Internet Media Types [17] in the Content-Type (section 14.17) and Accept (section 14.1) header fields in order to provide open and extensible data typing and type negotiation. media-type = type "/" subtype *( ";" parameter ) type = token subtype = token
Parameters MAY follow the type/subtype in the form of attribute/value
pairs (as defined in section 3.6). The type, subtype, and parameter attribute names are case insensitive. Parameter values might or might not be case-sensitive, depending on the semantics of the parameter name. Linear white space (LWS) MUST NOT be used between the type and subtype, nor between an attribute and its value. The presence or absence of a parameter might be significant to the processing of a media-type, depending on its definition within the media type registry. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 26]
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Note that some older HTTP applications do not recognize media type
parameters. When sending data to older HTTP applications,
implementations SHOULD only use media type parameters when they are
required by that type/subtype definition.
Media-type values are registered with the Internet Assigned Number
Authority (IANA [19]). The media type registration process is outlined in RFC 1590 [17]. Use of non-registered media types is discouraged. 3.7.1 Canonicalization and Text Defaults Internet media types are registered with a canonical form. An
entity-body transferred via HTTP messages MUST be represented in the
appropriate canonical form prior to its transmission except for
"text" types, as defined in the next paragraph. When in canonical form, media subtypes of the "text" type use CRLF as the text line break. HTTP relaxes this requirement and allows the
transport of text media with plain CR or LF alone representing a line
break when it is done consistently for an entire entity-body. HTTP applications MUST accept CRLF, bare CR, and bare LF as being representative of a line break in text media received via HTTP. In addition, if the text is represented in a character set that does not use octets 13 and 10 for CR and LF respectively, as is the case for some multi-byte character sets, HTTP allows the use of whatever octet
sequences are defined by that character set to represent the
equivalent of CR and LF for line breaks. This flexibility regarding line breaks applies only to text media in the entity-body; a bare CR
or LF MUST NOT be substituted for CRLF within any of the HTTP control
structures (such as header fields and multipart boundaries). If an entity-body is encoded with a content-coding, the underlying data MUST be in a form defined above prior to being encoded. The "charset" parameter is used with some media types to define the character set (section 3.4) of the data. When no explicit charset parameter is provided by the sender, media subtypes of the "text" type are defined to have a default charset value of "ISO-8859-1" when received via HTTP. Data in character sets other than "ISO-8859-1" or its subsets MUST be labeled with an appropriate charset value. See section 3.4.1 for compatibility problems. 3.7.2 Multipart Types MIME provides for a number of "multipart" types -- encapsulations of one or more entities within a single message-body. All multipart types share a common syntax, as defined in section 5.1.1 of RFC 2046 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 27]
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[40], and MUST include a boundary parameter as part of the media type
value. The message body is itself a protocol element and MUST therefore use only CRLF to represent line breaks between body-parts. Unlike in RFC 2046, the epilogue of any multipart message MUST be empty; HTTP applications MUST NOT transmit the epilogue (even if the original multipart contains an epilogue). These restrictions exist in
order to preserve the self-delimiting nature of a multipart message
body, wherein the "end" of the message-body is indicated by the ending multipart boundary. In general, HTTP treats a multipart message-body no differently than any other media type: strictly as payload. The one exception is the "multipart/byteranges" type (appendix 19.2) when it appears in a 206 (Partial Content) response, which will be interpreted by some HTTP caching mechanisms as described in sections 13.5.4 and 14.16. In all other cases, an HTTP user agent SHOULD follow the same or similar behavior as a MIME user agent would upon receipt of a multipart type.
The MIME header fields within each body-part of a multipart message
body do not have any significance to HTTP beyond that defined by
their MIME semantics. In general, an HTTP user agent SHOULD follow the same or similar behavior as a MIME user agent would upon receipt of a multipart type. If an application receives an unrecognized multipart subtype, the application MUST treat it as being equivalent to "multipart/mixed". Note: The "multipart/form-data" type has been specifically defined
for carrying form data suitable for processing via the POST
request method, as described in RFC 1867 [15]. 3.8 Product Tokens
Product tokens are used to allow communicating applications to
identify themselves by software name and version. Most fields using
product tokens also allow sub-products which form a significant part
of the application to be listed, separated by white space. By convention, the products are listed in order of their significance for identifying the application. product = token ["/" product-version] product-version = token Examples: User-Agent: CERN-LineMode/2.15 libwww/2.17b3 Server: Apache/0.8.4 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 28]
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Product tokens SHOULD be short and to the point. They MUST NOT be used for advertising or other non-essential information. Although any token character MAY appear in a product-version, this token SHOULD only be used for a version identifier (i.e., successive versions of
the same product SHOULD only differ in the product-version portion of
the product value). 3.9 Quality Values HTTP content negotiation (section 12) uses short "floating point" numbers to indicate the relative importance ("weight") of various negotiable parameters. A weight is normalized to a real number in the range 0 through 1, where 0 is the minimum and 1 the maximum value. If a parameter has a quality value of 0, then content with this parameter is `not acceptable' for the client. HTTP/1.1
applications MUST NOT generate more than three digits after the
decimal point. User configuration of these values SHOULD also be limited in this fashion. qvalue = ( "0" [ "." 03DIGIT ] )
| ( "1" [ "." 03("0") ] )
"Quality values" is a misnomer, since these values merely represent relative degradation in desired quality. 3.10 Language Tags A language tag identifies a natural language spoken, written, or
otherwise conveyed by human beings for communication of information
to other human beings. Computer languages are explicitly excluded.
HTTP uses language tags within the Accept-Language and Content
Language fields.
The syntax and registry of HTTP language tags is the same as that
defined by RFC 1766 [1]. In summary, a language tag is composed of 1 or more parts: A primary language tag and a possibly empty series of subtags: language-tag = primary-tag ( "-" subtag ) primary-tag = 18ALPHA subtag = 1*8ALPHA
White space is not allowed within the tag and all tags are case
insensitive. The name space of language tags is administered by the IANA. Example tags include: en, en-US, en-cockney, i-cherokee, x-pig-latin Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 29]
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where any two-letter primary-tag is an ISO-639 language abbreviation
and any two-letter initial subtag is an ISO-3166 country code. (The last three tags above are not registered tags; all but the last are examples of tags which could be registered in future.) 3.11 Entity Tags
Entity tags are used for comparing two or more entities from the same
requested resource. HTTP/1.1 uses entity tags in the ETag (section 14.19), If-Match (section 14.24), If-None-Match (section 14.26), and If-Range (section 14.27) header fields. The definition of how they are used and compared as cache validators is in section 13.3.3. An entity tag consists of an opaque quoted string, possibly prefixed by a weakness indicator. entity-tag = [ weak ] opaque-tag weak = "W/" opaque-tag = quoted-string A "strong entity tag" MAY be shared by two entities of a resource only if they are equivalent by octet equality. A "weak entity tag," indicated by the "W/" prefix, MAY be shared by
two entities of a resource only if the entities are equivalent and
could be substituted for each other with no significant change in
semantics. A weak entity tag can only be used for weak comparison.
An entity tag MUST be unique across all versions of all entities
associated with a particular resource. A given entity tag value MAY be used for entities obtained by requests on different URIs. The use
of the same entity tag value in conjunction with entities obtained by
requests on different URIs does not imply the equivalence of those
entities. 3.12 Range Units HTTP/1.1 allows a client to request that only part (a range of) the response entity be included within the response. HTTP/1.1 uses range units in the Range (section 14.35) and Content-Range (section 14.16) header fields. An entity can be broken down into subranges according to various structural units. range-unit = bytes-unit | other-range-unit bytes-unit = "bytes" other-range-unit = token The only range unit defined by HTTP/1.1 is "bytes". HTTP/1.1 implementations MAY ignore ranges specified using other units. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 30]
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HTTP/1.1 has been designed to allow implementations of applications that do not depend on knowledge of ranges. 4 HTTP Message 4.1 Message Types
HTTP messages consist of requests from client to server and responses
from server to client. HTTP-message = Request | Response ; HTTP/1.1 messages
Request (section 5) and Response (section 6) messages use the generic
message format of RFC 822 [9] for transferring entities (the payload of the message). Both types of message consist of a start-line, zero or more header fields (also known as "headers"), an empty line (i.e.,
a line with nothing preceding the CRLF) indicating the end of the
header fields, and possibly a message-body. generic-message = start-line *(message-header CRLF) CRLF [ message-body ] start-line = Request-Line | Status-Line In the interest of robustness, servers SHOULD ignore any empty line(s) received where a Request-Line is expected. In other words, if
the server is reading the protocol stream at the beginning of a
message and receives a CRLF first, it should ignore the CRLF. Certain buggy HTTP/1.0 client implementations generate extra CRLF's after a POST request. To restate what is explicitly forbidden by the BNF, an HTTP/1.1 client MUST NOT preface or follow a request with an extra CRLF. 4.2 Message Headers HTTP header fields, which include general-header (section 4.5), request-header (section 5.3), response-header (section 6.2), and entity-header (section 7.1) fields, follow the same generic format as that given in Section 3.1 of RFC 822 [9]. Each header field consists of a name followed by a colon (":") and the field value. Field names are case-insensitive. The field value MAY be preceded by any amount of LWS, though a single SP is preferred. Header fields can be
extended over multiple lines by preceding each extra line with at
least one SP or HT. Applications ought to follow "common form", where one is known or indicated, when generating HTTP constructs, since
there might exist some implementations that fail to accept anything
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 31]
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beyond the common forms. message-header = field-name ":" [ field-value ] field-name = token field-value = *( field-content | LWS ) field-content = <the OCTETs making up the field-value and consisting of either *TEXT or combinations of token, separators, and quoted-string> The field-content does not include any leading or trailing LWS:
linear white space occurring before the first non-whitespace
character of the field-value or after the last non-whitespace
character of the field-value. Such leading or trailing LWS MAY be removed without changing the semantics of the field value. Any LWS
that occurs between field-content MAY be replaced with a single SP
before interpreting the field value or forwarding the message
downstream.
The order in which header fields with differing field names are
received is not significant. However, it is "good practice" to send general-header fields first, followed by request-header or response header fields, and ending with the entity-header fields.
Multiple message-header fields with the same field-name MAY be
present in a message if and only if the entire field-value for that
header field is defined as a comma-separated list [i.e., #(values)].
It MUST be possible to combine the multiple header fields into one
"field-name: field-value" pair, without changing the semantics of the message, by appending each subsequent field-value to the first, each separated by a comma. The order in which header fields with the same
field-name are received is therefore significant to the
interpretation of the combined field value, and thus a proxy MUST NOT change the order of these field values when a message is forwarded. 4.3 Message Body
The message-body (if any) of an HTTP message is used to carry the
entity-body associated with the request or response. The message-body
differs from the entity-body only when a transfer-coding has been
applied, as indicated by the Transfer-Encoding header field (section 14.41). message-body = entity-body
|
Transfer-Encoding MUST be used to indicate any transfer-codings
applied by an application to ensure safe and proper transfer of the
message. Transfer-Encoding is a property of the message, not of the Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 32]
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entity, and thus MAY be added or removed by any application along the request/response chain. (However, section 3.6 places restrictions on when certain transfer-codings may be used.)
The rules for when a message-body is allowed in a message differ for
requests and responses.
The presence of a message-body in a request is signaled by the
inclusion of a Content-Length or Transfer-Encoding header field in
the request's message-headers. A message-body MUST NOT be included in a request if the specification of the request method (section 5.1.1) does not allow sending an entity-body in requests. A server SHOULD read and forward a message-body on any request; if the request method does not include defined semantics for an entity-body, then the message-body SHOULD be ignored when handling the request. For response messages, whether or not a message-body is included with
a message is dependent on both the request method and the response
status code (section 6.1.1). All responses to the HEAD request method MUST NOT include a message-body, even though the presence of entity header fields might lead one to believe they do. All 1xx (informational), 204 (no content), and 304 (not modified) responses MUST NOT include a message-body. All other responses do include a message-body, although it MAY be of zero length. 4.4 Message Length
The transfer-length of a message is the length of the message-body as
it appears in the message; that is, after any transfer-codings have been applied. When a message-body is included with a message, the
transfer-length of that body is determined by one of the following
(in order of precedence): 1.Any response message which "MUST NOT" include a message-body (such as the 1xx, 204, and 304 responses and any response to a HEAD
request) is always terminated by the first empty line after the
header fields, regardless of the entity-header fields present in the message. 2.If a Transfer-Encoding header field (section 14.41) is present and has any value other than "identity", then the transfer-length is defined by use of the "chunked" transfer-coding (section 3.6), unless the message is terminated by closing the connection. 3.If a Content-Length header field (section 14.13) is present, its
decimal value in OCTETs represents both the entity-length and the
transfer-length. The Content-Length header field MUST NOT be sent if these two lengths are different (i.e., if a Transfer-Encoding Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 33]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
header field is present). If a message is received with both a Transfer-Encoding header field and a Content-Length header field, the latter MUST be ignored. 4.If the message uses the media type "multipart/byteranges", and the ransfer-length is not otherwise specified, then this self elimiting media type defines the transfer-length. This media type
UST NOT be used unless the sender knows that the recipient can arse
it; the presence in a request of a Range header with ultiple byte range specifiers from a 1.1 client implies that the lient can parse multipart/byteranges responses. A range header might be forwarded by a 1.0 proxy that does not understand multipart/byteranges; in this case the server MUST delimit the message using methods defined in items 1,3 or 5 of this section. 5.By the server closing the connection. (Closing the connection cannot be used to indicate the end of a request body, since that would leave no possibility for the server to send back a response.) For compatibility with HTTP/1.0 applications, HTTP/1.1 requests
containing a message-body MUST include a valid Content-Length header
field unless the server is known to be HTTP/1.1 compliant. If a request contains a message-body and a Content-Length is not given,
the server SHOULD respond with 400 (bad request) if it cannot
determine the length of the message, or with 411 (length required) if it wishes to insist on receiving a valid Content-Length. All HTTP/1.1 applications that receive entities MUST accept the "chunked" transfer-coding (section 3.6), thus allowing this mechanism
to be used for messages when the message length cannot be determined
in advance.
Messages MUST NOT include both a Content-Length header field and a
non-identity transfer-coding. If the message does include a non identity transfer-coding, the Content-Length MUST be ignored.
When a Content-Length is given in a message where a message-body is
allowed, its field value MUST exactly match the number of OCTETs in the message-body. HTTP/1.1 user agents MUST notify the user when an invalid length is received and detected. 4.5 General Header Fields
There are a few header fields which have general applicability for
both request and response messages, but which do not apply to the entity being transferred. These header fields apply only to the Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 34]
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message being transmitted. general-header = Cache-Control ; Section 14.9
| Connection ; Section 14.10
| Date ; Section 14.18
| Pragma ; Section 14.32
| Trailer ; Section 14.40
| Transfer-Encoding ; Section 14.41
| Upgrade ; Section 14.42
| Via ; Section 14.45
| Warning ; Section 14.46
General-header field names can be extended reliably only in
combination with a change in the protocol version. However, new or
experimental header fields may be given the semantics of general
header fields if all parties in the communication recognize them to
be general-header fields. Unrecognized header fields are treated as entity-header fields. 5 Request A request message from a client to a server includes, within the first line of that message, the method to be applied to the resource, the identifier of the resource, and the protocol version in use. Request = Request-Line ; Section 5.1 *(( general-header ; Section 4.5
| request-header ; Section 5.3
| entity-header ) CRLF) ; Section 7.1
CRLF [ message-body ] ; Section 4.3 5.1 Request-Line The Request-Line begins with a method token, followed by the Request-URI and the protocol version, and ending with CRLF. The elements are separated by SP characters. No CR or LF is allowed except in the final CRLF sequence. Request-Line = Method SP Request-URI SP HTTP-Version CRLF Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 35]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
5.1.1 Method
The Method token indicates the method to be performed on the
resource identified by the Request-URI. The method is case-sensitive. Method = "OPTIONS" ; Section 9.2
| "GET" ; Section 9.3
| "HEAD" ; Section 9.4
| "POST" ; Section 9.5
| "PUT" ; Section 9.6
| "DELETE" ; Section 9.7
| "TRACE" ; Section 9.8
| "CONNECT" ; Section 9.9
| extension-method
extension-method = token
The list of methods allowed by a resource can be specified in an
Allow header field (section 14.7). The return code of the response
always notifies the client whether a method is currently allowed on a
resource, since the set of allowed methods can change dynamically. An
origin server SHOULD return the status code 405 (Method Not Allowed)
if the method is known by the origin server but not allowed for the
requested resource, and 501 (Not Implemented) if the method is unrecognized or not implemented by the origin server. The methods GET and HEAD MUST be supported by all general-purpose servers. All other methods are OPTIONAL; however, if the above methods are implemented,
they MUST be implemented with the same semantics as those specified
in section 9. 5.1.2 Request-URI The Request-URI is a Uniform Resource Identifier (section 3.2) and identifies the resource upon which to apply the request. Request-URI = "*" | absoluteURI | abs_path | authority
The four options for Request-URI are dependent on the nature of the
request. The asterisk "*" means that the request does not apply to a particular resource, but to the server itself, and is only allowed when the method used does not necessarily apply to a resource. One
example would be
OPTIONS * HTTP/1.1
The absoluteURI form is REQUIRED when the request is being made to a
proxy. The proxy is requested to forward the request or service it from a valid cache, and return the response. Note that the proxy MAY
forward the request on to another proxy or directly to the server
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 36]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
specified by the absoluteURI. In order to avoid request loops, a proxy MUST be able to recognize all of its server names, including any aliases, local variations, and the numeric IP address. An example Request-Line would be: GET http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
To allow for transition to absoluteURIs in all requests in future
versions of HTTP, all HTTP/1.1 servers MUST accept the absoluteURI form in requests, even though HTTP/1.1 clients will only generate them in requests to proxies. The authority form is only used by the CONNECT method (section 9.9).
The most common form of Request-URI is that used to identify a
resource on an origin server or gateway. In this case the absolute path of the URI MUST be transmitted (see section 3.2.1, abs_path) as the Request-URI, and the network location of the URI (authority) MUST be transmitted in a Host header field. For example, a client wishing
to retrieve the resource above directly from the origin server would
create a TCP connection to port 80 of the host "www.w3.org" and send the lines: GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1 Host: www.w3.org followed by the remainder of the Request. Note that the absolute path cannot be empty; if none is present in the original URI, it MUST be given as "/" (the server root).
The Request-URI is transmitted in the format specified in section
3.2.1. If the Request-URI is encoded using the "% HEX HEX" encoding
[42], the origin server MUST decode the Request-URI in order to
properly interpret the request. Servers SHOULD respond to invalid Request-URIs with an appropriate status code. A transparent proxy MUST NOT rewrite the "abs_path" part of the received Request-URI when forwarding it to the next inbound server, except as noted above to replace a null abs_path with "/". Note: The "no rewrite" rule prevents the proxy from changing the
meaning of the request when the origin server is improperly using
a non-reserved URI character for a reserved purpose. Implementors should be aware that some pre-HTTP/1.1 proxies have been known to rewrite the Request-URI. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 37]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
5.2 The Resource Identified by a Request
The exact resource identified by an Internet request is determined by
examining both the Request-URI and the Host header field.
An origin server that does not allow resources to differ by the
requested host MAY ignore the Host header field value when
determining the resource identified by an HTTP/1.1 request. (But see section 19.6.1.1 for other requirements on Host support in HTTP/1.1.)
An origin server that does differentiate resources based on the host
requested (sometimes referred to as virtual hosts or vanity host
names) MUST use the following rules for determining the requested
resource on an HTTP/1.1 request:
If Request-URI is an absoluteURI, the host is part of the
Request-URI. Any Host header field value in the request MUST be ignored.If the Request-URI is not an absoluteURI, and the request includes
a Host header field, the host is determined by the Host header field value.If the host as determined by rule 1 or 2 is not a valid host on
the server, the response MUST be a 400 (Bad Request) error message. Recipients of an HTTP/1.0 request that lacks a Host header field MAY attempt to use heuristics (e.g., examination of the URI path for
something unique to a particular host) in order to determine what
exact resource is being requested. 5.3 Request Header Fields
The request-header fields allow the client to pass additional
information about the request, and about the client itself, to the server. These fields act as request modifiers, with semantics
equivalent to the parameters on a programming language method
invocation. request-header = Accept ; Section 14.1
| Accept-Charset ; Section 14.2
| Accept-Encoding ; Section 14.3
| Accept-Language ; Section 14.4
| Authorization ; Section 14.8
| Expect ; Section 14.20
| From ; Section 14.22
| Host ; Section 14.23
| If-Match ; Section 14.24
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 38]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
| If-Modified-Since ; Section 14.25
| If-None-Match ; Section 14.26
| If-Range ; Section 14.27
| If-Unmodified-Since ; Section 14.28
| Max-Forwards ; Section 14.31
| Proxy-Authorization ; Section 14.34
| Range ; Section 14.35
| Referer ; Section 14.36
| TE ; Section 14.39
| User-Agent ; Section 14.43
Request-header field names can be extended reliably only in
combination with a change in the protocol version. However, new or
experimental header fields MAY be given the semantics of request
header fields if all parties in the communication recognize them to
be request-header fields. Unrecognized header fields are treated as entity-header fields. 6 Response After receiving and interpreting a request message, a server responds with an HTTP response message. Response = Status-Line ; Section 6.1 *(( general-header ; Section 4.5
| response-header ; Section 6.2
| entity-header ) CRLF) ; Section 7.1
CRLF [ message-body ] ; Section 7.2 6.1 Status-Line The first line of a Response message is the Status-Line, consisting
of the protocol version followed by a numeric status code and its
associated textual phrase, with each element separated by SP characters. No CR or LF is allowed except in the final CRLF sequence. Status-Line = HTTP-Version SP Status-Code SP Reason-Phrase CRLF 6.1.1 Status Code and Reason Phrase
The Status-Code element is a 3-digit integer result code of the
attempt to understand and satisfy the request. These codes are fully defined in section 10. The Reason-Phrase is intended to give a short textual description of the Status-Code. The Status-Code is intended
for use by automata and the Reason-Phrase is intended for the human
user. The client is not required to examine or display the Reason Phrase. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 39]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
The first digit of the Status-Code defines the class of response. The last two digits do not have any categorization role. There are 5 values for the first digit:
- 1xx: Informational - Request received, continuing process
- 2xx: Success - The action was successfully received,
understood, and accepted - 3xx: Redirection - Further action must be taken in order to
complete the request
- 4xx: Client Error - The request contains bad syntax or cannot
be fulfilled
- 5xx: Server Error - The server failed to fulfill an apparently
valid request
The individual values of the numeric status codes defined for
HTTP/1.1, and an example set of corresponding Reason-Phrase's, are presented below. The reason phrases listed here are only
recommendations -- they MAY be replaced by local equivalents without
affecting the protocol. Status-Code = "100" ; Section 10.1.1: Continue
| "101" ; Section 10.1.2: Switching Protocols
| "200" ; Section 10.2.1: OK
| "201" ; Section 10.2.2: Created
| "202" ; Section 10.2.3: Accepted
| "203" ; Section 10.2.4: Non-Authoritative Information
| "204" ; Section 10.2.5: No Content
| "205" ; Section 10.2.6: Reset Content
| "206" ; Section 10.2.7: Partial Content
| "300" ; Section 10.3.1: Multiple Choices
| "301" ; Section 10.3.2: Moved Permanently
| "302" ; Section 10.3.3: Found
| "303" ; Section 10.3.4: See Other
| "304" ; Section 10.3.5: Not Modified
| "305" ; Section 10.3.6: Use Proxy
| "307" ; Section 10.3.8: Temporary Redirect
| "400" ; Section 10.4.1: Bad Request
| "401" ; Section 10.4.2: Unauthorized
| "402" ; Section 10.4.3: Payment Required
| "403" ; Section 10.4.4: Forbidden
| "404" ; Section 10.4.5: Not Found
| "405" ; Section 10.4.6: Method Not Allowed
| "406" ; Section 10.4.7: Not Acceptable
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 40]
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| "407" ; Section 10.4.8: Proxy Authentication Required
| "408" ; Section 10.4.9: Request Time-out
| "409" ; Section 10.4.10: Conflict
| "410" ; Section 10.4.11: Gone
| "411" ; Section 10.4.12: Length Required
| "412" ; Section 10.4.13: Precondition Failed
| "413" ; Section 10.4.14: Request Entity Too Large
| "414" ; Section 10.4.15: Request-URI Too Large
| "415" ; Section 10.4.16: Unsupported Media Type
| "416" ; Section 10.4.17: Requested range not satisfiable
| "417" ; Section 10.4.18: Expectation Failed
| "500" ; Section 10.5.1: Internal Server Error
| "501" ; Section 10.5.2: Not Implemented
| "502" ; Section 10.5.3: Bad Gateway
| "503" ; Section 10.5.4: Service Unavailable
| "504" ; Section 10.5.5: Gateway Time-out
| "505" ; Section 10.5.6: HTTP Version not supported
| extension-code
extension-code = 3DIGIT Reason-Phrase = *<TEXT, excluding CR, LF> HTTP status codes are extensible. HTTP applications are not required to understand the meaning of all registered status codes, though such understanding is obviously desirable. However, applications MUST understand the class of any status code, as indicated by the first digit, and treat any unrecognized response as being equivalent to the x00 status code of that class, with the exception that an unrecognized response MUST NOT be cached. For example, if an unrecognized status code of 431 is received by the client, it can
safely assume that there was something wrong with its request and
treat the response as if it had received a 400 status code. In such cases, user agents SHOULD present to the user the entity returned with the response, since that entity is likely to include human readable information which will explain the unusual status. 6.2 Response Header Fields
The response-header fields allow the server to pass additional
information about the response which cannot be placed in the Status
Line. These header fields give information about the server and about further access to the resource identified by the Request-URI. response-header = Accept-Ranges ; Section 14.5
| Age ; Section 14.6
| ETag ; Section 14.19
| Location ; Section 14.30
| Proxy-Authenticate ; Section 14.33
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 41]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
| Retry-After ; Section 14.37
| Server ; Section 14.38
| Vary ; Section 14.44
| WWW-Authenticate ; Section 14.47
Response-header field names can be extended reliably only in
combination with a change in the protocol version. However, new or
experimental header fields MAY be given the semantics of response
header fields if all parties in the communication recognize them to
be response-header fields. Unrecognized header fields are treated as entity-header fields. 7 Entity
Request and Response messages MAY transfer an entity if not otherwise
restricted by the request method or response status code. An entity consists of entity-header fields and an entity-body, although some responses will only include the entity-headers. In this section, both sender and recipient refer to either the client or the server, depending on who sends and who receives the entity. 7.1 Entity Header Fields Entity-header fields define metainformation about the entity-body or, if no body is present, about the resource identified by the request. Some of this metainformation is OPTIONAL; some might be REQUIRED by portions of this specification. entity-header = Allow ; Section 14.7
| Content-Encoding ; Section 14.11
| Content-Language ; Section 14.12
| Content-Length ; Section 14.13
| Content-Location ; Section 14.14
| Content-MD5 ; Section 14.15
| Content-Range ; Section 14.16
| Content-Type ; Section 14.17
| Expires ; Section 14.21
| Last-Modified ; Section 14.29
| extension-header
extension-header = message-header
The extension-header mechanism allows additional entity-header fields
to be defined without changing the protocol, but these fields cannot be assumed to be recognizable by the recipient. Unrecognized header
fields SHOULD be ignored by the recipient and MUST be forwarded by
transparent proxies. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 42]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
7.2 Entity Body
The entity-body (if any) sent with an HTTP request or response is in
a format and encoding defined by the entity-header fields. entity-body = *OCTET
An entity-body is only present in a message when a message-body is
present, as described in section 4.3. The entity-body is obtained
from the message-body by decoding any Transfer-Encoding that might
have been applied to ensure safe and proper transfer of the message. 7.2.1 Type When an entity-body is included with a message, the data type of that
body is determined via the header fields Content-Type and Content
Encoding. These define a two-layer, ordered encoding model: entity-body := Content-Encoding( Content-Type( data ) ) Content-Type specifies the media type of the underlying data.
Content-Encoding may be used to indicate any additional content
codings applied to the data, usually for the purpose of data compression, that are a property of the requested resource. There is no default encoding. Any HTTP/1.1 message containing an entity-body SHOULD include a Content-Type header field defining the media type of that body. If and only if the media type is not given by a Content-Type field, the
recipient MAY attempt to guess the media type via inspection of its
content and/or the name extension(s) of the URI used to identify the
resource. If the media type remains unknown, the recipient SHOULD treat it as type "application/octet-stream". 7.2.2 Entity Length
The entity-length of a message is the length of the message-body
before any transfer-codings have been applied. Section 4.4 defines how the transfer-length of a message-body is determined. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 43]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
8 Connections 8.1 Persistent Connections 8.1.1 Purpose Prior to persistent connections, a separate TCP connection was established to fetch each URL, increasing the load on HTTP servers and causing congestion on the Internet. The use of inline images and
other associated data often require a client to make multiple
requests of the same server in a short amount of time. Analysis of
these performance problems and results from a prototype
implementation are available [26] [30]. Implementation experience and measurements of actual HTTP/1.1 (RFC 2068) implementations show good results [39]. Alternatives have also been explored, for example, T/TCP [27]. Persistent HTTP connections have a number of advantages:
- By opening and closing fewer TCP connections, CPU time is saved
in routers and hosts (clients, servers, proxies, gateways, tunnels, or caches), and memory used for TCP protocol control blocks can be saved in hosts. - HTTP requests and responses can be pipelined on a connection.
Pipelining allows a client to make multiple requests without
waiting for each response, allowing a single TCP connection to be used much more efficiently, with much lower elapsed time.
- Network congestion is reduced by reducing the number of packets
caused by TCP opens, and by allowing TCP sufficient time to determine the congestion state of the network. - Latency on subsequent requests is reduced since there is no time
spent in TCP's connection opening handshake. - HTTP can evolve more gracefully, since errors can be reported
without the penalty of closing the TCP connection. Clients using future versions of HTTP might optimistically try a new feature, but if communicating with an older server, retry with old semantics after an error is reported. HTTP implementations SHOULD implement persistent connections. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 44]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
8.1.2 Overall Operation A significant difference between HTTP/1.1 and earlier versions of
HTTP is that persistent connections are the default behavior of any
HTTP connection. That is, unless otherwise indicated, the client SHOULD assume that the server will maintain a persistent connection, even after error responses from the server.
Persistent connections provide a mechanism by which a client and a
server can signal the close of a TCP connection. This signaling takes place using the Connection header field (section 14.10). Once a close has been signaled, the client MUST NOT send any more requests on that connection. 8.1.2.1 Negotiation An HTTP/1.1 server MAY assume that a HTTP/1.1 client intends to
maintain a persistent connection unless a Connection header including
the connection-token "close" was sent in the request. If the server
chooses to close the connection immediately after sending the
response, it SHOULD send a Connection header including the connection-token close. An HTTP/1.1 client MAY expect a connection to remain open, but would
decide to keep it open based on whether the response from a server
contains a Connection header with the connection-token close. In case
the client does not want to maintain a connection for more than that
request, it SHOULD send a Connection header including the connection-token close.
If either the client or the server sends the close token in the
Connection header, that request becomes the last one for the connection.
Clients and servers SHOULD NOT assume that a persistent connection is
maintained for HTTP versions less than 1.1 unless it is explicitly signaled. See section 19.6.2 for more information on backward compatibility with HTTP/1.0 clients. In order to remain persistent, all messages on the connection MUST have a self-defined message length (i.e., one not defined by closure of the connection), as described in section 4.4. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 45]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
8.1.2.2 Pipelining A client that supports persistent connections MAY "pipeline" its requests (i.e., send multiple requests without waiting for each response). A server MUST send its responses to those requests in the same order that the requests were received.
Clients which assume persistent connections and pipeline immediately
after connection establishment SHOULD be prepared to retry their
connection if the first pipelined attempt fails. If a client does such a retry, it MUST NOT pipeline before it knows the connection is persistent. Clients MUST also be prepared to resend their requests if
the server closes the connection before sending all of the
corresponding responses.
Clients SHOULD NOT pipeline requests using non-idempotent methods or
non-idempotent sequences of methods (see section 9.1.2). Otherwise, a
premature termination of the transport connection could lead to
indeterminate results. A client wishing to send a non-idempotent
request SHOULD wait to send that request until it has received the
response status for the previous request. 8.1.3 Proxy Servers
It is especially important that proxies correctly implement the
properties of the Connection header field as specified in section
14.10.
The proxy server MUST signal persistent connections separately with
its clients and the origin servers (or other proxy servers) that it
connects to. Each persistent connection applies to only one transport link. A proxy server MUST NOT establish a HTTP/1.1 persistent connection with an HTTP/1.0 client (but see RFC 2068 [33] for information and
discussion of the problems with the Keep-Alive header implemented by
many HTTP/1.0 clients). 8.1.4 Practical Considerations
Servers will usually have some time-out value beyond which they will
no longer maintain an inactive connection. Proxy servers might make
this a higher value since it is likely that the client will be making
more connections through the same server. The use of persistent
connections places no requirements on the length (or existence) of
this time-out for either the client or the server. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 46]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
When a client or server wishes to time-out it SHOULD issue a graceful
close on the transport connection. Clients and servers SHOULD both constantly watch for the other side of the transport close, and respond to it as appropriate. If a client or server does not detect the other side's close promptly it could cause unnecessary resource drain on the network. A client, server, or proxy MAY close the transport connection at any time. For example, a client might have started to send a new request at the same time that the server has decided to close the "idle" connection. From the server's point of view, the connection is being closed while it was idle, but from the client's point of view, a request is in progress. This means that clients, servers, and proxies MUST be able to recover from asynchronous close events. Client software SHOULD reopen the
transport connection and retransmit the aborted sequence of requests
without user interaction so long as the request sequence is
idempotent (see section 9.1.2). Non-idempotent methods or sequences MUST NOT be automatically retried, although user agents MAY offer a human operator the choice of retrying the request(s). Confirmation by
user-agent software with semantic understanding of the application
MAY substitute for user confirmation. The automatic retry SHOULD NOT be repeated if the second sequence of requests fails. Servers SHOULD always respond to at least one request per connection, if at all possible. Servers SHOULD NOT close a connection in the middle of transmitting a response, unless a network or client failure is suspected.
Clients that use persistent connections SHOULD limit the number of
simultaneous connections that they maintain to a given server. A
single-user client SHOULD NOT maintain more than 2 connections with
any server or proxy. A proxy SHOULD use up to 2*N connections to another server or proxy, where N is the number of simultaneously active users. These guidelines are intended to improve HTTP response times and avoid congestion. 8.2 Message Transmission Requirements 8.2.1 Persistent Connections and Flow Control HTTP/1.1 servers SHOULD maintain persistent connections and use TCP's flow control mechanisms to resolve temporary overloads, rather than terminating connections with the expectation that clients will retry. The latter technique can exacerbate network congestion. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 47]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
8.2.2 Monitoring Connections for Error Status Messages An HTTP/1.1 (or later) client sending a message-body SHOULD monitor
the network connection for an error status while it is transmitting
the request. If the client sees an error status, it SHOULD immediately cease transmitting the body. If the body is being sent using a "chunked" encoding (section 3.6), a zero length chunk and empty trailer MAY be used to prematurely mark the end of the message. If the body was preceded by a Content-Length header, the client MUST close the connection. 8.2.3 Use of the 100 (Continue) Status The purpose of the 100 (Continue) status (see section 10.1.1) is to
allow a client that is sending a request message with a request body
to determine if the origin server is willing to accept the request
(based on the request headers) before the client sends the request body. In some cases, it might either be inappropriate or highly
inefficient for the client to send the body if the server will reject
the message without looking at the body. Requirements for HTTP/1.1 clients:
- If a client will wait for a 100 (Continue) response before
sending the request body, it MUST send an Expect request-header field (section 14.20) with the "100-continue" expectation. - A client MUST NOT send an Expect request-header field (section
14.20) with the "100-continue" expectation if it does not intend to send a request body. Because of the presence of older implementations, the protocol allows ambiguous situations in which a client may send "Expect: 100 continue" without receiving either a 417 (Expectation Failed) status or a 100 (Continue) status. Therefore, when a client sends this
header field to an origin server (possibly via a proxy) from which it
has never seen a 100 (Continue) status, the client SHOULD NOT wait for an indefinite period before sending the request body. Requirements for HTTP/1.1 origin servers:
- Upon receiving a request which includes an Expect request-header
field with the "100-continue" expectation, an origin server MUST
either respond with 100 (Continue) status and continue to read
from the input stream, or respond with a final status code. The
origin server MUST NOT wait for the request body before sending
the 100 (Continue) response. If it responds with a final status code, it MAY close the transport connection or it MAY continue Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 48]
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to read and discard the rest of the request. It MUST NOT perform the requested method if it returns a final status code.
- An origin server SHOULD NOT send a 100 (Continue) response if
the request message does not include an Expect request-header
field with the "100-continue" expectation, and MUST NOT send a 100 (Continue) response if such a request comes from an HTTP/1.0 (or earlier) client. There is an exception to this rule: for compatibility with RFC 2068, a server MAY send a 100 (Continue) status in response to an HTTP/1.1 PUT or POST request that does not include an Expect request-header field with the "100 continue" expectation. This exception, the purpose of which is
to minimize any client processing delays associated with an
undeclared wait for 100 (Continue) status, applies only to HTTP/1.1 requests, and not to requests with any other HTTP version value.
- An origin server MAY omit a 100 (Continue) response if it has
already received some or all of the request body for the
corresponding request.
- An origin server that sends a 100 (Continue) response MUST
ultimately send a final status code, once the request body is received and processed, unless it terminates the transport connection prematurely. - If an origin server receives a request that does not include an
Expect request-header field with the "100-continue" expectation, the request includes a request body, and the server responds
with a final status code before reading the entire request body
from the transport connection, then the server SHOULD NOT close the transport connection until it has read the entire request, or until the client closes the connection. Otherwise, the client might not reliably receive the response message. However, this
requirement is not be construed as preventing a server from
defending itself against denial-of-service attacks, or from badly broken client implementations. Requirements for HTTP/1.1 proxies:
- If a proxy receives a request that includes an Expect request
header field with the "100-continue" expectation, and the proxy either knows that the next-hop server complies with HTTP/1.1 or higher, or does not know the HTTP version of the next-hop server, it MUST forward the request, including the Expect header field. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 49]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999 - If the proxy knows that the version of the next-hop server is
HTTP/1.0 or lower, it MUST NOT forward the request, and it MUST respond with a 417 (Expectation Failed) status. - Proxies SHOULD maintain a cache recording the HTTP version
numbers received from recently-referenced next-hop servers. - A proxy MUST NOT forward a 100 (Continue) response if the
request message was received from an HTTP/1.0 (or earlier)
client and did not include an Expect request-header field with
the "100-continue" expectation. This requirement overrides the general rule for forwarding of 1xx responses (see section 10.1). 8.2.4 Client Behavior if Server Prematurely Closes Connection If an HTTP/1.1 client sends a request which includes a request body,
but which does not include an Expect request-header field with the
"100-continue" expectation, and if the client is not directly connected to an HTTP/1.1 origin server, and if the client sees the connection close before receiving any status from the server, the client SHOULD retry the request. If the client does retry this request, it MAY use the following "binary exponential backoff" algorithm to be assured of obtaining a reliable response:
Initiate a new connection to the server
Transmit the request-headers
Initialize a variable R to the estimated round-trip time to the
server (e.g., based on the time it took to establish the connection), or to a constant value of 5 seconds if the round trip time is not available.Compute T = R * (2**N), where N is the number of previous
retries of this request.Wait either for an error response from the server, or for T
seconds (whichever comes first)
If no error response is received, after T seconds transmit the
body of the request.If client sees that the connection is closed prematurely,
repeat from step 1 until the request is accepted, an error response is received, or the user becomes impatient and terminates the retry process. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 50]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If at any point an error status is received, the client
- SHOULD NOT continue and
- SHOULD close the connection if it has not completed sending the
request message. 9 Method Definitions The set of common methods for HTTP/1.1 is defined below. Although this set can be expanded, additional methods cannot be assumed to share the same semantics for separately extended clients and servers. The Host request-header field (section 14.23) MUST accompany all HTTP/1.1 requests. 9.1 Safe and Idempotent Methods 9.1.1 Safe Methods
Implementors should be aware that the software represents the user in
their interactions over the Internet, and should be careful to allow
the user to be aware of any actions they might take which may have an
unexpected significance to themselves or others. In particular, the convention has been established that the GET and
HEAD methods SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action
other than retrieval. These methods ought to be considered "safe". This allows user agents to represent other methods, such as POST, PUT and DELETE, in a special way, so that the user is made aware of the fact that a possibly unsafe action is being requested. Naturally, it is not possible to ensure that the server does not generate side-effects as a result of performing a GET request; in fact, some dynamic resources consider that a feature. The important distinction here is that the user did not request the side-effects, so therefore cannot be held accountable for them. 9.1.2 Idempotent Methods Methods can also have the property of "idempotence" in that (aside from error or expiration issues) the side-effects of N > 0 identical requests is the same as for a single request. The methods GET, HEAD, PUT and DELETE share this property. Also, the methods OPTIONS and TRACE SHOULD NOT have side effects, and so are inherently idempotent. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 51]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
However, it is possible that a sequence of several requests is non idempotent, even if all of the methods executed in that sequence are idempotent. (A sequence is idempotent if a single execution of the
entire sequence always yields a result that is not changed by a
reexecution of all, or part, of that sequence.) For example, a
sequence is non-idempotent if its result depends on a value that is
later modified in the same sequence. A sequence that never has side effects is idempotent, by definition (provided that no concurrent operations are being executed on the same set of resources). 9.2 OPTIONS
The OPTIONS method represents a request for information about the
communication options available on the request/response chain
identified by the Request-URI. This method allows the client to determine the options and/or requirements associated with a resource, or the capabilities of a server, without implying a resource action or initiating a resource retrieval. Responses to this method are not cacheable.
If the OPTIONS request includes an entity-body (as indicated by the
presence of Content-Length or Transfer-Encoding), then the media type MUST be indicated by a Content-Type field. Although this specification does not define any use for such a body, future
extensions to HTTP might use the OPTIONS body to make more detailed
queries on the server. A server that does not support such an extension MAY discard the request body. If the Request-URI is an asterisk ("*"), the OPTIONS request is
intended to apply to the server in general rather than to a specific
resource. Since a server's communication options typically depend on the resource, the "*" request is only useful as a "ping" or "no-op" type of method; it does nothing beyond allowing the client to test the capabilities of the server. For example, this can be used to test a proxy for HTTP/1.1 compliance (or lack thereof). If the Request-URI is not an asterisk, the OPTIONS request applies
only to the options that are available when communicating with that
resource.
A 200 response SHOULD include any header fields that indicate
optional features implemented by the server and applicable to that
resource (e.g., Allow), possibly including extensions not defined by this specification. The response body, if any, SHOULD also include information about the communication options. The format for such a Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 52]
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body is not defined by this specification, but might be defined by future extensions to HTTP. Content negotiation MAY be used to select the appropriate response format. If no response body is included, the
response MUST include a Content-Length field with a field-value of
"0".
The Max-Forwards request-header field MAY be used to target a
specific proxy in the request chain. When a proxy receives an OPTIONS request on an absoluteURI for which request forwarding is permitted, the proxy MUST check for a Max-Forwards field. If the Max-Forwards field-value is zero ("0"), the proxy MUST NOT forward the message; instead, the proxy SHOULD respond with its own communication options. If the Max-Forwards field-value is an integer greater than zero, the proxy MUST decrement the field-value when it forwards the request. If no Max-Forwards field is present in the request, then the forwarded request MUST NOT include a Max-Forwards field. 9.3 GET
The GET method means retrieve whatever information (in the form of an
entity) is identified by the Request-URI. If the Request-URI refers to a data-producing process, it is the produced data which shall be
returned as the entity in the response and not the source text of the
process, unless that text happens to be the output of the process. The semantics of the GET method change to a "conditional GET" if the request message includes an If-Modified-Since, If-Unmodified-Since, If-Match, If-None-Match, or If-Range header field. A conditional GET
method requests that the entity be transferred only under the
circumstances described by the conditional header field(s). The
conditional GET method is intended to reduce unnecessary network
usage by allowing cached entities to be refreshed without requiring
multiple requests or transferring data already held by the client. The semantics of the GET method change to a "partial GET" if the request message includes a Range header field. A partial GET requests that only part of the entity be transferred, as described in section
14.35. The partial GET method is intended to reduce unnecessary
network usage by allowing partially-retrieved entities to be
completed without transferring data already held by the client.
The response to a GET request is cacheable if and only if it meets
the requirements for HTTP caching described in section 13. See section 15.1.3 for security considerations when used for forms. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 53]
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9.4 HEAD
The HEAD method is identical to GET except that the server MUST NOT
return a message-body in the response. The metainformation contained
in the HTTP headers in response to a HEAD request SHOULD be identical
to the information sent in response to a GET request. This method can
be used for obtaining metainformation about the entity implied by the
request without transferring the entity-body itself. This method is often used for testing hypertext links for validity, accessibility, and recent modification.
The response to a HEAD request MAY be cacheable in the sense that the
information contained in the response MAY be used to update a
previously cached entity from that resource. If the new field values
indicate that the cached entity differs from the current entity (as
would be indicated by a change in Content-Length, Content-MD5, ETag or Last-Modified), then the cache MUST treat the cache entry as stale. 9.5 POST
The POST method is used to request that the origin server accept the
entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the resource
identified by the Request-URI in the Request-Line. POST is designed to allow a uniform method to cover the following functions:
- Annotation of existing resources;
- Posting a message to a bulletin board, newsgroup, mailing list,
or similar group of articles; - Providing a block of data, such as the result of submitting a
form, to a data-handling process; - Extending a database through an append operation.
The actual function performed by the POST method is determined by the
server and is usually dependent on the Request-URI. The posted entity
is subordinate to that URI in the same way that a file is subordinate
to a directory containing it, a news article is subordinate to a newsgroup to which it is posted, or a record is subordinate to a database.
The action performed by the POST method might not result in a
resource that can be identified by a URI. In this case, either 200 (OK) or 204 (No Content) is the appropriate response status,
depending on whether or not the response includes an entity that
describes the result. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 54]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If a resource has been created on the origin server, the response
SHOULD be 201 (Created) and contain an entity which describes the
status of the request and refers to the new resource, and a Location header (see section 14.30). Responses to this method are not cacheable, unless the response includes appropriate Cache-Control or Expires header fields. However,
the 303 (See Other) response can be used to direct the user agent to
retrieve a cacheable resource.
POST requests MUST obey the message transmission requirements set out
in section 8.2. See section 15.1.3 for security considerations. 9.6 PUT
The PUT method requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the
supplied Request-URI. If the Request-URI refers to an already existing resource, the enclosed entity SHOULD be considered as a modified version of the one residing on the origin server. If the Request-URI does not point to an existing resource, and that URI is
capable of being defined as a new resource by the requesting user
agent, the origin server can create the resource with that URI. If a new resource is created, the origin server MUST inform the user agent via the 201 (Created) response. If an existing resource is modified,
either the 200 (OK) or 204 (No Content) response codes SHOULD be sent
to indicate successful completion of the request. If the resource could not be created or modified with the Request-URI, an appropriate
error response SHOULD be given that reflects the nature of the
problem. The recipient of the entity MUST NOT ignore any Content-* (e.g. Content-Range) headers that it does not understand or implement and MUST return a 501 (Not Implemented) response in such cases.
If the request passes through a cache and the Request-URI identifies
one or more currently cached entities, those entries SHOULD be treated as stale. Responses to this method are not cacheable.
The fundamental difference between the POST and PUT requests is
reflected in the different meaning of the Request-URI. The URI in a
POST request identifies the resource that will handle the enclosed
entity. That resource might be a data-accepting process, a gateway to some other protocol, or a separate entity that accepts annotations. In contrast, the URI in a PUT request identifies the entity enclosed
with the request -- the user agent knows what URI is intended and the
server MUST NOT attempt to apply the request to some other resource. If the server desires that the request be applied to a different URI, Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 55]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
it MUST send a 301 (Moved Permanently) response; the user agent MAY
then make its own decision regarding whether or not to redirect the
request. A single resource MAY be identified by many different URIs. For example, an article might have a URI for identifying "the current version" which is separate from the URI identifying each particular version. In this case, a PUT request on a general URI might result in several other URIs being defined by the origin server. HTTP/1.1 does not define how a PUT method affects the state of an origin server.
PUT requests MUST obey the message transmission requirements set out
in section 8.2. Unless otherwise specified for a particular entity-header, the
entity-headers in the PUT request SHOULD be applied to the resource
created or modified by the PUT. 9.7 DELETE
The DELETE method requests that the origin server delete the resource
identified by the Request-URI. This method MAY be overridden by human intervention (or other means) on the origin server. The client cannot be guaranteed that the operation has been carried out, even if the
status code returned from the origin server indicates that the action
has been completed successfully. However, the server SHOULD NOT indicate success unless, at the time the response is given, it
intends to delete the resource or move it to an inaccessible
location.
A successful response SHOULD be 200 (OK) if the response includes an
entity describing the status, 202 (Accepted) if the action has not yet been enacted, or 204 (No Content) if the action has been enacted but the response does not include an entity.
If the request passes through a cache and the Request-URI identifies
one or more currently cached entities, those entries SHOULD be treated as stale. Responses to this method are not cacheable. 9.8 TRACE The TRACE method is used to invoke a remote, application-layer loop back of the request message. The final recipient of the request
SHOULD reflect the message received back to the client as the
entity-body of a 200 (OK) response. The final recipient is either the Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 56]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
origin server or the first proxy or gateway to receive a Max-Forwards
value of zero (0) in the request (see section 14.31). A TRACE request MUST NOT include an entity.
TRACE allows the client to see what is being received at the other
end of the request chain and use that data for testing or diagnostic
information. The value of the Via header field (section 14.45) is of particular interest, since it acts as a trace of the request chain.
Use of the Max-Forwards header field allows the client to limit the
length of the request chain, which is useful for testing a chain of proxies forwarding messages in an infinite loop. If the request is valid, the response SHOULD contain the entire request message in the entity-body, with a Content-Type of "message/http". Responses to this method MUST NOT be cached. 9.9 CONNECT
This specification reserves the method name CONNECT for use with a
proxy that can dynamically switch to being a tunnel (e.g. SSL tunneling [44]). 10 Status Code Definitions Each Status-Code is described below, including a description of which
method(s) it can follow and any metainformation required in the
response. 10.1 Informational 1xx This class of status code indicates a provisional response, consisting only of the Status-Line and optional headers, and is terminated by an empty line. There are no required headers for this class of status code. Since HTTP/1.0 did not define any 1xx status codes, servers MUST NOT send a 1xx response to an HTTP/1.0 client except under experimental conditions.
A client MUST be prepared to accept one or more 1xx status responses
prior to a regular response, even if the client does not expect a 100 (Continue) status message. Unexpected 1xx status responses MAY be ignored by a user agent. Proxies MUST forward 1xx responses, unless the connection between the proxy and its client has been closed, or unless the proxy itself requested the generation of the 1xx response. (For example, if a Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 57]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
proxy adds a "Expect: 100-continue" field when it forwards a request,
then it need not forward the corresponding 100 (Continue)
response(s).) 10.1.1 100 Continue The client SHOULD continue with its request. This interim response is
used to inform the client that the initial part of the request has
been received and has not yet been rejected by the server. The client SHOULD continue by sending the remainder of the request or, if the request has already been completed, ignore this response. The server MUST send a final response after the request has been completed. See section 8.2.3 for detailed discussion of the use and handling of this status code. 10.1.2 101 Switching Protocols The server understands and is willing to comply with the client's request, via the Upgrade message header field (section 14.42), for a change in the application protocol being used on this connection. The server will switch protocols to those defined by the response's
Upgrade header field immediately after the empty line which
terminates the 101 response.
The protocol SHOULD be switched only when it is advantageous to do
so. For example, switching to a newer version of HTTP is advantageous over older versions, and switching to a real-time, synchronous
protocol might be advantageous when delivering resources that use
such features. 10.2 Successful 2xx This class of status code indicates that the client's request was successfully received, understood, and accepted. 10.2.1 200 OK The request has succeeded. The information returned with the response is dependent on the method used in the request, for example:
GET an entity corresponding to the requested resource is sent in
the response;
HEAD the entity-header fields corresponding to the requested
resource are sent in the response without any message-body; POST an entity describing or containing the result of the action; Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 58]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
TRACE an entity containing the request message as received by the
end server. 10.2.2 201 Created
The request has been fulfilled and resulted in a new resource being
created. The newly created resource can be referenced by the URI(s) returned in the entity of the response, with the most specific URI for the resource given by a Location header field. The response
SHOULD include an entity containing a list of resource
characteristics and location(s) from which the user or user agent can
choose the one most appropriate. The entity format is specified by the media type given in the Content-Type header field. The origin server MUST create the resource before returning the 201 status code. If the action cannot be carried out immediately, the server SHOULD respond with 202 (Accepted) response instead.
A 201 response MAY contain an ETag response header field indicating
the current value of the entity tag for the requested variant just
created, see section 14.19. 10.2.3 202 Accepted The request has been accepted for processing, but the processing has not been completed. The request might or might not eventually be acted upon, as it might be disallowed when processing actually takes place. There is no facility for re-sending a status code from an asynchronous operation such as this. The 202 response is intentionally non-committal. Its purpose is to
allow a server to accept a request for some other process (perhaps a
batch-oriented process that is only run once per day) without
requiring that the user agent's connection to the server persist until the process is completed. The entity returned with this response SHOULD include an indication of the request's current status
and either a pointer to a status monitor or some estimate of when the
user can expect the request to be fulfilled. 10.2.4 203 Non-Authoritative Information
The returned metainformation in the entity-header is not the
definitive set as available from the origin server, but is gathered from a local or a third-party copy. The set presented MAY be a subset or superset of the original version. For example, including local
annotation information about the resource might result in a superset
of the metainformation known by the origin server. Use of this
response code is not required and is only appropriate when the
response would otherwise be 200 (OK). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 59]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
10.2.5 204 No Content
The server has fulfilled the request but does not need to return an
entity-body, and might want to return updated metainformation. The
response MAY include new or updated metainformation in the form of
entity-headers, which if present SHOULD be associated with the requested variant. If the client is a user agent, it SHOULD NOT change its document view from that which caused the request to be sent. This response is
primarily intended to allow input for actions to take place without
causing a change to the user agent's active document view, although
any new or updated metainformation SHOULD be applied to the document
currently in the user agent's active view. The 204 response MUST NOT include a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields. 10.2.6 205 Reset Content
The server has fulfilled the request and the user agent SHOULD reset
the document view which caused the request to be sent. This response
is primarily intended to allow input for actions to take place via
user input, followed by a clearing of the form in which the input is given so that the user can easily initiate another input action. The response MUST NOT include an entity. 10.2.7 206 Partial Content The server has fulfilled the partial GET request for the resource. The request MUST have included a Range header field (section 14.35) indicating the desired range, and MAY have included an If-Range header field (section 14.27) to make the request conditional. The response MUST include the following header fields:
- Either a Content-Range header field (section 14.16) indicating
the range included with this response, or a multipart/byteranges Content-Type including Content-Range fields for each part. If a Content-Length header field is present in the response, its
value MUST match the actual number of OCTETs transmitted in the
message-body.
- Date
- ETag and/or Content-Location, if the header would have been sent
in a 200 response to the same request
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 60]
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- Expires, Cache-Control, and/or Vary, if the field-value might
differ from that sent in any previous response for the same
variant
If the 206 response is the result of an If-Range request that used a
strong cache validator (see section 13.3.3), the response SHOULD NOT include other entity-headers. If the response is the result of an If-Range request that used a weak validator, the response MUST NOT include other entity-headers; this prevents inconsistencies between cached entity-bodies and updated headers. Otherwise, the response
MUST include all of the entity-headers that would have been returned
with a 200 (OK) response to the same request.
A cache MUST NOT combine a 206 response with other previously cached
content if the ETag or Last-Modified headers do not match exactly, see 13.5.4.
A cache that does not support the Range and Content-Range headers
MUST NOT cache 206 (Partial) responses. 10.3 Redirection 3xx
This class of status code indicates that further action needs to be
taken by the user agent in order to fulfill the request. The action
required MAY be carried out by the user agent without interaction
with the user if and only if the method used in the second request is
GET or HEAD. A client SHOULD detect infinite redirection loops, since such loops generate network traffic for each redirection. Note: previous versions of this specification recommended a maximum of five redirections. Content developers should be aware
that there might be clients that implement such a fixed
limitation. 10.3.1 300 Multiple Choices
The requested resource corresponds to any one of a set of
representations, each with its own specific location, and agent
driven negotiation information (section 12) is being provided so that
the user (or user agent) can select a preferred representation and
redirect its request to that location. Unless it was a HEAD request, the response SHOULD include an entity
containing a list of resource characteristics and location(s) from
which the user or user agent can choose the one most appropriate. The
entity format is specified by the media type given in the Content
Type header field. Depending upon the format and the capabilities of Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 61]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
the user agent, selection of the most appropriate choice MAY be performed automatically. However, this specification does not define any standard for such automatic selection. If the server has a preferred choice of representation, it SHOULD
include the specific URI for that representation in the Location
field; user agents MAY use the Location field value for automatic redirection. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise. 10.3.2 301 Moved Permanently
The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any
future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned
URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically
re-link references to the Request-URI to one or more of the new
references returned by the server, where possible. This response is
cacheable unless indicated otherwise.
The new permanent URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the
response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the
response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to
the new URI(s).
If the 301 status code is received in response to a request other
than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued. Note: When automatically redirecting a POST request after receiving a 301 status code, some existing HTTP/1.0 user agents will erroneously change it into a GET request. 10.3.3 302 Found The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection might be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests. This response
is only cacheable if indicated by a Cache-Control or Expires header
field.
The temporary URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the
response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the
response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to
the new URI(s). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 62]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If the 302 status code is received in response to a request other
than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued. Note: RFC 1945 and RFC 2068 specify that the client is not allowed to change the method on the redirected request. However, most
existing user agent implementations treat 302 as if it were a 303
response, performing a GET on the Location field-value regardless of the original request method. The status codes 303 and 307 have
been added for servers that wish to make unambiguously clear which
kind of reaction is expected of the client. 10.3.4 303 See Other
The response to the request can be found under a different URI and
SHOULD be retrieved using a GET method on that resource. This method
exists primarily to allow the output of a POST-activated script to
redirect the user agent to a selected resource. The new URI is not a substitute reference for the originally requested resource. The 303 response MUST NOT be cached, but the response to the second (redirected) request might be cacheable.
The different URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the
response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the
response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to
the new URI(s). Note: Many pre-HTTP/1.1 user agents do not understand the 303 status. When interoperability with such clients is a concern, the 302 status code may be used instead, since most user agents react to a 302 response as described here for 303. 10.3.5 304 Not Modified
If the client has performed a conditional GET request and access is
allowed, but the document has not been modified, the server SHOULD respond with this status code. The 304 response MUST NOT contain a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields. The response MUST include the following header fields:
- Date, unless its omission is required by section 14.18.1
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 63]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If a clockless origin server obeys these rules, and proxies and
clients add their own Date to any response received without one (as
already specified by [RFC 2068], section 14.19), caches will operate correctly.
- ETag and/or Content-Location, if the header would have been sent
in a 200 response to the same request
- Expires, Cache-Control, and/or Vary, if the field-value might
differ from that sent in any previous response for the same
variant
If the conditional GET used a strong cache validator (see section
13.3.3), the response SHOULD NOT include other entity-headers. Otherwise (i.e., the conditional GET used a weak validator), the response MUST NOT include other entity-headers; this prevents inconsistencies between cached entity-bodies and updated headers. If a 304 response indicates an entity not currently cached, then the
cache MUST disregard the response and repeat the request without the
conditional. If a cache uses a received 304 response to update a cache entry, the
cache MUST update the entry to reflect any new field values given in
the response. 10.3.6 305 Use Proxy
The requested resource MUST be accessed through the proxy given by
the Location field. The Location field gives the URI of the proxy.
The recipient is expected to repeat this single request via the
proxy. 305 responses MUST only be generated by origin servers. Note: RFC 2068 was not clear that 305 was intended to redirect a single request, and to be generated by origin servers only. Not observing these limitations has significant security consequences. 10.3.7 306 (Unused)
The 306 status code was used in a previous version of the
specification, is no longer used, and the code is reserved. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 64]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
10.3.8 307 Temporary Redirect The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection MAY be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests. This response
is only cacheable if indicated by a Cache-Control or Expires header
field.
The temporary URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the
response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the
response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to
the new URI(s) , since many pre-HTTP/1.1 user agents do not understand the 307 status. Therefore, the note SHOULD contain the
information necessary for a user to repeat the original request on
the new URI.
If the 307 status code is received in response to a request other
than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued. 10.4 Client Error 4xx
The 4xx class of status code is intended for cases in which the
client seems to have erred. Except when responding to a HEAD request,
the server SHOULD include an entity containing an explanation of the
error situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. These status codes are applicable to any request method. User agents SHOULD display any included entity to the user. If the client is sending data, a server implementation using TCP
SHOULD be careful to ensure that the client acknowledges receipt of
the packet(s) containing the response, before the server closes the input connection. If the client continues sending data to the server after the close, the server's TCP stack will send a reset packet to the client, which may erase the client's unacknowledged input buffers before they can be read and interpreted by the HTTP application. 10.4.1 400 Bad Request
The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed
syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 65]
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10.4.2 401 Unauthorized The request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field (section 14.47) containing a challenge applicable to the requested resource. The client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Authorization header field (section 14.8). If the request already included Authorization credentials, then the 401
response indicates that authorization has been refused for those
credentials. If the 401 response contains the same challenge as the prior response, and the user agent has already attempted authentication at least once, then the user SHOULD be presented the entity that was given in the response, since that entity might include relevant diagnostic information. HTTP access authentication is explained in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" [43]. 10.4.3 402 Payment Required This code is reserved for future use. 10.4.4 403 Forbidden The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it. Authorization will not help and the request SHOULD NOT be repeated.
If the request method was not HEAD and the server wishes to make
public why the request has not been fulfilled, it SHOULD describe the reason for the refusal in the entity. If the server does not wish to make this information available to the client, the status code 404 (Not Found) can be used instead. 10.4.5 404 Not Found The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No
indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or
permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address.
This status code is commonly used when the server does not wish to
reveal exactly why the request has been refused, or when no other response is applicable. 10.4.6 405 Method Not Allowed
The method specified in the Request-Line is not allowed for the
resource identified by the Request-URI. The response MUST include an
Allow header containing a list of valid methods for the requested
resource. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 66]
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10.4.7 406 Not Acceptable
The resource identified by the request is only capable of generating
response entities which have content characteristics not acceptable
according to the accept headers sent in the request. Unless it was a HEAD request, the response SHOULD include an entity
containing a list of available entity characteristics and location(s)
from which the user or user agent can choose the one most
appropriate. The entity format is specified by the media type given in the Content-Type header field. Depending upon the format and the capabilities of the user agent, selection of the most appropriate choice MAY be performed automatically. However, this specification does not define any standard for such automatic selection. Note: HTTP/1.1 servers are allowed to return responses which are
not acceptable according to the accept headers sent in the
request. In some cases, this may even be preferable to sending a 406 response. User agents are encouraged to inspect the headers of an incoming response to determine if it is acceptable. If the response could be unacceptable, a user agent SHOULD
temporarily stop receipt of more data and query the user for a
decision on further actions. 10.4.8 407 Proxy Authentication Required This code is similar to 401 (Unauthorized), but indicates that the client must first authenticate itself with the proxy. The proxy MUST return a Proxy-Authenticate header field (section 14.33) containing a challenge applicable to the proxy for the requested resource. The
client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Proxy-Authorization
header field (section 14.34). HTTP access authentication is explained in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication"
[43].
10.4.9 408 Request Timeout
The client did not produce a request within the time that the server
was prepared to wait. The client MAY repeat the request without modifications at any later time. 10.4.10 409 Conflict
The request could not be completed due to a conflict with the current
state of the resource. This code is only allowed in situations where
it is expected that the user might be able to resolve the conflict
and resubmit the request. The response body SHOULD include enough Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 67]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
information for the user to recognize the source of the conflict. Ideally, the response entity would include enough information for the user or user agent to fix the problem; however, that might not be possible and is not required. Conflicts are most likely to occur in response to a PUT request. For example, if versioning were being used and the entity being PUT
included changes to a resource which conflict with those made by an
earlier (third-party) request, the server might use the 409 response to indicate that it can't complete the request. In this case, the
response entity would likely contain a list of the differences
between the two versions in a format defined by the response
Content-Type. 10.4.11 410 Gone
The requested resource is no longer available at the server and no
forwarding address is known. This condition is expected to be considered permanent. Clients with link editing capabilities SHOULD delete references to the Request-URI after user approval. If the server does not know, or has no facility to determine, whether or not the condition is permanent, the status code 404 (Not Found) SHOULD be used instead. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.
The 410 response is primarily intended to assist the task of web
maintenance by notifying the recipient that the resource is
intentionally unavailable and that the server owners desire that
remote links to that resource be removed. Such an event is common for limited-time, promotional services and for resources belonging to individuals no longer working at the server's site. It is not necessary to mark all permanently unavailable resources as "gone" or
to keep the mark for any length of time -- that is left to the
discretion of the server owner. 10.4.12 411 Length Required
The server refuses to accept the request without a defined Content
Length. The client MAY repeat the request if it adds a valid
Content-Length header field containing the length of the message-body
in the request message. 10.4.13 412 Precondition Failed
The precondition given in one or more of the request-header fields
evaluated to false when it was tested on the server. This response
code allows the client to place preconditions on the current resource
metainformation (header field data) and thus prevent the requested
method from being applied to a resource other than the one intended. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 68]
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10.4.14 413 Request Entity Too Large
The server is refusing to process a request because the request
entity is larger than the server is willing or able to process. The
server MAY close the connection to prevent the client from continuing
the request. If the condition is temporary, the server SHOULD include a Retry
After header field to indicate that it is temporary and after what
time the client MAY try again. 10.4.15 414 Request-URI Too Long
The server is refusing to service the request because the Request-URI
is longer than the server is willing to interpret. This rare
condition is only likely to occur when a client has improperly
converted a POST request to a GET request with long query
information, when the client has descended into a URI "black hole" of redirection (e.g., a redirected URI prefix that points to a suffix of itself), or when the server is under attack by a client attempting to
exploit security holes present in some servers using fixed-length
buffers for reading or manipulating the Request-URI. 10.4.16 415 Unsupported Media Type
The server is refusing to service the request because the entity of
the request is in a format not supported by the requested resource
for the requested method. 10.4.17 416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable
A server SHOULD return a response with this status code if a request
included a Range request-header field (section 14.35), and none of
the range-specifier values in this field overlap the current extent
of the selected resource, and the request did not include an If-Range request-header field. (For byte-ranges, this means that the first
byte-pos of all of the byte-range-spec values were greater than the
current length of the selected resource.) When this status code is returned for a byte-range request, the
response SHOULD include a Content-Range entity-header field
specifying the current length of the selected resource (see section
14.16). This response MUST NOT use the multipart/byteranges content type. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 69]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
10.4.18 417 Expectation Failed
The expectation given in an Expect request-header field (see section
14.20) could not be met by this server, or, if the server is a proxy,
the server has unambiguous evidence that the request could not be met
by the next-hop server. 10.5 Server Error 5xx Response status codes beginning with the digit "5" indicate cases in
which the server is aware that it has erred or is incapable of
performing the request. Except when responding to a HEAD request, the
server SHOULD include an entity containing an explanation of the
error situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. User agents SHOULD display any included entity to the user. These response codes are applicable to any request method. 10.5.1 500 Internal Server Error
The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it
from fulfilling the request. 10.5.2 501 Not Implemented
The server does not support the functionality required to fulfill the
request. This is the appropriate response when the server does not
recognize the request method and is not capable of supporting it for
any resource. 10.5.3 502 Bad Gateway The server, while acting as a gateway or proxy, received an invalid
response from the upstream server it accessed in attempting to
fulfill the request. 10.5.4 503 Service Unavailable
The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a
temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication
is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after
some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response. Note: The existence of the 503 status code does not imply that a server must use it when becoming overloaded. Some servers may wish to simply refuse the connection. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 70]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
10.5.5 504 Gateway Timeout The server, while acting as a gateway or proxy, did not receive a timely response from the upstream server specified by the URI (e.g. HTTP, FTP, LDAP) or some other auxiliary server (e.g. DNS) it needed to access in attempting to complete the request. Note: Note to implementors: some deployed proxies are known to return 400 or 500 when DNS lookups time out. 10.5.6 505 HTTP Version Not Supported The server does not support, or refuses to support, the HTTP protocol version that was used in the request message. The server is
indicating that it is unable or unwilling to complete the request
using the same major version as the client, as described in section 3.1, other than with this error message. The response SHOULD contain
an entity describing why that version is not supported and what other
protocols are supported by that server. 11 Access Authentication
HTTP provides several OPTIONAL challenge-response authentication
mechanisms which can be used by a server to challenge a client
request and by a client to provide authentication information. The general framework for access authentication, and the specification of "basic" and "digest" authentication, are specified in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" [43]. This specification adopts the definitions of "challenge" and "credentials" from that specification. 12 Content Negotiation
Most HTTP responses include an entity which contains information for
interpretation by a human user. Naturally, it is desirable to supply the user with the "best available" entity corresponding to the request. Unfortunately for servers and caches, not all users have the same preferences for what is "best," and not all user agents are equally capable of rendering all entity types. For that reason, HTTP has provisions for several mechanisms for "content negotiation" -
the process of selecting the best representation for a given response
when there are multiple representations available. Note: This is not called "format negotiation" because the alternate representations may be of the same media type, but use different capabilities of that type, be in different languages, etc. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 71]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Any response containing an entity-body MAY be subject to negotiation, including error responses.
There are two kinds of content negotiation which are possible in
HTTP: server-driven and agent-driven negotiation. These two kinds of
negotiation are orthogonal and thus may be used separately or in
combination. One method of combination, referred to as transparent negotiation, occurs when a cache uses the agent-driven negotiation
information provided by the origin server in order to provide
server-driven negotiation for subsequent requests. 12.1 Server-driven Negotiation
If the selection of the best representation for a response is made by
an algorithm located at the server, it is called server-driven negotiation. Selection is based on the available representations of the response (the dimensions over which it can vary; e.g. language, content-coding, etc.) and the contents of particular header fields in
the request message or on other information pertaining to the request
(such as the network address of the client).
Server-driven negotiation is advantageous when the algorithm for
selecting from among the available representations is difficult to
describe to the user agent, or when the server desires to send its "best guess" to the client along with the first response (hoping to avoid the round-trip delay of a subsequent request if the "best guess" is good enough for the user). In order to improve the server's guess, the user agent MAY include request header fields (Accept, Accept-Language, Accept-Encoding, etc.) which describe its preferences for such a response. Server-driven negotiation has disadvantages:
- It is impossible for the server to accurately determine what
might be "best" for any given user, since that would require
complete knowledge of both the capabilities of the user agent
and the intended use for the response (e.g., does the user want to view it on screen or print it on paper?).
- Having the user agent describe its capabilities in every
request can be both very inefficient (given that only a small
percentage of responses have multiple representations) and a
potential violation of the user's privacy.
It complicates the implementation of an origin server and the
algorithms for generating responses to a request. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 72]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999It may limit a public cache's ability to use the same response
for multiple user's requests. HTTP/1.1 includes the following request-header fields for enabling
server-driven negotiation through description of user agent
capabilities and user preferences: Accept (section 14.1), Accept Charset (section 14.2), Accept-Encoding (section 14.3), Accept Language (section 14.4), and User-Agent (section 14.43). However, an
origin server is not limited to these dimensions and MAY vary the
response based on any aspect of the request, including information
outside the request-header fields or within extension header fields
not defined by this specification.
The Vary header field can be used to express the parameters the
server uses to select a representation that is subject to server
driven negotiation. See section 13.6 for use of the Vary header field by caches and section 14.44 for use of the Vary header field by servers. 12.2 Agent-driven Negotiation With agent-driven negotiation, selection of the best representation
for a response is performed by the user agent after receiving an
initial response from the origin server. Selection is based on a list
of the available representations of the response included within the
header fields or entity-body of the initial response, with each representation identified by its own URI. Selection from among the
representations may be performed automatically (if the user agent is
capable of doing so) or manually by the user selecting from a
generated (possibly hypertext) menu.
Agent-driven negotiation is advantageous when the response would vary
over commonly-used dimensions (such as type, language, or encoding), when the origin server is unable to determine a user agent's capabilities from examining the request, and generally when public caches are used to distribute server load and reduce network usage.
Agent-driven negotiation suffers from the disadvantage of needing a
second request to obtain the best alternate representation. This second request is only efficient when caching is used. In addition,
this specification does not define any mechanism for supporting
automatic selection, though it also does not prevent any such
mechanism from being developed as an extension and used within
HTTP/1.1. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 73]
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HTTP/1.1 defines the 300 (Multiple Choices) and 406 (Not Acceptable)
status codes for enabling agent-driven negotiation when the server is
unwilling or unable to provide a varying response using server-driven
negotiation. 12.3 Transparent Negotiation
Transparent negotiation is a combination of both server-driven and
agent-driven negotiation. When a cache is supplied with a form of the
list of available representations of the response (as in agent-driven
negotiation) and the dimensions of variance are completely understood
by the cache, then the cache becomes capable of performing server
driven negotiation on behalf of the origin server for subsequent
requests on that resource.
Transparent negotiation has the advantage of distributing the
negotiation work that would otherwise be required of the origin
server and also removing the second request delay of agent-driven
negotiation when the cache is able to correctly guess the right
response.
This specification does not define any mechanism for transparent
negotiation, though it also does not prevent any such mechanism from being developed as an extension that could be used within HTTP/1.1. 13 Caching in HTTP HTTP is typically used for distributed information systems, where performance can be improved by the use of response caches. The HTTP/1.1 protocol includes a number of elements intended to make caching work as well as possible. Because these elements are inextricable from other aspects of the protocol, and because they interact with each other, it is useful to describe the basic caching design of HTTP separately from the detailed descriptions of methods, headers, response codes, etc.
Caching would be useless if it did not significantly improve
performance. The goal of caching in HTTP/1.1 is to eliminate the need to send requests in many cases, and to eliminate the need to send full responses in many other cases. The former reduces the number of network round-trips required for many operations; we use an "expiration" mechanism for this purpose (see section 13.2). The latter reduces network bandwidth requirements; we use a "validation" mechanism for this purpose (see section 13.3). Requirements for performance, availability, and disconnected
operation require us to be able to relax the goal of semantic
transparency. The HTTP/1.1 protocol allows origin servers, caches, Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 74]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
and clients to explicitly reduce transparency when necessary. However, because non-transparent operation may confuse non-expert users, and might be incompatible with certain server applications (such as those for ordering merchandise), the protocol requires that
transparency be relaxed
- only by an explicit protocol-level request when relaxed by
client or origin server
- only with an explicit warning to the end user when relaxed by
cache or client
Therefore, the HTTP/1.1 protocol provides these important elements:
Protocol features that provide full semantic transparency when
this is required by all parties.Protocol features that allow an origin server or user agent to
explicitly request and control non-transparent operation.Protocol features that allow a cache to attach warnings to
responses that do not preserve the requested approximation of
semantic transparency.
A basic principle is that it must be possible for the clients to
detect any potential relaxation of semantic transparency. Note: The server, cache, or client implementor might be faced with design decisions not explicitly discussed in this specification. If a decision might affect semantic transparency, the implementor
ought to err on the side of maintaining transparency unless a
careful and complete analysis shows significant benefits in
breaking transparency. 13.1.1 Cache Correctness
A correct cache MUST respond to a request with the most up-to-date
response held by the cache that is appropriate to the request (see
sections 13.2.5, 13.2.6, and 13.12) which meets one of the following conditions:
- It has been checked for equivalence with what the origin server
would have returned by revalidating the response with the
origin server (section 13.3); Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 75]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
- It is "fresh enough" (see section 13.2). In the default case,
this means it meets the least restrictive freshness requirement
of the client, origin server, and cache (see section 14.9); if the origin server so specifies, it is the freshness requirement of the origin server alone. If a stored response is not "fresh enough" by the most
restrictive freshness requirement of both the client and the
origin server, in carefully considered circumstances the cache
MAY still return the response with the appropriate Warning
header (see section 13.1.5 and 14.46), unless such a response is prohibited (e.g., by a "no-store" cache-directive, or by a "no-cache" cache-request-directive; see section 14.9).
- It is an appropriate 304 (Not Modified), 305 (Proxy Redirect),
or error (4xx or 5xx) response message. If the cache can not communicate with the origin server, then a
correct cache SHOULD respond as above if the response can be
correctly served from the cache; if not it MUST return an error or warning indicating that there was a communication failure. If a cache receives a response (either an entire response, or a 304 (Not Modified) response) that it would normally forward to the requesting client, and the received response is no longer fresh, the
cache SHOULD forward it to the requesting client without adding a new
Warning (but without removing any existing Warning headers). A cache
SHOULD NOT attempt to revalidate a response simply because that
response became stale in transit; this might lead to an infinite loop. A user agent that receives a stale response without a Warning MAY display a warning indication to the user. 13.1.2 Warnings
Whenever a cache returns a response that is neither first-hand nor
"fresh enough" (in the sense of condition 2 in section 13.1.1), it MUST attach a warning to that effect, using a Warning general-header.
The Warning header and the currently defined warnings are described
in section 14.46. The warning allows clients to take appropriate action. Warnings MAY be used for other purposes, both cache-related and otherwise. The use of a warning, rather than an error status code, distinguish these responses from true failures. Warnings are assigned three digit warn-codes. The first digit
indicates whether the Warning MUST or MUST NOT be deleted from a
stored cache entry after a successful revalidation: Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 76]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
1xx Warnings that describe the freshness or revalidation status of the response, and so MUST be deleted after a successful revalidation. 1XX warn-codes MAY be generated by a cache only when validating a cached entry. It MUST NOT be generated by clients. 2xx Warnings that describe some aspect of the entity body or entity headers that is not rectified by a revalidation (for example, a
lossy compression of the entity bodies) and which MUST NOT be
deleted after a successful revalidation. See section 14.46 for the definitions of the codes themselves. HTTP/1.0 caches will cache all Warnings in responses, without deleting the ones in the first category. Warnings in responses that are passed to HTTP/1.0 caches carry an extra warning-date field, which prevents a future HTTP/1.1 recipient from believing an erroneously cached Warning. Warnings also carry a warning text. The text MAY be in any appropriate natural language (perhaps based on the client's Accept headers), and include an OPTIONAL indication of what character set is used.
Multiple warnings MAY be attached to a response (either by the origin
server or by a cache), including multiple warnings with the same code number. For example, a server might provide the same warning with texts in both English and Basque. When multiple warnings are attached to a response, it might not be practical or reasonable to display all of them to the user. This
version of HTTP does not specify strict priority rules for deciding
which warnings to display and in what order, but does suggest some heuristics. 13.1.3 Cache-control Mechanisms The basic cache mechanisms in HTTP/1.1 (server-specified expiration times and validators) are implicit directives to caches. In some cases, a server or client might need to provide explicit directives to the HTTP caches. We use the Cache-Control header for this purpose.
The Cache-Control header allows a client or server to transmit a
variety of directives in either requests or responses. These directives typically override the default caching algorithms. As a general rule, if there is any apparent conflict between header values, the most restrictive interpretation is applied (that is, the one that is most likely to preserve semantic transparency). However, Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 77]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
in some cases, cache-control directives are explicitly specified as weakening the approximation of semantic transparency (for example, "max-stale" or "public"). The cache-control directives are described in detail in section 14.9. 13.1.4 Explicit User Agent Warnings
Many user agents make it possible for users to override the basic
caching mechanisms. For example, the user agent might allow the user
to specify that cached entities (even explicitly stale ones) are
never validated. Or the user agent might habitually add "Cache Control: max-stale=3600" to every request. The user agent SHOULD NOT default to either non-transparent behavior, or behavior that results in abnormally ineffective caching, but MAY be explicitly configured to do so by an explicit action of the user. If the user has overridden the basic caching mechanisms, the user
agent SHOULD explicitly indicate to the user whenever this results in
the display of information that might not meet the server's transparency requirements (in particular, if the displayed entity is known to be stale). Since the protocol normally allows the user agent to determine if responses are stale or not, this indication need only be displayed when this actually happens. The indication need not be a dialog box; it could be an icon (for example, a picture of a rotting fish) or some other indicator.
If the user has overridden the caching mechanisms in a way that would
abnormally reduce the effectiveness of caches, the user agent SHOULD continually indicate this state to the user (for example, by a
display of a picture of currency in flames) so that the user does not
inadvertently consume excess resources or suffer from excessive
latency. 13.1.5 Exceptions to the Rules and Warnings In some cases, the operator of a cache MAY choose to configure it to return stale responses even when not requested by clients. This decision ought not be made lightly, but may be necessary for reasons of availability or performance, especially when the cache is poorly connected to the origin server. Whenever a cache returns a stale response, it MUST mark it as such (using a Warning header) enabling
the client software to alert the user that there might be a potential
problem. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 78]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
It also allows the user agent to take steps to obtain a first-hand or
fresh response. For this reason, a cache SHOULD NOT return a stale response if the client explicitly requests a first-hand or fresh one, unless it is impossible to comply for technical or policy reasons. 13.1.6 Client-controlled Behavior While the origin server (and to a lesser extent, intermediate caches,
by their contribution to the age of a response) are the primary
source of expiration information, in some cases the client might need to control a cache's decision about whether to return a cached response without validating it. Clients do this using several directives of the Cache-Control header. A client's request MAY specify the maximum age it is willing to accept of an unvalidated response; specifying a value of zero forces the cache(s) to revalidate all responses. A client MAY also specify the minimum time remaining before a response expires. Both of these options increase constraints on the behavior of caches, and so cannot further relax the cache's approximation of semantic transparency. A client MAY also specify that it will accept stale responses, up to some maximum amount of staleness. This loosens the constraints on the caches, and so might violate the origin server's specified constraints on semantic transparency, but might be necessary to support disconnected operation, or high availability in the face of poor connectivity. 13.2 Expiration Model 13.2.1 Server-Specified Expiration
HTTP caching works best when caches can entirely avoid making
requests to the origin server. The primary mechanism for avoiding
requests is for an origin server to provide an explicit expiration
time in the future, indicating that a response MAY be used to satisfy subsequent requests. In other words, a cache can return a fresh response without first contacting the server.
Our expectation is that servers will assign future explicit
expiration times to responses in the belief that the entity is not
likely to change, in a semantically significant way, before the expiration time is reached. This normally preserves semantic transparency, as long as the server's expiration times are carefully chosen. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 79]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
The expiration mechanism applies only to responses taken from a cache
and not to first-hand responses forwarded immediately to the
requesting client.
If an origin server wishes to force a semantically transparent cache
to validate every request, it MAY assign an explicit expiration time in the past. This means that the response is always stale, and so the cache SHOULD validate it before using it for subsequent requests. See section 14.9.4 for a more restrictive way to force revalidation. If an origin server wishes to force any HTTP/1.1 cache, no matter how it is configured, to validate every request, it SHOULD use the "must revalidate" cache-control directive (see section 14.9).
Servers specify explicit expiration times using either the Expires
header, or the max-age directive of the Cache-Control header.
An expiration time cannot be used to force a user agent to refresh
its display or reload a resource; its semantics apply only to caching mechanisms, and such mechanisms need only check a resource's expiration status when a new request for that resource is initiated. See section 13.13 for an explanation of the difference between caches and history mechanisms. 13.2.2 Heuristic Expiration Since origin servers do not always provide explicit expiration times, HTTP caches typically assign heuristic expiration times, employing
algorithms that use other header values (such as the Last-Modified
time) to estimate a plausible expiration time. The HTTP/1.1 specification does not provide specific algorithms, but does impose worst-case constraints on their results. Since heuristic expiration times might compromise semantic transparency, they ought to used cautiously, and we encourage origin servers to provide explicit expiration times as much as possible. 13.2.3 Age Calculations In order to know if a cached entry is fresh, a cache needs to know if its age exceeds its freshness lifetime. We discuss how to calculate the latter in section 13.2.4; this section describes how to calculate the age of a response or cache entry. In this discussion, we use the term "now" to mean "the current value of the clock at the host performing the calculation." Hosts that use HTTP, but especially hosts running origin servers and caches, SHOULD use NTP [28] or some similar protocol to synchronize their clocks to a globally accurate time standard. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 80]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
HTTP/1.1 requires origin servers to send a Date header, if possible, with every response, giving the time at which the response was generated (see section 14.18). We use the term "date_value" to denote the value of the Date header, in a form appropriate for arithmetic operations. HTTP/1.1 uses the Age response-header to convey the estimated age of the response message when obtained from a cache. The Age field value is the cache's estimate of the amount of time since the response was generated or revalidated by the origin server. In essence, the Age value is the sum of the time that the response
has been resident in each of the caches along the path from the
origin server, plus the amount of time it has been in transit along network paths. We use the term "age_value" to denote the value of the Age header, in a form appropriate for arithmetic operations. A response's age can be calculated in two entirely independent ways:
now minus date_value, if the local clock is reasonably well
synchronized to the origin server's clock. If the result is negative, the result is replaced by zero.age_value, if all of the caches along the response path
implement HTTP/1.1.
Given that we have two independent ways to compute the age of a
response when it is received, we can combine these as corrected_received_age = max(now - date_value, age_value)
and as long as we have either nearly synchronized clocks or all
HTTP/1.1 paths, one gets a reliable (conservative) result. Because of network-imposed delays, some significant interval might
pass between the time that a server generates a response and the time
it is received at the next outbound cache or client. If uncorrected, this delay could result in improperly low ages.
Because the request that resulted in the returned Age value must have
been initiated prior to that Age value's generation, we can correct
for delays imposed by the network by recording the time at which the
request was initiated. Then, when an Age value is received, it MUST be interpreted relative to the time the request was initiated, not Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 81]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
the time that the response was received. This algorithm results in conservative behavior no matter how much delay is experienced. So, we compute: corrected_initial_age = corrected_received_age + (now - request_time) where "request_time" is the time (according to the local clock) when the request that elicited this response was sent. Summary of age calculation algorithm, when a cache receives a response: /*
- age_value
is the value of Age: header received by the cache withthis response.- date_value
is the value of the origin server's Date: header- request_time
is the (local) time when the cache made the requestthat resulted in this cached response- response_time
is the (local) time when the cache received theresponse- now
is the current (local) time
*/ apparent_age = max(0, response_time - date_value); corrected_received_age = max(apparent_age, age_value); response_delay = response_time - request_time; corrected_initial_age = corrected_received_age + response_delay; resident_time = now - response_time; current_age = corrected_initial_age + resident_time; The current_age of a cache entry is calculated by adding the amount
of time (in seconds) since the cache entry was last validated by the
origin server to the corrected_initial_age. When a response is generated from a cache entry, the cache MUST include a single Age header field in the response with a value equal to the cache entry's current_age.
The presence of an Age header field in a response implies that a
response is not first-hand. However, the converse is not true, since
the lack of an Age header field in a response does not imply that the
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 82]
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response is first-hand unless all caches along the request path are
compliant with HTTP/1.1 (i.e., older HTTP caches did not implement the Age header field). 13.2.4 Expiration Calculations In order to decide whether a response is fresh or stale, we need to compare its freshness lifetime to its age. The age is calculated as described in section 13.2.3; this section describes how to calculate the freshness lifetime, and to determine if a response has expired. In the discussion below, the values can be represented in any form appropriate for arithmetic operations. We use the term "expires_value" to denote the value of the Expires header. We use the term "max_age_value" to denote an appropriate value of the number of seconds carried by the "max-age" directive of the Cache-Control header in a response (see section 14.9.3). The max-age directive takes priority over Expires, so if max-age is present in a response, the calculation is simply: freshness_lifetime = max_age_value Otherwise, if Expires is present in the response, the calculation is: freshness_lifetime = expires_value - date_value Note that neither of these calculations is vulnerable to clock skew, since all of the information comes from the origin server. If none of Expires, Cache-Control: max-age, or Cache-Control: s maxage (see section 14.9.3) appears in the response, and the response does not include other restrictions on caching, the cache MAY compute a freshness lifetime using a heuristic. The cache MUST attach Warning 113 to any response whose age is more than 24 hours if such warning has not already been added. Also, if the response does have a Last-Modified time, the heuristic
expiration value SHOULD be no more than some fraction of the interval
since that time. A typical setting of this fraction might be 10%.
The calculation to determine if a response has expired is quite
simple: response_is_fresh = (freshness_lifetime > current_age) Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 83]
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13.2.5 Disambiguating Expiration Values Because expiration values are assigned optimistically, it is possible
for two caches to contain fresh values for the same resource that are
different.
If a client performing a retrieval receives a non-first-hand response
for a request that was already fresh in its own cache, and the Date
header in its existing cache entry is newer than the Date on the new
response, then the client MAY ignore the response. If so, it MAY retry the request with a "Cache-Control: max-age=0" directive (see section 14.9), to force a check with the origin server.
If a cache has two fresh responses for the same representation with
different validators, it MUST use the one with the more recent Date header. This situation might arise because the cache is pooling responses from other caches, or because a client has asked for a reload or a revalidation of an apparently fresh cache entry. 13.2.6 Disambiguating Multiple Responses Because a client might be receiving responses via multiple paths, so
that some responses flow through one set of caches and other
responses flow through a different set of caches, a client might
receive responses in an order different from that in which the origin
server sent them. We would like the client to use the most recently generated response, even if older responses are still apparently fresh.
Neither the entity tag nor the expiration value can impose an
ordering on responses, since it is possible that a later response intentionally carries an earlier expiration time. The Date values are ordered to a granularity of one second. When a client tries to revalidate a cache entry, and the response it
receives contains a Date header that appears to be older than the one
for the existing entry, then the client SHOULD repeat the request unconditionally, and include Cache-Control: max-age=0
to force any intermediate caches to validate their copies directly
with the origin server, or Cache-Control: no-cache
to force any intermediate caches to obtain a new copy from the origin
server. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 84]
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If the Date values are equal, then the client MAY use either response (or MAY, if it is being extremely prudent, request a new response).
Servers MUST NOT depend on clients being able to choose
deterministically between responses generated during the same second, if their expiration times overlap. 13.3 Validation Model
When a cache has a stale entry that it would like to use as a
response to a client's request, it first has to check with the origin
server (or possibly an intermediate cache with a fresh response) to
see if its cached entry is still usable. We call this "validating" the cache entry. Since we do not want to have to pay the overhead of retransmitting the full response if the cached entry is good, and we
do not want to pay the overhead of an extra round trip if the cached
entry is invalid, the HTTP/1.1 protocol supports the use of conditional methods.
The key protocol features for supporting conditional methods are
those concerned with "cache validators." When an origin server generates a full response, it attaches some sort of validator to it, which is kept with the cache entry. When a client (user agent or
proxy cache) makes a conditional request for a resource for which it
has a cache entry, it includes the associated validator in the request.
The server then checks that validator against the current validator
for the entity, and, if they match (see section 13.3.3), it responds with a special status code (usually, 304 (Not Modified)) and no entity-body. Otherwise, it returns a full response (including entity-body). Thus, we avoid transmitting the full response if the validator matches, and we avoid an extra round trip if it does not match. In HTTP/1.1, a conditional request looks exactly the same as a normal request for the same resource, except that it carries a special
header (which includes the validator) that implicitly turns the
method (usually, GET) into a conditional.
The protocol includes both positive and negative senses of cache
validating conditions. That is, it is possible to request either that
a method be performed if and only if a validator matches or if and
only if no validators match. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 85]
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Note: a response that lacks a validator may still be cached, and served from cache until it expires, unless this is explicitly prohibited by a cache-control directive. However, a cache cannot
do a conditional retrieval if it does not have a validator for the
entity, which means it will not be refreshable after it expires. 13.3.1 Last-Modified Dates
The Last-Modified entity-header field value is often used as a cache
validator. In simple terms, a cache entry is considered to be valid if the entity has not been modified since the Last-Modified value. 13.3.2 Entity Tag Cache Validators The ETag response-header field value, an entity tag, provides for an "opaque" cache validator. This might allow more reliable validation in situations where it is inconvenient to store modification dates,
where the one-second resolution of HTTP date values is not
sufficient, or where the origin server wishes to avoid certain paradoxes that might arise from the use of modification dates. Entity Tags are described in section 3.11. The headers used with entity tags are described in sections 14.19, 14.24, 14.26 and 14.44. 13.3.3 Weak and Strong Validators
Since both origin servers and caches will compare two validators to
decide if they represent the same or different entities, one normally
would expect that if the entity (the entity-body or any entity
headers) changes in any way, then the associated validator would change as well. If this is true, then we call this validator a "strong validator." However, there might be cases when a server prefers to change the validator only on semantically significant changes, and not when insignificant aspects of the entity change. A validator that does not always change when the resource changes is a "weak validator." Entity tags are normally "strong validators," but the protocol provides a mechanism to tag an entity tag as "weak." One can think of
a strong validator as one that changes whenever the bits of an entity
changes, while a weak value changes whenever the meaning of an entity changes. Alternatively, one can think of a strong validator as part of an identifier for a specific entity, while a weak validator is part of an identifier for a set of semantically equivalent entities. Note: One example of a strong validator is an integer that is incremented in stable storage every time an entity is changed. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 86]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
An entity's modification time, if represented with one-second resolution, could be a weak validator, since it is possible that the resource might be modified twice during a single second. Support for weak validators is optional. However, weak validators allow for more efficient caching of equivalent objects; for example, a hit counter on a site is probably good enough if it is updated every few days or weeks, and any value during that period is likely "good enough" to be equivalent. A "use" of a validator is either when a client generates a request and includes the validator in a validating header field, or when a server compares two validators. Strong validators are usable in any context. Weak validators are only usable in contexts that do not depend on exact equality of an entity. For example, either kind is usable for a conditional GET of a full entity. However, only a strong validator is usable for a sub-range retrieval, since otherwise the client might end up with an internally inconsistent entity.
Clients MAY issue simple (non-subrange) GET requests with either weak
validators or strong validators. Clients MUST NOT use weak validators in other forms of request. The only function that the HTTP/1.1 protocol defines on validators is comparison. There are two validator comparison functions, depending
on whether the comparison context allows the use of weak validators
or not:
- The strong comparison function: in order to be considered equal,
both validators MUST be identical in every way, and both MUST NOT be weak. - The weak comparison function: in order to be considered equal,
both validators MUST be identical in every way, but either or both of them MAY be tagged as "weak" without affecting the result. An entity tag is strong unless it is explicitly tagged as weak. Section 3.11 gives the syntax for entity tags. A Last-Modified time, when used as a validator in a request, is implicitly weak unless it is possible to deduce that it is strong, using the following rules: - The validator is being compared by an origin server to the
actual current validator for the entity and, Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 87]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999 - That origin server reliably knows that the associated entity did
not change twice during the second covered by the presented
validator. or or
- The validator is about to be used by a client in an If
Modified-Since or If-Unmodified-Since header, because the client has a cache entry for the associated entity, and - That cache entry includes a Date value, which gives the time
when the origin server sent the original response, and - The presented Last-Modified time is at least 60 seconds before
the Date value. - The validator is being compared by an intermediate cache to the
validator stored in its cache entry for the entity, and - That cache entry includes a Date value, which gives the time
when the origin server sent the original response, and - The presented Last-Modified time is at least 60 seconds before
the Date value.
This method relies on the fact that if two different responses were
sent by the origin server during the same second, but both had the same Last-Modified time, then at least one of those responses would have a Date value equal to its Last-Modified time. The arbitrary 60
second limit guards against the possibility that the Date and Last
Modified values are generated from different clocks, or at somewhat different times during the preparation of the response. An implementation MAY use a value larger than 60 seconds, if it is believed that 60 seconds is too short.
If a client wishes to perform a sub-range retrieval on a value for
which it has only a Last-Modified time and no opaque validator, it
MAY do this only if the Last-Modified time is strong in the sense
described here. A cache or origin server receiving a conditional request, other than a full-body GET request, MUST use the strong comparison function to evaluate the condition. These rules allow HTTP/1.1 caches and clients to safely perform sub range retrievals on values that have been obtained from HTTP/1.0 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 88]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
servers. 13.3.4 Rules for When to Use Entity Tags and Last-Modified Dates We adopt a set of rules and recommendations for origin servers, clients, and caches regarding when various validator types ought to be used, and for what purposes. HTTP/1.1 origin servers:
- SHOULD send an entity tag validator unless it is not feasible to
generate one. - MAY send a weak entity tag instead of a strong entity tag, if
performance considerations support the use of weak entity tags, or if it is unfeasible to send a strong entity tag. - SHOULD send a Last-Modified value if it is feasible to send one,
unless the risk of a breakdown in semantic transparency that
could result from using this date in an If-Modified-Since header
would lead to serious problems. In other words, the preferred behavior for an HTTP/1.1 origin server is to send both a strong entity tag and a Last-Modified value. In order to be legal, a strong entity tag MUST change whenever the associated entity value changes in any way. A weak entity tag SHOULD
change whenever the associated entity changes in a semantically
significant way. Note: in order to provide semantically transparent caching, an
origin server must avoid reusing a specific strong entity tag
value for two different entities, or reusing a specific weak entity tag value for two semantically different entities. Cache entries might persist for arbitrarily long periods, regardless of expiration times, so it might be inappropriate to expect that a
cache will never again attempt to validate an entry using a
validator that it obtained at some point in the past. HTTP/1.1 clients:
- If an entity tag has been provided by the origin server, MUST
use that entity tag in any cache-conditional request (using If
Match or If-None-Match).
- If only a Last-Modified value has been provided by the origin
server, SHOULD use that value in non-subrange cache-conditional requests (using If-Modified-Since). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 89]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999 - If only a Last-Modified value has been provided by an HTTP/1.0
origin server, MAY use that value in subrange cache-conditional requests (using If-Unmodified-Since:). The user agent SHOULD provide a way to disable this, in case of difficulty. - If both an entity tag and a Last-Modified value have been
provided by the origin server, SHOULD use both validators in cache-conditional requests. This allows both HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1 caches to respond appropriately. An HTTP/1.1 origin server, upon receiving a conditional request that includes both a Last-Modified date (e.g., in an If-Modified-Since or If-Unmodified-Since header field) and one or more entity tags (e.g., in an If-Match, If-None-Match, or If-Range header field) as cache validators, MUST NOT return a response status of 304 (Not Modified)
unless doing so is consistent with all of the conditional header
fields in the request. An HTTP/1.1 caching proxy, upon receiving a conditional request that
includes both a Last-Modified date and one or more entity tags as
cache validators, MUST NOT return a locally cached response to the
client unless that cached response is consistent with all of the
conditional header fields in the request. Note: The general principle behind these rules is that HTTP/1.1
servers and clients should transmit as much non-redundant
information as is available in their responses and requests. HTTP/1.1 systems receiving this information will make the most conservative assumptions about the validators they receive. HTTP/1.0 clients and caches will ignore entity tags. Generally,
last-modified values received or used by these systems will
support transparent and efficient caching, and so HTTP/1.1 origin servers should provide Last-Modified values. In those rare cases
where the use of a Last-Modified value as a validator by an
HTTP/1.0 system could result in a serious problem, then HTTP/1.1 origin servers should not provide one. 13.3.5 Non-validating Conditionals
The principle behind entity tags is that only the service author
knows the semantics of a resource well enough to select an
appropriate cache validation mechanism, and the specification of any
validator comparison function more complex than byte-equality would
open up a can of worms. Thus, comparisons of any other headers (except Last-Modified, for compatibility with HTTP/1.0) are never used for purposes of validating a cache entry. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 90]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
13.4 Response Cacheability Unless specifically constrained by a cache-control (section 14.9) directive, a caching system MAY always store a successful response (see section 13.8) as a cache entry, MAY return it without validation if it is fresh, and MAY return it after successful validation. If
there is neither a cache validator nor an explicit expiration time
associated with a response, we do not expect it to be cached, but certain caches MAY violate this expectation (for example, when little or no network connectivity is available). A client can usually detect
that such a response was taken from a cache by comparing the Date
header to the current time. Note: some HTTP/1.0 caches are known to violate this expectation without providing any Warning. However, in some cases it might be inappropriate for a cache to retain an entity, or to return it in response to a subsequent request. This might be because absolute semantic transparency is deemed necessary by the service author, or because of security or privacy considerations. Certain cache-control directives are
therefore provided so that the server can indicate that certain
resource entities, or portions thereof, are not to be cached regardless of other considerations. Note that section 14.8 normally prevents a shared cache from saving
and returning a response to a previous request if that request
included an Authorization header. A response received with a status code of 200, 203, 206, 300, 301 or 410 MAY be stored by a cache and used in reply to a subsequent request, subject to the expiration mechanism, unless a cache-control directive prohibits caching. However, a cache that does not support
the Range and Content-Range headers MUST NOT cache 206 (Partial
Content) responses. A response received with any other status code (e.g. status codes 302
and 307) MUST NOT be returned in a reply to a subsequent request
unless there are cache-control directives or another header(s) that
explicitly allow it. For example, these include the following: an Expires header (section 14.21); a "max-age", "s-maxage", "must revalidate", "proxy-revalidate", "public" or "private" cache-control directive (section 14.9). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 91]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
13.5 Constructing Responses From Caches
The purpose of an HTTP cache is to store information received in
response to requests for use in responding to future requests. In many cases, a cache simply returns the appropriate parts of a response to the requester. However, if the cache holds a cache entry based on a previous response, it might have to combine parts of a new response with what is held in the cache entry. 13.5.1 End-to-end and Hop-by-hop Headers
For the purpose of defining the behavior of caches and non-caching
proxies, we divide HTTP headers into two categories:
- End-to-end headers, which are transmitted to the ultimate
recipient of a request or response. End-to-end headers in
responses MUST be stored as part of a cache entry and MUST be
transmitted in any response formed from a cache entry.
- Hop-by-hop headers, which are meaningful only for a single
transport-level connection, and are not stored by caches or forwarded by proxies. The following HTTP/1.1 headers are hop-by-hop headers: - Connection
- Keep-Alive
- Proxy-Authenticate
- Proxy-Authorization
- TE
- Trailers
- Transfer-Encoding
- Upgrade
All other headers defined by HTTP/1.1 are end-to-end headers. Other hop-by-hop headers MUST be listed in a Connection header, (section 14.10) to be introduced into HTTP/1.1 (or later). 13.5.2 Non-modifiable Headers Some features of the HTTP/1.1 protocol, such as Digest Authentication, depend on the value of certain end-to-end headers. A
transparent proxy SHOULD NOT modify an end-to-end header unless the
definition of that header requires or specifically allows that. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 92]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
A transparent proxy MUST NOT modify any of the following fields in a
request or response, and it MUST NOT add any of these fields if not already present:
- Content-Location
- Content-MD5
- ETag
- Last-Modified
A transparent proxy MUST NOT modify any of the following fields in a
response:
- Expires
but it MAY add any of these fields if not already present. If an Expires header is added, it MUST be given a field-value identical to that of the Date header in that response.
A proxy MUST NOT modify or add any of the following fields in a
message that contains the no-transform cache-control directive, or in any request:
- Content-Encoding
- Content-Range
- Content-Type
A non-transparent proxy MAY modify or add these fields to a message
that does not include no-transform, but if it does so, it MUST add a
Warning 214 (Transformation applied) if one does not already appear
in the message (see section 14.46). Warning: unnecessary modification of end-to-end headers might
cause authentication failures if stronger authentication
mechanisms are introduced in later versions of HTTP. Such
authentication mechanisms MAY rely on the values of header fields
not listed here.
The Content-Length field of a request or response is added or deleted
according to the rules in section 4.4. A transparent proxy MUST preserve the entity-length (section 7.2.2) of the entity-body, although it MAY change the transfer-length (section 4.4). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 93]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
13.5.3 Combining Headers When a cache makes a validating request to a server, and the server
provides a 304 (Not Modified) response or a 206 (Partial Content)
response, the cache then constructs a response to send to the requesting client. If the status code is 304 (Not Modified), the cache uses the entity
body stored in the cache entry as the entity-body of this outgoing
response. If the status code is 206 (Partial Content) and the ETag or Last-Modified headers match exactly, the cache MAY combine the
contents stored in the cache entry with the new contents received in
the response and use the result as the entity-body of this outgoing
response, (see 13.5.4).
The end-to-end headers stored in the cache entry are used for the
constructed response, except that
- any stored Warning headers with warn-code 1xx (see section
14.46) MUST be deleted from the cache entry and the forwarded response. - any stored Warning headers with warn-code 2xx MUST be retained
in the cache entry and the forwarded response. - any end-to-end headers provided in the 304 or 206 response MUST
replace the corresponding headers from the cache entry. Unless the cache decides to remove the cache entry, it MUST also
replace the end-to-end headers stored with the cache entry with
corresponding headers received in the incoming response, except for Warning headers as described immediately above. If a header field
name in the incoming response matches more than one header in the
cache entry, all such old headers MUST be replaced. In other words, the set of end-to-end headers received in the
incoming response overrides all corresponding end-to-end headers
stored with the cache entry (except for stored Warning headers with
warn-code 1xx, which are deleted even if not overridden). Note: this rule allows an origin server to use a 304 (Not
Modified) or a 206 (Partial Content) response to update any header
associated with a previous response for the same entity or sub
ranges thereof, although it might not always be meaningful or correct to do so. This rule does not allow an origin server to use
a 304 (Not Modified) or a 206 (Partial Content) response to
entirely delete a header that it had provided with a previous
response. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 94]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
13.5.4 Combining Byte Ranges
A response might transfer only a subrange of the bytes of an entity
body, either because the request included one or more Range specifications, or because a connection was broken prematurely. After several such transfers, a cache might have received several ranges of the same entity-body. If a cache has a stored non-empty set of subranges for an entity, and an incoming response transfers another subrange, the cache MAY
combine the new subrange with the existing set if both the following
conditions are met:
- Both the incoming response and the cache entry have a cache
validator. - The two cache validators match using the strong comparison
function (see section 13.3.3). If either requirement is not met, the cache MUST use only the most
recent partial response (based on the Date values transmitted with
every response, and using the incoming response if these values are equal or missing), and MUST discard the other partial information. 13.6 Caching Negotiated Responses Use of server-driven content negotiation (section 12.1), as indicated by the presence of a Vary header field in a response, alters the
conditions and procedure by which a cache can use the response for
subsequent requests. See section 14.44 for use of the Vary header field by servers.
A server SHOULD use the Vary header field to inform a cache of what
request-header fields were used to select among multiple
representations of a cacheable response subject to server-driven
negotiation. The set of header fields named by the Vary field value is known as the "selecting" request-headers.
When the cache receives a subsequent request whose Request-URI
specifies one or more cache entries including a Vary header field,
the cache MUST NOT use such a cache entry to construct a response to
the new request unless all of the selecting request-headers present
in the new request match the corresponding stored request-headers in
the original request.
The selecting request-headers from two requests are defined to match
if and only if the selecting request-headers in the first request can
be transformed to the selecting request-headers in the second request
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 95]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
by adding or removing linear white space (LWS) at places where this
is allowed by the corresponding BNF, and/or combining multiple
message-header fields with the same field name following the rules
about message headers in section 4.2. A Vary header field-value of "*" always fails to match and subsequent
requests on that resource can only be properly interpreted by the
origin server.
If the selecting request header fields for the cached entry do not
match the selecting request header fields of the new request, then
the cache MUST NOT use a cached entry to satisfy the request unless
it first relays the new request to the origin server in a conditional
request and the server responds with 304 (Not Modified), including an entity tag or Content-Location that indicates the entity to be used. If an entity tag was assigned to a cached representation, the
forwarded request SHOULD be conditional and include the entity tags
in an If-None-Match header field from all its cache entries for the
resource. This conveys to the server the set of entities currently held by the cache, so that if any one of these entities matches the requested entity, the server can use the ETag header field in its 304 (Not Modified) response to tell the cache which entry is appropriate.
If the entity-tag of the new response matches that of an existing
entry, the new response SHOULD be used to update the header fields of the existing entry, and the result MUST be returned to the client.
If any of the existing cache entries contains only partial content
for the associated entity, its entity-tag SHOULD NOT be included in
the If-None-Match header field unless the request is for a range that
would be fully satisfied by that entry.
If a cache receives a successful response whose Content-Location
field matches that of an existing cache entry for the same Request
]URI, whose entity-tag differs from that of the existing entry, and whose Date is more recent than that of the existing entry, the
existing entry SHOULD NOT be returned in response to future requests
and SHOULD be deleted from the cache. 13.7 Shared and Non-Shared Caches For reasons of security and privacy, it is necessary to make a distinction between "shared" and "non-shared" caches. A non-shared cache is one that is accessible only to a single user. Accessibility in this case SHOULD be enforced by appropriate security mechanisms. All other caches are considered to be "shared." Other sections of Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 96]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
this specification place certain constraints on the operation of
shared caches in order to prevent loss of privacy or failure of
access controls. 13.8 Errors or Incomplete Response Cache Behavior A cache that receives an incomplete response (for example, with fewer
bytes of data than specified in a Content-Length header) MAY store
the response. However, the cache MUST treat this as a partial response. Partial responses MAY be combined as described in section 13.5.4; the result might be a full response or might still be partial. A cache MUST NOT return a partial response to a client without explicitly marking it as such, using the 206 (Partial Content) status code. A cache MUST NOT return a partial response using a status code of 200 (OK).
If a cache receives a 5xx response while attempting to revalidate an
entry, it MAY either forward this response to the requesting client, or act as if the server failed to respond. In the latter case, it MAY
return a previously received response unless the cached entry
includes the "must-revalidate" cache-control directive (see section 14.9). 13.9 Side Effects of GET and HEAD
Unless the origin server explicitly prohibits the caching of their
responses, the application of GET and HEAD methods to any resources
SHOULD NOT have side effects that would lead to erroneous behavior if
these responses are taken from a cache. They MAY still have side effects, but a cache is not required to consider such side effects in its caching decisions. Caches are always expected to observe an origin server's explicit restrictions on caching. We note one exception to this rule: since some applications have
traditionally used GETs and HEADs with query URLs (those containing a
"?" in the rel_path part) to perform operations with significant side effects, caches MUST NOT treat responses to such URIs as fresh unless the server provides an explicit expiration time. This specifically means that responses from HTTP/1.0 servers for such URIs SHOULD NOT be taken from a cache. See section 9.1.1 for related information. 13.10 Invalidation After Updates or Deletions
The effect of certain methods performed on a resource at the origin
server might cause one or more existing cache entries to become non
transparently invalid. That is, although they might continue to be "fresh," they do not accurately reflect what the origin server would return for a new request on that resource. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 97]
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There is no way for the HTTP protocol to guarantee that all such
cache entries are marked invalid. For example, the request that
caused the change at the origin server might not have gone through
the proxy where a cache entry is stored. However, several rules help reduce the likelihood of erroneous behavior. In this section, the phrase "invalidate an entity" means that the
cache will either remove all instances of that entity from its
storage, or will mark these as "invalid" and in need of a mandatory
revalidation before they can be returned in response to a subsequent
request. Some HTTP methods MUST cause a cache to invalidate an entity. This is either the entity referred to by the Request-URI, or by the Location or Content-Location headers (if present). These methods are:
- PUT
- DELETE
- POST
In order to prevent denial of service attacks, an invalidation based
on the URI in a Location or Content-Location header MUST only be
performed if the host part is the same as in the Request-URI.
A cache that passes through requests for methods it does not
understand SHOULD invalidate any entities referred to by the
Request-URI. 13.11 Write-Through Mandatory
All methods that might be expected to cause modifications to the
origin server's resources MUST be written through to the origin server. This currently includes all methods except for GET and HEAD.
A cache MUST NOT reply to such a request from a client before having
transmitted the request to the inbound server, and having received a corresponding response from the inbound server. This does not prevent
a proxy cache from sending a 100 (Continue) response before the
inbound server has sent its final reply. The alternative (known as "write-back" or "copy-back" caching) is not allowed in HTTP/1.1, due to the difficulty of providing consistent updates and the problems arising from server, cache, or network failure prior to write-back. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 98]
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13.12 Cache Replacement If a new cacheable (see sections 14.9.2, 13.2.5, 13.2.6 and 13.8)
response is received from a resource while any existing responses for
the same resource are cached, the cache SHOULD use the new response to reply to the current request. It MAY insert it into cache storage and MAY, if it meets all other requirements, use it to respond to any
future requests that would previously have caused the old response to
be returned. If it inserts the new response into cache storage the rules in section 13.5.3 apply. Note: a new response that has an older Date header value than existing cached responses is not cacheable. 13.13 History Lists User agents often have history mechanisms, such as "Back" buttons and history lists, which can be used to redisplay an entity retrieved earlier in a session. History mechanisms and caches are different. In particular history
mechanisms SHOULD NOT try to show a semantically transparent view of
the current state of a resource. Rather, a history mechanism is meant
to show exactly what the user saw at the time when the resource was
retrieved. By default, an expiration time does not apply to history mechanisms. If the entity is still in storage, a history mechanism SHOULD display it even if the entity has expired, unless the user has specifically configured the agent to refresh expired history documents.
This is not to be construed to prohibit the history mechanism from
telling the user that a view might be stale. Note: if history list mechanisms unnecessarily prevent users from viewing stale resources, this will tend to force service authors
to avoid using HTTP expiration controls and cache controls when
they would otherwise like to. Service authors may consider it
important that users not be presented with error messages or
warning messages when they use navigation controls (such as BACK)
to view previously fetched resources. Even though sometimes such resources ought not to cached, or ought to expire quickly, user
interface considerations may force service authors to resort to
other means of preventing caching (e.g. "once-only" URLs) in order
not to suffer the effects of improperly functioning history
mechanisms. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 99]
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14 Header Field Definitions
This section defines the syntax and semantics of all standard
HTTP/1.1 header fields. For entity-header fields, both sender and recipient refer to either the client or the server, depending on who sends and who receives the entity. 14.1 Accept
The Accept request-header field can be used to specify certain media
types which are acceptable for the response. Accept headers can be
used to indicate that the request is specifically limited to a small
set of desired types, as in the case of a request for an in-line image. Accept = "Accept" ":" #( media-range [ accept-params ] ) media-range = ( "/"
| ( type "/" "" )
| ( type "/" subtype )
) ( ";" parameter ) accept-params = ";" "q" "=" qvalue ( accept-extension ) accept-extension = ";" token [ "=" ( token | quoted-string ) ] The asterisk "" character is used to group media types into ranges, with "/" indicating all media types and "type/*" indicating all subtypes of that type. The media-range MAY include media type parameters that are applicable to that range. Each media-range MAY be followed by one or more accept-params, beginning with the "q" parameter for indicating a relative quality factor. The first "q" parameter (if any) separates the media-range parameter(s) from the accept-params. Quality factors allow the user
or user agent to indicate the relative degree of preference for that
media-range, using the qvalue scale from 0 to 1 (section 3.9). The default value is q=1. Note: Use of the "q" parameter name to separate media type
parameters from Accept extension parameters is due to historical
practice. Although this prevents any media type parameter named "q" from being used with a media range, such an event is believed to be unlikely given the lack of any "q" parameters in the IANA
media type registry and the rare usage of any media type
parameters in Accept. Future media types are discouraged from registering any parameter named "q". Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 100]
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The example
Accept: audio/*; q=0.2, audio/basic SHOULD be interpreted as "I prefer audio/basic, but send me any audio type if it is the best available after an 80% mark-down in quality." If no Accept header field is present, then it is assumed that the client accepts all media types. If an Accept header field is present,
and if the server cannot send a response which is acceptable
according to the combined Accept field value, then the server SHOULD send a 406 (not acceptable) response.
A more elaborate example is
Accept: text/plain; q=0.5, text/html, text/x-dvi; q=0.8, text/x-c Verbally, this would be interpreted as "text/html and text/x-c are the preferred media types, but if they do not exist, then send the text/x-dvi entity, and if that does not exist, send the text/plain entity."
Media ranges can be overridden by more specific media ranges or
specific media types. If more than one media range applies to a given type, the most specific reference has precedence. For example, Accept: text/, text/html, text/html;level=1, / have the following precedence: 1) text/html;level=1 2) text/html 3) text/ 4) /
The media type quality factor associated with a given type is
determined by finding the media range with the highest precedence
which matches that type. For example, Accept: text/*;q=0.3, text/html;q=0.7, text/html;level=1, text/html;level=2;q=0.4, /;q=0.5 would cause the following values to be associated: text/html;level=1 = 1 text/html = 0.7 text/plain = 0.3 Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 101]
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image/jpeg = 0.5 text/html;level=2 = 0.4 text/html;level=3 = 0.7 Note: A user agent might be provided with a default set of quality values for certain media ranges. However, unless the user agent is a closed system which cannot interact with other rendering agents, this default set ought to be configurable by the user. 14.2 Accept-Charset
The Accept-Charset request-header field can be used to indicate what
character sets are acceptable for the response. This field allows
clients capable of understanding more comprehensive or special
purpose character sets to signal that capability to a server which is
capable of representing documents in those character sets. Accept-Charset = "Accept-Charset" ":" 1#( ( charset | "" )[ ";" "q" "=" qvalue ] ) Character set values are described in section 3.4. Each charset MAY be given an associated quality value which represents the user's preference for that charset. The default value is q=1. An example is Accept-Charset: iso-8859-5, unicode-1-1;q=0.8 The special value "", if present in the Accept-Charset field,
matches every character set (including ISO-8859-1) which is not
mentioned elsewhere in the Accept-Charset field. If no "*" is present in an Accept-Charset field, then all character sets not explicitly mentioned get a quality value of 0, except for ISO-8859-1, which gets a quality value of 1 if not explicitly mentioned. If no Accept-Charset header is present, the default is that any character set is acceptable. If an Accept-Charset header is present,
and if the server cannot send a response which is acceptable
according to the Accept-Charset header, then the server SHOULD send an error response with the 406 (not acceptable) status code, though the sending of an unacceptable response is also allowed. 14.3 Accept-Encoding The Accept-Encoding request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the content-codings (section 3.5) that are acceptable in the response. Accept-Encoding = "Accept-Encoding" ":" Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 102]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
1#( codings [ ";" "q" "=" qvalue ] ) codings = ( content-coding | "*" ) Examples of its use are: Accept-Encoding: compress, gzip Accept-Encoding: Accept-Encoding: * Accept-Encoding: compress;q=0.5, gzip;q=1.0 Accept-Encoding: gzip;q=1.0, identity; q=0.5, *;q=0 A server tests whether a content-coding is acceptable, according to an Accept-Encoding field, using these rules:
If the content-coding is one of the content-codings listed in
the Accept-Encoding field, then it is acceptable, unless it is accompanied by a qvalue of 0. (As defined in section 3.9, a qvalue of 0 means "not acceptable.")The special "*" symbol in an Accept-Encoding field matches any
available content-coding not explicitly listed in the header
field.
If multiple content-codings are acceptable, then the acceptable
content-coding with the highest non-zero qvalue is preferred.The "identity" content-coding is always acceptable, unless
specifically refused because the Accept-Encoding field includes
"identity;q=0", or because the field includes "*;q=0" and does not explicitly include the "identity" content-coding. If the Accept-Encoding field-value is empty, then only the "identity" encoding is acceptable. If an Accept-Encoding field is present in a request, and if the
server cannot send a response which is acceptable according to the
Accept-Encoding header, then the server SHOULD send an error response with the 406 (Not Acceptable) status code. If no Accept-Encoding field is present in a request, the server MAY assume that the client will accept any content coding. In this case, if "identity" is one of the available content-codings, then the server SHOULD use the "identity" content-coding, unless it has
additional information that a different content-coding is meaningful
to the client. Note: If the request does not include an Accept-Encoding field, and if the "identity" content-coding is unavailable, then content-codings commonly understood by HTTP/1.0 clients (i.e., Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 103]
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"gzip" and "compress") are preferred; some older clients improperly display messages sent with other content-codings. The
server might also make this decision based on information about
the particular user-agent or client. Note: Most HTTP/1.0 applications do not recognize or obey qvalues associated with content-codings. This means that qvalues will not work and are not permitted with x-gzip or x-compress. 14.4 Accept-Language The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but
restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a
response to the request. Language tags are defined in section 3.10. Accept-Language = "Accept-Language" ":" 1#( language-range [ ";" "q" "=" qvalue ] ) language-range = ( ( 18ALPHA ( "-" 18ALPHA ) ) | "" )
Each language-range MAY be given an associated quality value which
represents an estimate of the user's preference for the languages specified by that range. The quality value defaults to "q=1". For example, Accept-Language: da, en-gb;q=0.8, en;q=0.7 would mean: "I prefer Danish, but will accept British English and other types of English." A language-range matches a language-tag if it exactly equals the tag, or if it exactly equals a prefix of the tag such that the first tag character following the prefix is "-". The special range "*", if present in the Accept-Language field,
matches every tag not matched by any other range present in the
Accept-Language field. Note: This use of a prefix matching rule does not imply that
language tags are assigned to languages in such a way that it is
always true that if a user understands a language with a certain
tag, then this user will also understand all languages with tags for which this tag is a prefix. The prefix rule simply allows the use of prefix tags if this is the case.
The language quality factor assigned to a language-tag by the
Accept-Language field is the quality value of the longest language
range in the field that matches the language-tag. If no language range in the field matches the tag, the language quality factor assigned is 0. If no Accept-Language header is present in the request, the server Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 104]
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SHOULD assume that all languages are equally acceptable. If an Accept-Language header is present, then all languages which are assigned a quality factor greater than 0 are acceptable.
It might be contrary to the privacy expectations of the user to send
an Accept-Language header with the complete linguistic preferences of
the user in every request. For a discussion of this issue, see section 15.1.4. As intelligibility is highly dependent on the individual user, it is
recommended that client applications make the choice of linguistic
preference available to the user. If the choice is not made available, then the Accept-Language header field MUST NOT be given in the request. Note: When making the choice of linguistic preference available to the user, we remind implementors of the fact that users are not familiar with the details of language matching as described above, and should provide appropriate guidance. As an example, users might assume that on selecting "en-gb", they will be served any kind of English document if British English is not available. A user agent might suggest in such a case to add "en" to get the best matching behavior. 14.5 Accept-Ranges
The Accept-Ranges response-header field allows the server to
indicate its acceptance of range requests for a resource: Accept-Ranges = "Accept-Ranges" ":" acceptable-ranges acceptable-ranges = 1#range-unit | "none"
Origin servers that accept byte-range requests MAY send
Accept-Ranges: bytes but are not required to do so. Clients MAY generate byte-range
requests without having received this header for the resource
involved. Range units are defined in section 3.12.
Servers that do not accept any kind of range request for a
resource MAY send
Accept-Ranges: none to advise the client not to attempt a range request. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 105]
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14.6 Age The Age response-header field conveys the sender's estimate of the
amount of time since the response (or its revalidation) was
generated at the origin server. A cached response is "fresh" if its age does not exceed its freshness lifetime. Age values are calculated as specified in section 13.2.3. Age = "Age" ":" age-value age-value = delta-seconds Age values are non-negative decimal integers, representing time in seconds.
If a cache receives a value larger than the largest positive
integer it can represent, or if any of its age calculations overflows, it MUST transmit an Age header with a value of 2147483648 (2^31). An HTTP/1.1 server that includes a cache MUST
include an Age header field in every response generated from its
own cache. Caches SHOULD use an arithmetic type of at least 31 bits of range. 14.7 Allow
The Allow entity-header field lists the set of methods supported
by the resource identified by the Request-URI. The purpose of this
field is strictly to inform the recipient of valid methods
associated with the resource. An Allow header field MUST be present in a 405 (Method Not Allowed) response. Allow = "Allow" ":" #Method Example of use: Allow: GET, HEAD, PUT This field cannot prevent a client from trying other methods. However, the indications given by the Allow header field value SHOULD be followed. The actual set of allowed methods is defined by the origin server at the time of each request.
The Allow header field MAY be provided with a PUT request to
recommend the methods to be supported by the new or modified
resource. The server is not required to support these methods and
SHOULD include an Allow header in the response giving the actual
supported methods. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 106]
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A proxy MUST NOT modify the Allow header field even if it does not
understand all the methods specified, since the user agent might have other means of communicating with the origin server. 14.8 Authorization
A user agent that wishes to authenticate itself with a server-
usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 401 response--does
so by including an Authorization request-header field with the
request. The Authorization field value consists of credentials
containing the authentication information of the user agent for
the realm of the resource being requested. Authorization = "Authorization" ":" credentials HTTP access authentication is described in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" [43]. If a request is authenticated and a realm specified, the same credentials SHOULD
be valid for all other requests within this realm (assuming that
the authentication scheme itself does not require otherwise, such
as credentials that vary according to a challenge value or using
synchronized clocks). When a shared cache (see section 13.7) receives a request containing an Authorization field, it MUST NOT return the corresponding response as a reply to any other request, unless one of the following specific exceptions holds:
- If the response includes the "s-maxage" cache-control
directive, the cache MAY use that response in replying to a subsequent request. But (if the specified maximum age has
passed) a proxy cache MUST first revalidate it with the origin
server, using the request-headers from the new request to allow the origin server to authenticate the new request. (This is the defined behavior for s-maxage.) If the response includes "s maxage=0", the proxy MUST always revalidate it before re-using it.
- If the response includes the "must-revalidate" cache-control
directive, the cache MAY use that response in replying to a subsequent request. But if the response is stale, all caches MUST first revalidate it with the origin server, using the
request-headers from the new request to allow the origin server
to authenticate the new request.
- If the response includes the "public" cache-control directive,
it MAY be returned in reply to any subsequent request. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 107]
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14.9 Cache-Control
The Cache-Control general-header field is used to specify directives
that MUST be obeyed by all caching mechanisms along the
request/response chain. The directives specify behavior intended to
prevent caches from adversely interfering with the request or
response. These directives typically override the default caching algorithms. Cache directives are unidirectional in that the presence
of a directive in a request does not imply that the same directive is
to be given in the response. Note that HTTP/1.0 caches might not implement Cache-Control and might only implement Pragma: no-cache (see section 14.32).
Cache directives MUST be passed through by a proxy or gateway
application, regardless of their significance to that application,
since the directives might be applicable to all recipients along the
request/response chain. It is not possible to specify a cache directive for a specific cache. Cache-Control = "Cache-Control" ":" 1#cache-directive cache-directive = cache-request-directive
| cache-response-directive
cache-request-directive = "no-cache" ; Section 14.9.1
| "no-store" ; Section 14.9.2
| "max-age" "=" delta-seconds ; Section 14.9.3, 14.9.4
| "max-stale" [ "=" delta-seconds ] ; Section 14.9.3
| "min-fresh" "=" delta-seconds ; Section 14.9.3
| "no-transform" ; Section 14.9.5
| "only-if-cached" ; Section 14.9.4
| cache-extension ; Section 14.9.6
cache-response-directive = "public" ; Section 14.9.1
| "private" [ "=" <"> 1#field-name <"> ] ; Section 14.9.1
| "no-cache" [ "=" <"> 1#field-name <"> ]; Section 14.9.1
| "no-store" ; Section 14.9.2
| "no-transform" ; Section 14.9.5
| "must-revalidate" ; Section 14.9.4
| "proxy-revalidate" ; Section 14.9.4
| "max-age" "=" delta-seconds ; Section 14.9.3
| "s-maxage" "=" delta-seconds ; Section 14.9.3
| cache-extension ; Section 14.9.6
cache-extension = token [ "=" ( token | quoted-string ) ] Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 108]
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When a directive appears without any 1#field-name parameter, the directive applies to the entire request or response. When such a directive appears with a 1#field-name parameter, it applies only to the named field or fields, and not to the rest of the request or response. This mechanism supports extensibility; implementations of
future versions of the HTTP protocol might apply these directives to
header fields not defined in HTTP/1.1.
The cache-control directives can be broken down into these general
categories:
- Restrictions on what are cacheable; these may only be imposed by
the origin server. - Restrictions on what may be stored by a cache; these may be
imposed by either the origin server or the user agent. - Modifications of the basic expiration mechanism; these may be
imposed by either the origin server or the user agent. - Controls over cache revalidation and reload; these may only be
imposed by a user agent. - Control over transformation of entities.
- Extensions to the caching system.
14.9.1 What is Cacheable By default, a response is cacheable if the requirements of the request method, request header fields, and the response status indicate that it is cacheable. Section 13.4 summarizes these defaults for cacheability. The following Cache-Control response directives
allow an origin server to override the default cacheability of a
response: public Indicates that the response MAY be cached by any cache, even if it
would normally be non-cacheable or cacheable only within a non
shared cache. (See also Authorization, section 14.8, for additional details.) private
Indicates that all or part of the response message is intended for
a single user and MUST NOT be cached by a shared cache. This
allows an origin server to state that the specified parts of the
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 109]
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response are intended for only one user and are not a valid
response for requests by other users. A private (non-shared) cache MAY cache the response. Note: This usage of the word private only controls where the response may be cached, and cannot ensure the privacy of the message content. no-cache If the no-cache directive does not specify a field-name, then a
cache MUST NOT use the response to satisfy a subsequent request
without successful revalidation with the origin server. This
allows an origin server to prevent caching even by caches that
have been configured to return stale responses to client requests. If the no-cache directive does specify one or more field-names, then a cache MAY use the response to satisfy a subsequent request, subject to any other restrictions on caching. However, the
specified field-name(s) MUST NOT be sent in the response to a
subsequent request without successful revalidation with the origin
server. This allows an origin server to prevent the re-use of certain header fields in a response, while still allowing caching of the rest of the response. Note: Most HTTP/1.0 caches will not recognize or obey this directive. 14.9.2 What May be Stored by Caches no-store
The purpose of the no-store directive is to prevent the
inadvertent release or retention of sensitive information (for
example, on backup tapes). The no-store directive applies to the entire message, and MAY be sent either in a response or in a request. If sent in a request, a cache MUST NOT store any part of either this request or any response to it. If sent in a response,
a cache MUST NOT store any part of either this response or the
request that elicited it. This directive applies to both non shared and shared caches. "MUST NOT store" in this context means
that the cache MUST NOT intentionally store the information in
non-volatile storage, and MUST make a best-effort attempt to
remove the information from volatile storage as promptly as
possible after forwarding it. Even when this directive is associated with a response, users
might explicitly store such a response outside of the caching
system (e.g., with a "Save As" dialog). History buffers MAY store such responses as part of their normal operation. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 110]
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The purpose of this directive is to meet the stated requirements
of certain users and service authors who are concerned about
accidental releases of information via unanticipated accesses to
cache data structures. While the use of this directive might improve privacy in some cases, we caution that it is NOT in any way a reliable or sufficient mechanism for ensuring privacy. In particular, malicious or compromised caches might not recognize or obey this directive, and communications networks might be vulnerable to eavesdropping. 14.9.3 Modifications of the Basic Expiration Mechanism
The expiration time of an entity MAY be specified by the origin
server using the Expires header (see section 14.21). Alternatively, it MAY be specified using the max-age directive in a response. When the max-age cache-control directive is present in a cached response,
the response is stale if its current age is greater than the age
value given (in seconds) at the time of a new request for that
resource. The max-age directive on a response implies that the response is cacheable (i.e., "public") unless some other, more restrictive cache directive is also present.
If a response includes both an Expires header and a max-age
directive, the max-age directive overrides the Expires header, even if the Expires header is more restrictive. This rule allows an origin server to provide, for a given response, a longer expiration time to an HTTP/1.1 (or later) cache than to an HTTP/1.0 cache. This might be useful if certain HTTP/1.0 caches improperly calculate ages or expiration times, perhaps due to desynchronized clocks. Many HTTP/1.0 cache implementations will treat an Expires value that
is less than or equal to the response Date value as being equivalent
to the Cache-Control response directive "no-cache". If an HTTP/1.1 cache receives such a response, and the response does not include a Cache-Control header field, it SHOULD consider the response to be non-cacheable in order to retain compatibility with HTTP/1.0 servers. Note: An origin server might wish to use a relatively new HTTP cache control feature, such as the "private" directive, on a
network including older caches that do not understand that
feature. The origin server will need to combine the new feature
with an Expires field whose value is less than or equal to the
Date value. This will prevent older caches from improperly caching the response. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 111]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
s-maxage If a response includes an s-maxage directive, then for a shared cache (but not for a private cache), the maximum age specified by
this directive overrides the maximum age specified by either the
max-age directive or the Expires header. The s-maxage directive
also implies the semantics of the proxy-revalidate directive (see
section 14.9.4), i.e., that the shared cache must not use the
entry after it becomes stale to respond to a subsequent request
without first revalidating it with the origin server. The s maxage directive is always ignored by a private cache. Note that most older caches, not compliant with this specification, do not implement any cache-control directives. An origin server wishing to use a cache-control directive that restricts, but does not prevent, caching by an HTTP/1.1-compliant cache MAY exploit the requirement that the max-age directive overrides the Expires header, and the fact that pre-HTTP/1.1-compliant caches do not observe the max-age directive.
Other directives allow a user agent to modify the basic expiration
mechanism. These directives MAY be specified on a request: max-age
Indicates that the client is willing to accept a response whose
age is no greater than the specified time in seconds. Unless max stale directive is also included, the client is not willing to accept a stale response.
min-fresh
Indicates that the client is willing to accept a response whose
freshness lifetime is no less than its current age plus the
specified time in seconds. That is, the client wants a response
that will still be fresh for at least the specified number of
seconds.
max-stale
Indicates that the client is willing to accept a response that has
exceeded its expiration time. If max-stale is assigned a value,
then the client is willing to accept a response that has exceeded
its expiration time by no more than the specified number of
seconds. If no value is assigned to max-stale, then the client is willing to accept a stale response of any age. If a cache returns a stale response, either because of a max-stale directive on a request, or because the cache is configured to override the expiration time of a response, the cache MUST attach a Warning header to the stale response, using Warning 110 (Response is stale). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 112]
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A cache MAY be configured to return stale responses without
validation, but only if this does not conflict with any "MUST"-level requirements concerning cache validation (e.g., a "must-revalidate" cache-control directive). If both the new request and the cached entry include "max-age" directives, then the lesser of the two values is used for determining the freshness of the cached entry for that request. 14.9.4 Cache Revalidation and Reload Controls
Sometimes a user agent might want or need to insist that a cache
revalidate its cache entry with the origin server (and not just with
the next cache along the path to the origin server), or to reload its cache entry from the origin server. End-to-end revalidation might be
necessary if either the cache or the origin server has overestimated
the expiration time of the cached response. End-to-end reload may be necessary if the cache entry has become corrupted for some reason.
End-to-end revalidation may be requested either when the client does
not have its own local cached copy, in which case we call it "unspecified end-to-end revalidation", or when the client does have a local cached copy, in which case we call it "specific end-to-end revalidation."
The client can specify these three kinds of action using Cache
Control request directives:
End-to-end reload
The request includes a "no-cache" cache-control directive or, for compatibility with HTTP/1.0 clients, "Pragma: no-cache". Field
names MUST NOT be included with the no-cache directive in a
request. The server MUST NOT use a cached copy when responding to such a request.
Specific end-to-end revalidation
The request includes a "max-age=0" cache-control directive, which
forces each cache along the path to the origin server to
revalidate its own entry, if any, with the next cache or server.
The initial request includes a cache-validating conditional with
the client's current validator.
Unspecified end-to-end revalidation
The request includes "max-age=0" cache-control directive, which
forces each cache along the path to the origin server to
revalidate its own entry, if any, with the next cache or server.
The initial request does not include a cache-validating
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 113]
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conditional; the first cache along the path (if any) that holds a
cache entry for this resource includes a cache-validating
conditional with its current validator. max-age When an intermediate cache is forced, by means of a max-age=0 directive, to revalidate its own cache entry, and the client has supplied its own validator in the request, the supplied validator
might differ from the validator currently stored with the cache
entry. In this case, the cache MAY use either validator in making its own request without affecting semantic transparency. However, the choice of validator might affect performance. The
best approach is for the intermediate cache to use its own
validator when making its request. If the server replies with 304 (Not Modified), then the cache can return its now validated copy to the client with a 200 (OK) response. If the server replies with a new entity and cache validator, however, the intermediate cache
can compare the returned validator with the one provided in the
client's request, using the strong comparison function. If the client's validator is equal to the origin server's, then the intermediate cache simply returns 304 (Not Modified). Otherwise, it returns the new entity with a 200 (OK) response. If a request includes the no-cache directive, it SHOULD NOT include min-fresh, max-stale, or max-age.
only-if-cached
In some cases, such as times of extremely poor network connectivity, a client may want a cache to return only those responses that it currently has stored, and not to reload or revalidate with the origin server. To do this, the client may include the only-if-cached directive in a request. If it receives this directive, a cache SHOULD either respond using a cached entry that is consistent with the other constraints of the request, or respond with a 504 (Gateway Timeout) status. However, if a group
of caches is being operated as a unified system with good internal
connectivity, such a request MAY be forwarded within that group of caches.
must-revalidate
Because a cache MAY be configured to ignore a server's specified expiration time, and because a client request MAY include a max stale directive (which has a similar effect), the protocol also
includes a mechanism for the origin server to require revalidation
of a cache entry on any subsequent use. When the must-revalidate directive is present in a response received by a cache, that cache
MUST NOT use the entry after it becomes stale to respond to a
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 114]
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subsequent request without first revalidating it with the origin
server. (I.e., the cache MUST do an end-to-end revalidation every time, if, based solely on the origin server's Expires or max-age value, the cached response is stale.)
The must-revalidate directive is necessary to support reliable
operation for certain protocol features. In all circumstances an HTTP/1.1 cache MUST obey the must-revalidate directive; in particular, if the cache cannot reach the origin server for any reason, it MUST generate a 504 (Gateway Timeout) response.
Servers SHOULD send the must-revalidate directive if and only if
failure to revalidate a request on the entity could result in
incorrect operation, such as a silently unexecuted financial transaction. Recipients MUST NOT take any automated action that violates this directive, and MUST NOT automatically provide an unvalidated copy of the entity if revalidation fails. Although this is not recommended, user agents operating under severe connectivity constraints MAY violate this directive but, if so, MUST explicitly warn the user that an unvalidated response has been provided. The warning MUST be provided on each unvalidated access, and SHOULD require explicit user confirmation.
proxy-revalidate
The proxy-revalidate directive has the same meaning as the must
revalidate directive, except that it does not apply to non-shared user agent caches. It can be used on a response to an authenticated request to permit the user's cache to store and
later return the response without needing to revalidate it (since
it has already been authenticated once by that user), while still
requiring proxies that service many users to revalidate each time
(in order to make sure that each user has been authenticated).
Note that such authenticated responses also need the public cache
control directive in order to allow them to be cached at all. 14.9.5 No-Transform Directive
no-transform
Implementors of intermediate caches (proxies) have found it useful
to convert the media type of certain entity bodies. A non transparent proxy might, for example, convert between image
formats in order to save cache space or to reduce the amount of
traffic on a slow link. Serious operational problems occur, however, when these
transformations are applied to entity bodies intended for certain
kinds of applications. For example, applications for medical Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 115]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
imaging, scientific data analysis and those using end-to-end authentication, all depend on receiving an entity body that is bit for bit identical to the original entity-body. Therefore, if a message includes the no-transform directive, an
intermediate cache or proxy MUST NOT change those headers that are
listed in section 13.5.2 as being subject to the no-transform directive. This implies that the cache or proxy MUST NOT change any aspect of the entity-body that is specified by these headers, including the value of the entity-body itself. 14.9.6 Cache Control Extensions
The Cache-Control header field can be extended through the use of one
or more cache-extension tokens, each with an optional assigned value.
Informational extensions (those which do not require a change in
cache behavior) MAY be added without changing the semantics of other
directives. Behavioral extensions are designed to work by acting as modifiers to the existing base of cache directives. Both the new directive and the standard directive are supplied, such that
applications which do not understand the new directive will default
to the behavior specified by the standard directive, and those that
understand the new directive will recognize it as modifying the
requirements associated with the standard directive. In this way,
extensions to the cache-control directives can be made without
requiring changes to the base protocol.
This extension mechanism depends on an HTTP cache obeying all of the
cache-control directives defined for its native HTTP-version, obeying certain extensions, and ignoring all directives that it does not understand. For example, consider a hypothetical new response directive called community which acts as a modifier to the private directive. We define this new directive to mean that, in addition to any non-shared cache, any cache which is shared only by members of the community named within its value may cache the response. An origin server
wishing to allow the UCI community to use an otherwise private
response in their shared cache(s) could do so by including
Cache-Control: private, community="UCI"
A cache seeing this header field will act correctly even if the cache
does not understand the community cache-extension, since it will also
see and understand the private directive and thus default to the safe
behavior. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 116]
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Unrecognized cache-directives MUST be ignored; it is assumed that any cache-directive likely to be unrecognized by an HTTP/1.1 cache will be combined with standard directives (or the response's default
cacheability) such that the cache behavior will remain minimally
correct even if the cache does not understand the extension(s). 14.10 Connection
The Connection general-header field allows the sender to specify
options that are desired for that particular connection and MUST NOT
be communicated by proxies over further connections. The Connection header has the following grammar: Connection = "Connection" ":" 1#(connection-token) connection-token = token HTTP/1.1 proxies MUST parse the Connection header field before a message is forwarded and, for each connection-token in this field,
remove any header field(s) from the message with the same name as the
connection-token. Connection options are signaled by the presence of a connection-token in the Connection header field, not by any corresponding additional header field(s), since the additional header
field may not be sent if there are no parameters associated with that
connection option.
Message headers listed in the Connection header MUST NOT include
end-to-end headers, such as Cache-Control. HTTP/1.1 defines the "close" connection option for the sender to
signal that the connection will be closed after completion of the
response. For example, Connection: close
in either the request or the response header fields indicates that
the connection SHOULD NOT be considered `persistent' (section 8.1) after the current request/response is complete. HTTP/1.1 applications that do not support persistent connections MUST include the "close" connection option in every message. A system receiving an HTTP/1.0 (or lower-version) message that includes a Connection header MUST, for each connection-token in this field, remove and ignore any header field(s) from the message with the same name as the connection-token. This protects against mistaken forwarding of such header fields by pre-HTTP/1.1 proxies. See section 19.6.2. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 117]
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14.11 Content-Encoding
The Content-Encoding entity-header field is used as a modifier to the
media-type. When present, its value indicates what additional content codings have been applied to the entity-body, and thus what decoding
mechanisms must be applied in order to obtain the media-type
referenced by the Content-Type header field. Content-Encoding is
primarily used to allow a document to be compressed without losing
the identity of its underlying media type. Content-Encoding = "Content-Encoding" ":" 1#content-coding Content codings are defined in section 3.5. An example of its use is Content-Encoding: gzip
The content-coding is a characteristic of the entity identified by
the Request-URI. Typically, the entity-body is stored with this encoding and is only decoded before rendering or analogous usage. However, a non-transparent proxy MAY modify the content-coding if the new coding is known to be acceptable to the recipient, unless the "no-transform" cache-control directive is present in the message. If the content-coding of an entity is not "identity", then the
response MUST include a Content-Encoding entity-header (section
14.11) that lists the non-identity content-coding(s) used.
If the content-coding of an entity in a request message is not
acceptable to the origin server, the server SHOULD respond with a status code of 415 (Unsupported Media Type). If multiple encodings have been applied to an entity, the content codings MUST be listed in the order in which they were applied.
Additional information about the encoding parameters MAY be provided
by other entity-header fields not defined by this specification. 14.12 Content-Language
The Content-Language entity-header field describes the natural
language(s) of the intended audience for the enclosed entity. Note
that this might not be equivalent to all the languages used within
the entity-body. Content-Language = "Content-Language" ":" 1#language-tag Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 118]
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Language tags are defined in section 3.10. The primary purpose of
Content-Language is to allow a user to identify and differentiate
entities according to the user's own preferred language. Thus, if the body content is intended only for a Danish-literate audience, the
appropriate field is
Content-Language: da If no Content-Language is specified, the default is that the content is intended for all language audiences. This might mean that the sender does not consider it to be specific to any natural language, or that the sender does not know for which language it is intended.
Multiple languages MAY be listed for content that is intended for
multiple audiences. For example, a rendition of the "Treaty of Waitangi," presented simultaneously in the original Maori and English versions, would call for Content-Language: mi, en However, just because multiple languages are present within an entity does not mean that it is intended for multiple linguistic audiences. An example would be a beginner's language primer, such as "A First Lesson in Latin," which is clearly intended to be used by an English-literate audience. In this case, the Content-Language would properly only include "en".
Content-Language MAY be applied to any media type -- it is not
limited to textual documents. 14.13 Content-Length
The Content-Length entity-header field indicates the size of the
entity-body, in decimal number of OCTETs, sent to the recipient or, in the case of the HEAD method, the size of the entity-body that would have been sent had the request been a GET. Content-Length = "Content-Length" ":" 1*DIGIT
An example is
Content-Length: 3495
Applications SHOULD use this field to indicate the transfer-length of
the message-body, unless this is prohibited by the rules in section 4.4. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 119]
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Any Content-Length greater than or equal to zero is a valid value. Section 4.4 describes how to determine the length of a message-body if a Content-Length is not given.
Note that the meaning of this field is significantly different from
the corresponding definition in MIME, where it is an optional field used within the "message/external-body" content-type. In HTTP, it SHOULD be sent whenever the message's length can be determined prior to being transferred, unless this is prohibited by the rules in section 4.4. 14.14 Content-Location
The Content-Location entity-header field MAY be used to supply the
resource location for the entity enclosed in the message when that
entity is accessible from a location separate from the requested
resource's URI. A server SHOULD provide a Content-Location for the variant corresponding to the response entity; especially in the case where a resource has multiple entities associated with it, and those
entities actually have separate locations by which they might be
individually accessed, the server SHOULD provide a Content-Location for the particular variant which is returned. Content-Location = "Content-Location" ":" ( absoluteURI | relativeURI )
The value of Content-Location also defines the base URI for the
entity.
The Content-Location value is not a replacement for the original
requested URI; it is only a statement of the location of the resource corresponding to this particular entity at the time of the request.
Future requests MAY specify the Content-Location URI as the request
URI if the desire is to identify the source of that particular
entity.
A cache cannot assume that an entity with a Content-Location
different from the URI used to retrieve it can be used to respond to
later requests on that Content-Location URI. However, the Content
Location can be used to differentiate between multiple entities
retrieved from a single requested resource, as described in section 13.6. If the Content-Location is a relative URI, the relative URI is interpreted relative to the Request-URI.
The meaning of the Content-Location header in PUT or POST requests is
undefined; servers are free to ignore it in those cases. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 120]
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14.15 Content-MD5 The Content-MD5 entity-header field, as defined in RFC 1864 [23], is
an MD5 digest of the entity-body for the purpose of providing an
end-to-end message integrity check (MIC) of the entity-body. (Note: a
MIC is good for detecting accidental modification of the entity-body
in transit, but is not proof against malicious attacks.) Content-MD5 = "Content-MD5" ":" md5-digest md5-digest = <base64 of 128 bit MD5 digest as per RFC 1864>
The Content-MD5 header field MAY be generated by an origin server or
client to function as an integrity check of the entity-body. Only origin servers or clients MAY generate the Content-MD5 header field; proxies and gateways MUST NOT generate it, as this would defeat its value as an end-to-end integrity check. Any recipient of the entity body, including gateways and proxies, MAY check that the digest value in this header field matches that of the entity-body as received. The MD5 digest is computed based on the content of the entity-body, including any content-coding that has been applied, but not including any transfer-encoding applied to the message-body. If the message is received with a transfer-encoding, that encoding MUST be removed prior to checking the Content-MD5 value against the received entity.
This has the result that the digest is computed on the octets of the
entity-body exactly as, and in the order that, they would be sent if no transfer-encoding were being applied.
HTTP extends RFC 1864 to permit the digest to be computed for MIME
composite media-types (e.g., multipart/* and message/rfc822), but
this does not change how the digest is computed as defined in the
preceding paragraph. There are several consequences of this. The entity-body for composite types MAY contain many body-parts, each with its own MIME and HTTP headers (including Content-MD5, Content-Transfer-Encoding, and Content-Encoding headers). If a body-part has a Content-Transfer Encoding or Content-Encoding header, it is assumed that the content of the body-part has had the encoding applied, and the body-part is included in the Content-MD5 digest as is -- i.e., after the application. The Transfer-Encoding header field is not allowed within body-parts.
Conversion of all line breaks to CRLF MUST NOT be done before
computing or checking the digest: the line break convention used in
the text actually transmitted MUST be left unaltered when computing
the digest. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 121]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Note: while the definition of Content-MD5 is exactly the same for HTTP as in RFC 1864 for MIME entity-bodies, there are several ways
in which the application of Content-MD5 to HTTP entity-bodies
differs from its application to MIME entity-bodies. One is that HTTP, unlike MIME, does not use Content-Transfer-Encoding, and does use Transfer-Encoding and Content-Encoding. Another is that HTTP more frequently uses binary content types than MIME, so it is worth noting that, in such cases, the byte order used to compute the digest is the transmission byte order defined for the type. Lastly, HTTP allows transmission of text types with any of several line break conventions and not just the canonical form using CRLF. 14.16 Content-Range
The Content-Range entity-header is sent with a partial entity-body to
specify where in the full entity-body the partial body should be
applied. Range units are defined in section 3.12. Content-Range = "Content-Range" ":" content-range-spec content-range-spec = byte-content-range-spec byte-content-range-spec = bytes-unit SP byte-range-resp-spec "/" ( instance-length | "" ) byte-range-resp-spec = (first-byte-pos "-" last-byte-pos)
| ""
instance-length = 1DIGIT The header SHOULD indicate the total length of the full entity-body, unless this length is unknown or difficult to determine. The asterisk "" character means that the instance-length is unknown at the time when the response was generated. Unlike byte-ranges-specifier values (see section 14.35.1), a byte range-resp-spec MUST only specify one range, and MUST contain
absolute byte positions for both the first and last byte of the
range.
A byte-content-range-spec with a byte-range-resp-spec whose last
byte-pos value is less than its first-byte-pos value, or whose
instance-length value is less than or equal to its last-byte-pos
value, is invalid. The recipient of an invalid byte-content-range spec MUST ignore it and any content transferred along with it.
A server sending a response with status code 416 (Requested range not
satisfiable) SHOULD include a Content-Range field with a byte-range
resp-spec of "*". The instance-length specifies the current length of Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 122]
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the selected resource. A response with status code 206 (Partial
Content) MUST NOT include a Content-Range field with a byte-range
resp-spec of "*". Examples of byte-content-range-spec values, assuming that the entity contains a total of 1234 bytes: . The first 500 bytes:
bytes 0-499/1234
. The second 500 bytes:
bytes 500-999/1234
. All except for the first 500 bytes:
bytes 500-1233/1234
. The last 500 bytes:
bytes 734-1233/1234
When an HTTP message includes the content of a single range (for
example, a response to a request for a single range, or to a request for a set of ranges that overlap without any holes), this content is transmitted with a Content-Range header, and a Content-Length header showing the number of bytes actually transferred. For example, HTTP/1.1 206 Partial content Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 06:25:24 GMT Last-Modified: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 04:58:08 GMT Content-Range: bytes 21010-47021/47022 Content-Length: 26012 Content-Type: image/gif
When an HTTP message includes the content of multiple ranges (for
example, a response to a request for multiple non-overlapping ranges), these are transmitted as a multipart message. The multipart media type used for this purpose is "multipart/byteranges" as defined in appendix 19.2. See appendix 19.6.3 for a compatibility issue.
A response to a request for a single range MUST NOT be sent using the
multipart/byteranges media type. A response to a request for multiple ranges, whose result is a single range, MAY be sent as a multipart/byteranges media type with one part. A client that cannot
decode a multipart/byteranges message MUST NOT ask for multiple
byte-ranges in a single request. When a client requests multiple byte-ranges in one request, the
server SHOULD return them in the order that they appeared in the
request. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 123]
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If the server ignores a byte-range-spec because it is syntactically
invalid, the server SHOULD treat the request as if the invalid Range header field did not exist. (Normally, this means return a 200 response containing the full entity).
If the server receives a request (other than one including an If
Range request-header field) with an unsatisfiable Range request
header field (that is, all of whose byte-range-spec values have a
first-byte-pos value greater than the current length of the selected
resource), it SHOULD return a response code of 416 (Requested range not satisfiable) (section 10.4.17). Note: clients cannot depend on servers to send a 416 (Requested
range not satisfiable) response instead of a 200 (OK) response for
an unsatisfiable Range request-header, since not all servers implement this request-header. 14.17 Content-Type
The Content-Type entity-header field indicates the media type of the
entity-body sent to the recipient or, in the case of the HEAD method, the media type that would have been sent had the request been a GET. Content-Type = "Content-Type" ":" media-type Media types are defined in section 3.7. An example of the field is Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-4
Further discussion of methods for identifying the media type of an
entity is provided in section 7.2.1. 14.18 Date
The Date general-header field represents the date and time at which
the message was originated, having the same semantics as orig-date in
RFC 822. The field value is an HTTP-date, as described in section
3.3.1; it MUST be sent in RFC 1123 [8]-date format. Date = "Date" ":" HTTP-date
An example is
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 08:12:31 GMT Origin servers MUST include a Date header field in all responses, except in these cases: Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 124]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If the response status code is 100 (Continue) or 101 (Switching
Protocols), the response MAY include a Date header field, at the server's option.If the response status code conveys a server error, e.g. 500
(Internal Server Error) or 503 (Service Unavailable), and it is inconvenient or impossible to generate a valid Date.If the server does not have a clock that can provide a
reasonable approximation of the current time, its responses MUST NOT include a Date header field. In this case, the rules in section 14.18.1 MUST be followed.
A received message that does not have a Date header field MUST be
assigned one by the recipient if the message will be cached by that
recipient or gatewayed via a protocol which requires a Date. An HTTP
implementation without a clock MUST NOT cache responses without
revalidating them on every use. An HTTP cache, especially a shared cache, SHOULD use a mechanism, such as NTP [28], to synchronize its clock with a reliable external standard.
Clients SHOULD only send a Date header field in messages that include
an entity-body, as in the case of the PUT and POST requests, and even then it is optional. A client without a clock MUST NOT send a Date header field in a request.
The HTTP-date sent in a Date header SHOULD NOT represent a date and
time subsequent to the generation of the message. It SHOULD represent
the best available approximation of the date and time of message
generation, unless the implementation has no means of generating a reasonably accurate date and time. In theory, the date ought to represent the moment just before the entity is generated. In practice, the date can be generated at any time during the message origination without affecting its semantic value. 14.18.1 Clockless Origin Server Operation Some origin server implementations might not have a clock available.
An origin server without a clock MUST NOT assign Expires or Last
Modified values to a response, unless these values were associated with the resource by a system or user with a reliable clock. It MAY assign an Expires value that is known, at or before server configuration time, to be in the past (this allows "pre-expiration"
of responses without storing separate Expires values for each
resource). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 125]
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14.19 ETag
The ETag response-header field provides the current value of the
entity tag for the requested variant. The headers used with entity tags are described in sections 14.24, 14.26 and 14.44. The entity tag
MAY be used for comparison with other entities from the same resource
(see section 13.3.3). ETag = "ETag" ":" entity-tag Examples: ETag: "xyzzy" ETag: W/"xyzzy" ETag: "" 14.20 Expect
The Expect request-header field is used to indicate that particular
server behaviors are required by the client. Expect = "Expect" ":" 1#expectation expectation = "100-continue" | expectation-extension expectation-extension = token [ "=" ( token | quoted-string ) *expect-params ] expect-params = ";" token [ "=" ( token | quoted-string ) ]
A server that does not understand or is unable to comply with any of
the expectation values in the Expect field of a request MUST respond
with appropriate error status. The server MUST respond with a 417 (Expectation Failed) status if any of the expectations cannot be met or, if there are other problems with the request, some other 4xx status.
This header field is defined with extensible syntax to allow for
future extensions. If a server receives a request containing an
Expect field that includes an expectation-extension that it does not
support, it MUST respond with a 417 (Expectation Failed) status.
Comparison of expectation values is case-insensitive for unquoted
tokens (including the 100-continue token), and is case-sensitive for quoted-string expectation-extensions. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 126]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
The Expect mechanism is hop-by-hop: that is, an HTTP/1.1 proxy MUST
return a 417 (Expectation Failed) status if it receives a request
with an expectation that it cannot meet. However, the Expect request-header itself is end-to-end; it MUST be forwarded if the request is forwarded. Many older HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1 applications do not understand the Expect header. See section 8.2.3 for the use of the 100 (continue) status. 14.21 Expires
The Expires entity-header field gives the date/time after which the
response is considered stale. A stale cache entry may not normally be
returned by a cache (either a proxy cache or a user agent cache)
unless it is first validated with the origin server (or with an
intermediate cache that has a fresh copy of the entity). See section 13.2 for further discussion of the expiration model.
The presence of an Expires field does not imply that the original
resource will change or cease to exist at, before, or after that time.
The format is an absolute date and time as defined by HTTP-date in
section 3.3.1; it MUST be in RFC 1123 date format: Expires = "Expires" ":" HTTP-date
An example of its use is
Expires: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 16:00:00 GMT Note: if a response includes a Cache-Control field with the max age directive (see section 14.9.3), that directive overrides the Expires field. HTTP/1.1 clients and caches MUST treat other invalid date formats, especially including the value "0", as in the past (i.e., "already expired"). To mark a response as "already expired," an origin server sends an Expires date that is equal to the Date header value. (See the rules for expiration calculations in section 13.2.4.) Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 127]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
To mark a response as "never expires," an origin server sends an
Expires date approximately one year from the time the response is
sent. HTTP/1.1 servers SHOULD NOT send Expires dates more than one year in the future.
The presence of an Expires header field with a date value of some
time in the future on a response that otherwise would by default be
non-cacheable indicates that the response is cacheable, unless indicated otherwise by a Cache-Control header field (section 14.9). 14.22 From The From request-header field, if given, SHOULD contain an Internet
e-mail address for the human user who controls the requesting user
agent. The address SHOULD be machine-usable, as defined by "mailbox" in RFC 822 [9] as updated by RFC 1123 [8]: From = "From" ":" mailbox An example is: From: webmaster@w3.org
This header field MAY be used for logging purposes and as a means for
identifying the source of invalid or unwanted requests. It SHOULD NOT be used as an insecure form of access protection. The interpretation
of this field is that the request is being performed on behalf of the
person given, who accepts responsibility for the method performed. In particular, robot agents SHOULD include this header so that the
person responsible for running the robot can be contacted if problems
occur on the receiving end.
The Internet e-mail address in this field MAY be separate from the
Internet host which issued the request. For example, when a request is passed through a proxy the original issuer's address SHOULD be used. The client SHOULD NOT send the From header field without the user's approval, as it might conflict with the user's privacy interests or their site's security policy. It is strongly recommended that the user be able to disable, enable, and modify the value of this field at any time prior to a request. 14.23 Host
The Host request-header field specifies the Internet host and port
number of the resource being requested, as obtained from the original URI given by the user or referring resource (generally an HTTP URL, Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 128]
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as described in section 3.2.2). The Host field value MUST represent
the naming authority of the origin server or gateway given by the
original URL. This allows the origin server or gateway to differentiate between internally-ambiguous URLs, such as the root "/" URL of a server for multiple host names on a single IP address. Host = "Host" ":" host [ ":" port ] ; Section 3.2.2 A "host" without any trailing port information implies the default port for the service requested (e.g., "80" for an HTTP URL). For example, a request on the origin server for http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/ would properly include: GET /pub/WWW/ HTTP/1.1 Host: www.w3.org A client MUST include a Host header field in all HTTP/1.1 request messages . If the requested URI does not include an Internet host name for the service being requested, then the Host header field MUST be given with an empty value. An HTTP/1.1 proxy MUST ensure that any
request message it forwards does contain an appropriate Host header
field that identifies the service being requested by the proxy. All Internet-based HTTP/1.1 servers MUST respond with a 400 (Bad Request) status code to any HTTP/1.1 request message which lacks a Host header field. See sections 5.2 and 19.6.1.1 for other requirements relating to Host. 14.24 If-Match
The If-Match request-header field is used with a method to make it
conditional. A client that has one or more entities previously
obtained from the resource can verify that one of those entities is
current by including a list of their associated entity tags in the
If-Match header field. Entity tags are defined in section 3.11. The
purpose of this feature is to allow efficient updates of cached
information with a minimum amount of transaction overhead. It is also used, on updating requests, to prevent inadvertent modification of the wrong version of a resource. As a special case, the value "" matches any current entity of the resource. If-Match = "If-Match" ":" ( "" | 1#entity-tag )
If any of the entity tags match the entity tag of the entity that
would have been returned in the response to a similar GET request
(without the If-Match header) on that resource, or if "*" is given Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 129]
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and any current entity exists for that resource, then the server MAY
perform the requested method as if the If-Match header field did not
exist. A server MUST use the strong comparison function (see section 13.3.3) to compare the entity tags in If-Match. If none of the entity tags match, or if "*" is given and no current entity exists, the server MUST NOT perform the requested method, and MUST return a 412 (Precondition Failed) response. This behavior is most useful when the client wants to prevent an updating method, such as PUT, from modifying a resource that has changed since the client last retrieved it. If the request would, without the If-Match header field, result in anything other than a 2xx or 412 status, then the If-Match header MUST be ignored. The meaning of "If-Match: *" is that the method SHOULD be performed if the representation selected by the origin server (or by a cache, possibly using the Vary mechanism, see section 14.44) exists, and MUST NOT be performed if the representation does not exist. A request intended to update a resource (e.g., a PUT) MAY include an
If-Match header field to signal that the request method MUST NOT be
applied if the entity corresponding to the If-Match value (a single
entity tag) is no longer a representation of that resource. This
allows the user to indicate that they do not wish the request to be
successful if the resource has been changed without their knowledge. Examples: If-Match: "xyzzy" If-Match: "xyzzy", "r2d2xxxx", "c3piozzzz" If-Match: *
The result of a request having both an If-Match header field and
either an If-None-Match or an If-Modified-Since header fields is
undefined by this specification. 14.25 If-Modified-Since
The If-Modified-Since request-header field is used with a method to
make it conditional: if the requested variant has not been modified since the time specified in this field, an entity will not be returned from the server; instead, a 304 (not modified) response will be returned without any message-body. If-Modified-Since = "If-Modified-Since" ":" HTTP-date Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 130]
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An example of the field is: If-Modified-Since: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 19:43:31 GMT
A GET method with an If-Modified-Since header and no Range header
requests that the identified entity be transferred only if it has
been modified since the date given by the If-Modified-Since header. The algorithm for determining this includes the following cases:
a) If the request would normally result in anything other than a
200 (OK) status, or if the passed If-Modified-Since date is invalid, the response is exactly the same as for a normal GET. A date which is later than the server's current time is invalid.
b) If the variant has been modified since the If-Modified-Since
date, the response is exactly the same as for a normal GET.
c) If the variant has not been modified since a valid If
Modified-Since date, the server SHOULD return a 304 (Not Modified) response.
The purpose of this feature is to allow efficient updates of cached
information with a minimum amount of transaction overhead. Note: The Range request-header field modifies the meaning of If Modified-Since; see section 14.35 for full details. Note: If-Modified-Since times are interpreted by the server, whose clock might not be synchronized with the client. Note: When handling an If-Modified-Since header field, some servers will use an exact date comparison function, rather than a less-than function, for deciding whether to send a 304 (Not Modified) response. To get best results when sending an If Modified-Since header field for cache validation, clients are
advised to use the exact date string received in a previous Last
Modified header field whenever possible. Note: If a client uses an arbitrary date in the If-Modified-Since
header instead of a date taken from the Last-Modified header for
the same request, the client should be aware of the fact that this date is interpreted in the server's understanding of time. The
client should consider unsynchronized clocks and rounding problems
due to the different encodings of time between the client and
server. This includes the possibility of race conditions if the
document has changed between the time it was first requested and
the If-Modified-Since date of a subsequent request, and the Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 131]
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possibility of clock-skew-related problems if the If-Modified
Since date is derived from the client's clock without correction to the server's clock. Corrections for different time bases
between client and server are at best approximate due to network
latency.
The result of a request having both an If-Modified-Since header field
and either an If-Match or an If-Unmodified-Since header fields is
undefined by this specification. 14.26 If-None-Match
The If-None-Match request-header field is used with a method to make
it conditional. A client that has one or more entities previously
obtained from the resource can verify that none of those entities is
current by including a list of their associated entity tags in the
If-None-Match header field. The purpose of this feature is to allow
efficient updates of cached information with a minimum amount of
transaction overhead. It is also used to prevent a method (e.g. PUT)
from inadvertently modifying an existing resource when the client
believes that the resource does not exist. As a special case, the value "" matches any current entity of the resource. If-None-Match = "If-None-Match" ":" ( "" | 1#entity-tag )
If any of the entity tags match the entity tag of the entity that
would have been returned in the response to a similar GET request
(without the If-None-Match header) on that resource, or if "*" is given and any current entity exists for that resource, then the server MUST NOT perform the requested method, unless required to do so because the resource's modification date fails to match that supplied in an If-Modified-Since header field in the request. Instead, if the request method was GET or HEAD, the server SHOULD respond with a 304 (Not Modified) response, including the cache
related header fields (particularly ETag) of one of the entities that
matched. For all other request methods, the server MUST respond with a status of 412 (Precondition Failed). See section 13.3.3 for rules on how to determine if two entities tags match. The weak comparison function can only be used with GET or HEAD requests. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 132]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If none of the entity tags match, then the server MAY perform the requested method as if the If-None-Match header field did not exist,
but MUST also ignore any If-Modified-Since header field(s) in the
request. That is, if no entity tags match, then the server MUST NOT return a 304 (Not Modified) response. If the request would, without the If-None-Match header field, result in anything other than a 2xx or 304 status, then the If-None-Match header MUST be ignored. (See section 13.3.4 for a discussion of
server behavior when both If-Modified-Since and If-None-Match appear
in the same request.) The meaning of "If-None-Match: *" is that the method MUST NOT be
performed if the representation selected by the origin server (or by
a cache, possibly using the Vary mechanism, see section 14.44) exists, and SHOULD be performed if the representation does not exist.
This feature is intended to be useful in preventing races between PUT
operations. Examples: If-None-Match: "xyzzy" If-None-Match: W/"xyzzy" If-None-Match: "xyzzy", "r2d2xxxx", "c3piozzzz" If-None-Match: W/"xyzzy", W/"r2d2xxxx", W/"c3piozzzz" If-None-Match: *
The result of a request having both an If-None-Match header field and
either an If-Match or an If-Unmodified-Since header fields is
undefined by this specification. 14.27 If-Range If a client has a partial copy of an entity in its cache, and wishes to have an up-to-date copy of the entire entity in its cache, it
could use the Range request-header with a conditional GET (using
either or both of If-Unmodified-Since and If-Match.) However, if the condition fails because the entity has been modified, the client
would then have to make a second request to obtain the entire current
entity-body. The If-Range header allows a client to "short-circuit" the second request. Informally, its meaning is `if the entity is unchanged, send me the part(s) that I am missing; otherwise, send me the entire new entity'. If-Range = "If-Range" ":" ( entity-tag | HTTP-date ) Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 133]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If the client has no entity tag for an entity, but does have a Last Modified date, it MAY use that date in an If-Range header. (The
server can distinguish between a valid HTTP-date and any form of
entity-tag by examining no more than two characters.) The If-Range header SHOULD only be used together with a Range header, and MUST be ignored if the request does not include a Range header, or if the server does not support the sub-range operation.
If the entity tag given in the If-Range header matches the current
entity tag for the entity, then the server SHOULD provide the
specified sub-range of the entity using a 206 (Partial content)
response. If the entity tag does not match, then the server SHOULD return the entire entity using a 200 (OK) response. 14.28 If-Unmodified-Since
The If-Unmodified-Since request-header field is used with a method to
make it conditional. If the requested resource has not been modified since the time specified in this field, the server SHOULD perform the
requested operation as if the If-Unmodified-Since header were not
present. If the requested variant has been modified since the specified time, the server MUST NOT perform the requested operation, and MUST return a 412 (Precondition Failed). If-Unmodified-Since = "If-Unmodified-Since" ":" HTTP-date An example of the field is: If-Unmodified-Since: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 19:43:31 GMT If the request normally (i.e., without the If-Unmodified-Since header) would result in anything other than a 2xx or 412 status, the If-Unmodified-Since header SHOULD be ignored. If the specified date is invalid, the header is ignored.
The result of a request having both an If-Unmodified-Since header
field and either an If-None-Match or an If-Modified-Since header
fields is undefined by this specification. 14.29 Last-Modified
The Last-Modified entity-header field indicates the date and time at
which the origin server believes the variant was last modified. Last-Modified = "Last-Modified" ":" HTTP-date Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 134]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
An example of its use is
Last-Modified: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 12:45:26 GMT
The exact meaning of this header field depends on the implementation
of the origin server and the nature of the original resource. For files, it may be just the file system last-modified time. For entities with dynamically included parts, it may be the most recent of the set of last-modify times for its component parts. For database gateways, it may be the last-update time stamp of the record. For virtual objects, it may be the last time the internal state changed.
An origin server MUST NOT send a Last-Modified date which is later
than the server's time of message origination. In such cases, where the resource's last modification would indicate some time in the future, the server MUST replace that date with the message origination date.
An origin server SHOULD obtain the Last-Modified value of the entity
as close as possible to the time that it generates the Date value of
its response. This allows a recipient to make an accurate assessment of the entity's modification time, especially if the entity changes near the time that the response is generated. HTTP/1.1 servers SHOULD send Last-Modified whenever feasible. 14.30 Location
The Location response-header field is used to redirect the recipient
to a location other than the Request-URI for completion of the
request or identification of a new resource. For 201 (Created) responses, the Location is that of the new resource which was created by the request. For 3xx responses, the location SHOULD indicate the server's preferred URI for automatic redirection to the resource. The field value consists of a single absolute URI. Location = "Location" ":" absoluteURI An example is: Location: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/People.html Note: The Content-Location header field (section 14.14) differs
from Location in that the Content-Location identifies the original
location of the entity enclosed in the request. It is therefore
possible for a response to contain header fields for both Location
and Content-Location. Also see section 13.10 for cache requirements of some methods. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 135]
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14.31 Max-Forwards
The Max-Forwards request-header field provides a mechanism with the
TRACE (section 9.8) and OPTIONS (section 9.2) methods to limit the
number of proxies or gateways that can forward the request to the
next inbound server. This can be useful when the client is attempting
to trace a request chain which appears to be failing or looping in
mid-chain. Max-Forwards = "Max-Forwards" ":" 1*DIGIT
The Max-Forwards value is a decimal integer indicating the remaining
number of times this request message may be forwarded.
Each proxy or gateway recipient of a TRACE or OPTIONS request
containing a Max-Forwards header field MUST check and update its
value prior to forwarding the request. If the received value is zero (0), the recipient MUST NOT forward the request; instead, it MUST respond as the final recipient. If the received Max-Forwards value is greater than zero, then the forwarded message MUST contain an updated Max-Forwards field with a value decremented by one (1).
The Max-Forwards header field MAY be ignored for all other methods
defined by this specification and for any extension methods for which
it is not explicitly referred to as part of that method definition. 14.32 Pragma
The Pragma general-header field is used to include implementation
specific directives that might apply to any recipient along the
request/response chain. All pragma directives specify optional behavior from the viewpoint of the protocol; however, some systems MAY require that behavior be consistent with the directives. Pragma = "Pragma" ":" 1#pragma-directive pragma-directive = "no-cache" | extension-pragma extension-pragma = token [ "=" ( token | quoted-string ) ] When the no-cache directive is present in a request message, an
application SHOULD forward the request toward the origin server even
if it has a cached copy of what is being requested. This pragma
directive has the same semantics as the no-cache cache-directive (see
section 14.9) and is defined here for backward compatibility with HTTP/1.0. Clients SHOULD include both header fields when a no-cache request is sent to a server not known to be HTTP/1.1 compliant. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 136]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Pragma directives MUST be passed through by a proxy or gateway
application, regardless of their significance to that application,
since the directives might be applicable to all recipients along the
request/response chain. It is not possible to specify a pragma for a specific recipient; however, any pragma directive not relevant to a recipient SHOULD be ignored by that recipient. HTTP/1.1 caches SHOULD treat "Pragma: no-cache" as if the client had sent "Cache-Control: no-cache". No new Pragma directives will be defined in HTTP. Note: because the meaning of "Pragma: no-cache as a response header field is not actually specified, it does not provide a reliable replacement for "Cache-Control: no-cache" in a response 14.33 Proxy-Authenticate
The Proxy-Authenticate response-header field MUST be included as part
of a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required) response. The field value
consists of a challenge that indicates the authentication scheme and
parameters applicable to the proxy for this Request-URI. Proxy-Authenticate = "Proxy-Authenticate" ":" 1#challenge The HTTP access authentication process is described in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" [43]. Unlike WWW-Authenticate, the Proxy-Authenticate header field applies only to
the current connection and SHOULD NOT be passed on to downstream
clients. However, an intermediate proxy might need to obtain its own credentials by requesting them from the downstream client, which in
some circumstances will appear as if the proxy is forwarding the
Proxy-Authenticate header field. 14.34 Proxy-Authorization
The Proxy-Authorization request-header field allows the client to
identify itself (or its user) to a proxy which requires
authentication. The Proxy-Authorization field value consists of
credentials containing the authentication information of the user
agent for the proxy and/or realm of the resource being requested. Proxy-Authorization = "Proxy-Authorization" ":" credentials The HTTP access authentication process is described in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" [43] . Unlike Authorization, the Proxy-Authorization header field applies only to
the next outbound proxy that demanded authentication using the Proxy
Authenticate field. When multiple proxies are used in a chain, the Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 137]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Proxy-Authorization header field is consumed by the first outbound
proxy that was expecting to receive credentials. A proxy MAY relay
the credentials from the client request to the next proxy if that is
the mechanism by which the proxies cooperatively authenticate a given
request. 14.35 Range 14.35.1 Byte Ranges
Since all HTTP entities are represented in HTTP messages as sequences
of bytes, the concept of a byte range is meaningful for any HTTP entity. (However, not all clients and servers need to support byte range operations.)
Byte range specifications in HTTP apply to the sequence of bytes in
the entity-body (not necessarily the same as the message-body). A byte range operation MAY specify a single range of bytes, or a set of ranges within a single entity. ranges-specifier = byte-ranges-specifier byte-ranges-specifier = bytes-unit "=" byte-range-set byte-range-set = 1#( byte-range-spec | suffix-byte-range-spec ) byte-range-spec = first-byte-pos "-" [last-byte-pos] first-byte-pos = 1DIGIT last-byte-pos = 1DIGIT
The first-byte-pos value in a byte-range-spec gives the byte-offset
of the first byte in a range. The last-byte-pos value gives the byte-offset of the last byte in the range; that is, the byte positions specified are inclusive. Byte offsets start at zero. If the last-byte-pos value is present, it MUST be greater than or equal to the first-byte-pos in that byte-range-spec, or the byte range-spec is syntactically invalid. The recipient of a byte-range
set that includes one or more syntactically invalid byte-range-spec
values MUST ignore the header field that includes that byte-range
set. If the last-byte-pos value is absent, or if the value is greater than or equal to the current length of the entity-body, last-byte-pos is
taken to be equal to one less than the current length of the entity
body in bytes. By its choice of last-byte-pos, a client can limit the number of bytes retrieved without knowing the size of the entity. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 138]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
suffix-byte-range-spec = "-" suffix-length suffix-length = 1*DIGIT
A suffix-byte-range-spec is used to specify the suffix of the
entity-body, of a length given by the suffix-length value. (That is, this form specifies the last N bytes of an entity-body.) If the entity is shorter than the specified suffix-length, the entire entity-body is used.
If a syntactically valid byte-range-set includes at least one byte
range-spec whose first-byte-pos is less than the current length of
the entity-body, or at least one suffix-byte-range-spec with a non zero suffix-length, then the byte-range-set is satisfiable. Otherwise, the byte-range-set is unsatisfiable. If the byte-range-set is unsatisfiable, the server SHOULD return a response with a status of 416 (Requested range not satisfiable). Otherwise, the server
SHOULD return a response with a status of 206 (Partial Content)
containing the satisfiable ranges of the entity-body.
Examples of byte-ranges-specifier values (assuming an entity-body of
length 10000):
- The first 500 bytes (byte offsets 0-499, inclusive): bytes=0
499 - The second 500 bytes (byte offsets 500-999, inclusive):
bytes=500-999 - The final 500 bytes (byte offsets 9500-9999, inclusive):
bytes=-500 - Or bytes=9500
- The first and last bytes only (bytes 0 and 9999): bytes=0-0,-1
- Several legal but not canonical specifications of the second 500
bytes (byte offsets 500-999, inclusive): bytes=500-600,601-999 bytes=500-700,601-999 14.35.2 Range Retrieval Requests
HTTP retrieval requests using conditional or unconditional GET
methods MAY request one or more sub-ranges of the entity, instead of the entire entity, using the Range request header, which applies to the entity returned as the result of the request: Range = "Range" ":" ranges-specifier Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 139]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
A server MAY ignore the Range header. However, HTTP/1.1 origin
servers and intermediate caches ought to support byte ranges when
possible, since Range supports efficient recovery from partially failed transfers, and supports efficient partial retrieval of large entities.
If the server supports the Range header and the specified range or
ranges are appropriate for the entity:
- The presence of a Range header in an unconditional GET modifies
what is returned if the GET is otherwise successful. In other words, the response carries a status code of 206 (Partial Content) instead of 200 (OK). - The presence of a Range header in a conditional GET (a request
using one or both of If-Modified-Since and If-None-Match, or
one or both of If-Unmodified-Since and If-Match) modifies what
is returned if the GET is otherwise successful and the
condition is true. It does not affect the 304 (Not Modified) response returned if the conditional is false. In some cases, it might be more appropriate to use the If-Range header (see section 14.27) in addition to the Range header. If a proxy that supports ranges receives a Range request, forwards the request to an inbound server, and receives an entire entity in reply, it SHOULD only return the requested range to its client. It
SHOULD store the entire received response in its cache if that is
consistent with its cache allocation policies. 14.36 Referer The Referer[sic] request-header field allows the client to specify, for the server's benefit, the address (URI) of the resource from which the Request-URI was obtained (the "referrer", although the header field is misspelled.) The Referer request-header allows a server to generate lists of back-links to resources for interest, logging, optimized caching, etc. It also allows obsolete or mistyped links to be traced for maintenance. The Referer field MUST NOT be
sent if the Request-URI was obtained from a source that does not have
its own URI, such as input from the user keyboard. Referer = "Referer" ":" ( absoluteURI | relativeURI ) Example: Referer: http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/Overview.html Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 140]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
If the field value is a relative URI, it SHOULD be interpreted relative to the Request-URI. The URI MUST NOT include a fragment. See section 15.1.3 for security considerations. 14.37 Retry-After
The Retry-After response-header field can be used with a 503 (Service
Unavailable) response to indicate how long the service is expected to
be unavailable to the requesting client. This field MAY also be used
with any 3xx (Redirection) response to indicate the minimum time the
user-agent is asked wait before issuing the redirected request. The
value of this field can be either an HTTP-date or an integer number
of seconds (in decimal) after the time of the response. Retry-After = "Retry-After" ":" ( HTTP-date | delta-seconds )
Two examples of its use are
Retry-After: Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59 GMT Retry-After: 120 In the latter example, the delay is 2 minutes. 14.38 Server
The Server response-header field contains information about the
software used by the origin server to handle the request. The field can contain multiple product tokens (section 3.8) and comments identifying the server and any significant subproducts. The product
tokens are listed in order of their significance for identifying the
application. Server = "Server" ":" 1*( product | comment ) Example: Server: CERN/3.0 libwww/2.17 If the response is being forwarded through a proxy, the proxy application MUST NOT modify the Server response-header. Instead, it SHOULD include a Via field (as described in section 14.45). Note: Revealing the specific software version of the server might
allow the server machine to become more vulnerable to attacks
against software that is known to contain security holes. Server
implementors are encouraged to make this field a configurable
option. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 141]
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14.39 TE
The TE request-header field indicates what extension transfer-codings
it is willing to accept in the response and whether or not it is
willing to accept trailer fields in a chunked transfer-coding. Its value may consist of the keyword "trailers" and/or a comma-separated
list of extension transfer-coding names with optional accept
parameters (as described in section 3.6). TE = "TE" ":" #( t-codings ) t-codings = "trailers" | ( transfer-extension [ accept-params ] ) The presence of the keyword "trailers" indicates that the client is willing to accept trailer fields in a chunked transfer-coding, as defined in section 3.6.1. This keyword is reserved for use with
transfer-coding values even though it does not itself represent a
transfer-coding. Examples of its use are: TE: deflate TE: TE: trailers, deflate;q=0.5 The TE header field only applies to the immediate connection. Therefore, the keyword MUST be supplied within a Connection header field (section 14.10) whenever TE is present in an HTTP/1.1 message. A server tests whether a transfer-coding is acceptable, according to a TE field, using these rules:
- The "chunked" transfer-coding is always acceptable. If the
keyword "trailers" is listed, the client indicates that it is
willing to accept trailer fields in the chunked response on
behalf of itself and any downstream clients. The implication is that, if given, the client is stating that either all
downstream clients are willing to accept trailer fields in the
forwarded response, or that it will attempt to buffer the response on behalf of downstream recipients. Note: HTTP/1.1 does not define any means to limit the size of a
chunked response such that a client can be assured of buffering
the entire response.
If the transfer-coding being tested is one of the transfer
codings listed in the TE field, then it is acceptable unless it is accompanied by a qvalue of 0. (As defined in section 3.9, a qvalue of 0 means "not acceptable.") Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 142]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999If multiple transfer-codings are acceptable, then the
acceptable transfer-coding with the highest non-zero qvalue is
preferred. The "chunked" transfer-coding always has a qvalue of 1. If the TE field-value is empty or if no TE field is present, the only transfer-coding is "chunked". A message with no transfer-coding is always acceptable. 14.40 Trailer
The Trailer general field value indicates that the given set of
header fields is present in the trailer of a message encoded with
chunked transfer-coding. Trailer = "Trailer" ":" 1#field-name An HTTP/1.1 message SHOULD include a Trailer header field in a message using chunked transfer-coding with a non-empty trailer. Doing
so allows the recipient to know which header fields to expect in the
trailer. If no Trailer header field is present, the trailer SHOULD NOT include any header fields. See section 3.6.1 for restrictions on the use of trailer fields in a "chunked" transfer-coding.
Message header fields listed in the Trailer header field MUST NOT
include the following header fields: . Transfer-Encoding . Content-Length . Trailer 14.41 Transfer-Encoding
The Transfer-Encoding general-header field indicates what (if any)
type of transformation has been applied to the message body in order
to safely transfer it between the sender and the recipient. This
differs from the content-coding in that the transfer-coding is a
property of the message, not of the entity. Transfer-Encoding = "Transfer-Encoding" ":" 1#transfer-coding Transfer-codings are defined in section 3.6. An example is: Transfer-Encoding: chunked Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 143]
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If multiple encodings have been applied to an entity, the transfer codings MUST be listed in the order in which they were applied.
Additional information about the encoding parameters MAY be provided
by other entity-header fields not defined by this specification. Many older HTTP/1.0 applications do not understand the Transfer Encoding header. 14.42 Upgrade
The Upgrade general-header allows the client to specify what
additional communication protocols it supports and would like to use
if the server finds it appropriate to switch protocols. The server
MUST use the Upgrade header field within a 101 (Switching Protocols)
response to indicate which protocol(s) are being switched. Upgrade = "Upgrade" ":" 1#product For example, Upgrade: HTTP/2.0, SHTTP/1.3, IRC/6.9, RTA/x11
The Upgrade header field is intended to provide a simple mechanism
for transition from HTTP/1.1 to some other, incompatible protocol. It
does so by allowing the client to advertise its desire to use another
protocol, such as a later version of HTTP with a higher major version number, even though the current request has been made using HTTP/1.1.
This eases the difficult transition between incompatible protocols by
allowing the client to initiate a request in the more commonly
supported protocol while indicating to the server that it would like
to use a "better" protocol if available (where "better" is determined by the server, possibly according to the nature of the method and/or resource being requested).
The Upgrade header field only applies to switching application-layer
protocols upon the existing transport-layer connection. Upgrade cannot be used to insist on a protocol change; its acceptance and use by the server is optional. The capabilities and nature of the
application-layer communication after the protocol change is entirely
dependent upon the new protocol chosen, although the first action
after changing the protocol MUST be a response to the initial HTTP
request containing the Upgrade header field. The Upgrade header field only applies to the immediate connection. Therefore, the upgrade keyword MUST be supplied within a Connection header field (section 14.10) whenever Upgrade is present in an HTTP/1.1 message. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 144]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
The Upgrade header field cannot be used to indicate a switch to a
protocol on a different connection. For that purpose, it is more appropriate to use a 301, 302, 303, or 305 redirection response. This specification only defines the protocol name "HTTP" for use by the family of Hypertext Transfer Protocols, as defined by the HTTP version rules of section 3.1 and future updates to this specification. Any token can be used as a protocol name; however, it
will only be useful if both the client and server associate the name
with the same protocol. 14.43 User-Agent
The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the
user agent originating the request. This is for statistical purposes, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user
agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user
agent limitations. User agents SHOULD include this field with requests. The field can contain multiple product tokens (section 3.8)
and comments identifying the agent and any subproducts which form a
significant part of the user agent. By convention, the product tokens
are listed in order of their significance for identifying the
application. User-Agent = "User-Agent" ":" 1*( product | comment ) Example: User-Agent: CERN-LineMode/2.15 libwww/2.17b3 14.44 Vary
The Vary field value indicates the set of request-header fields that
fully determines, while the response is fresh, whether a cache is
permitted to use the response to reply to a subsequent request
without revalidation. For uncacheable or stale responses, the Vary
field value advises the user agent about the criteria that were used
to select the representation. A Vary field value of "*" implies that
a cache cannot determine from the request headers of a subsequent
request whether this response is the appropriate representation. See section 13.6 for use of the Vary header field by caches. Vary = "Vary" ":" ( "*" | 1#field-name ) An HTTP/1.1 server SHOULD include a Vary header field with any cacheable response that is subject to server-driven negotiation.
Doing so allows a cache to properly interpret future requests on that
resource and informs the user agent about the presence of negotiation
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 145]
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on that resource. A server MAY include a Vary header field with a non-cacheable response that is subject to server-driven negotiation,
since this might provide the user agent with useful information about
the dimensions over which the response varies at the time of the
response.
A Vary field value consisting of a list of field-names signals that
the representation selected for the response is based on a selection
algorithm which considers ONLY the listed request-header field values
in selecting the most appropriate representation. A cache MAY assume
that the same selection will be made for future requests with the
same values for the listed field names, for the duration of time for which the response is fresh.
The field-names given are not limited to the set of standard
request-header fields defined by this specification. Field names are case-insensitive. A Vary field value of "" signals that unspecified parameters not limited to the request-headers (e.g., the network address of the client), play a role in the selection of the response representation. The "" value MUST NOT be generated by a proxy server; it may only be generated by an origin server. 14.45 Via
The Via general-header field MUST be used by gateways and proxies to
indicate the intermediate protocols and recipients between the user
agent and the server on requests, and between the origin server and the client on responses. It is analogous to the "Received" field of
RFC 822 [9] and is intended to be used for tracking message forwards,
avoiding request loops, and identifying the protocol capabilities of all senders along the request/response chain. Via = "Via" ":" 1#( received-protocol received-by [ comment ] ) received-protocol = [ protocol-name "/" ] protocol-version protocol-name = token protocol-version = token received-by = ( host [ ":" port ] ) | pseudonym pseudonym = token
The received-protocol indicates the protocol version of the message
received by the server or client along each segment of the
request/response chain. The received-protocol version is appended to
the Via field value when the message is forwarded so that information
about the protocol capabilities of upstream applications remains
visible to all recipients. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 146]
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The protocol-name is optional if and only if it would be "HTTP". The
received-by field is normally the host and optional port number of a
recipient server or client that subsequently forwarded the message. However, if the real host is considered to be sensitive information, it MAY be replaced by a pseudonym. If the port is not given, it MAY be assumed to be the default port of the received-protocol.
Multiple Via field values represents each proxy or gateway that has
forwarded the message. Each recipient MUST append its information
such that the end result is ordered according to the sequence of
forwarding applications.
Comments MAY be used in the Via header field to identify the software
of the recipient proxy or gateway, analogous to the User-Agent and Server header fields. However, all comments in the Via field are
optional and MAY be removed by any recipient prior to forwarding the
message. For example, a request message could be sent from an HTTP/1.0 user agent to an internal proxy code-named "fred", which uses HTTP/1.1 to forward the request to a public proxy at nowhere.com, which completes the request by forwarding it to the origin server at www.ics.uci.edu. The request received by www.ics.uci.edu would then have the following Via header field: Via: 1.0 fred, 1.1 nowhere.com (Apache/1.1)
Proxies and gateways used as a portal through a network firewall
SHOULD NOT, by default, forward the names and ports of hosts within the firewall region. This information SHOULD only be propagated if explicitly enabled. If not enabled, the received-by host of any host
behind the firewall SHOULD be replaced by an appropriate pseudonym
for that host.
For organizations that have strong privacy requirements for hiding
internal structures, a proxy MAY combine an ordered subsequence of
Via header field entries with identical received-protocol values into
a single such entry. For example, Via: 1.0 ricky, 1.1 ethel, 1.1 fred, 1.0 lucy
could be collapsed to
Via: 1.0 ricky, 1.1 mertz, 1.0 lucy Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 147]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Applications SHOULD NOT combine multiple entries unless they are all
under the same organizational control and the hosts have already been
replaced by pseudonyms. Applications MUST NOT combine entries which have different received-protocol values. 14.46 Warning
The Warning general-header field is used to carry additional
information about the status or transformation of a message which
might not be reflected in the message. This information is typically
used to warn about a possible lack of semantic transparency from
caching operations or transformations applied to the entity body of
the message. Warning headers are sent with responses using: Warning = "Warning" ":" 1#warning-value warning-value = warn-code SP warn-agent SP warn-text [SP warn-date] warn-code = 3DIGIT warn-agent = ( host [ ":" port ] ) | pseudonym ; the name or pseudonym of the server adding ; the Warning header, for use in debugging warn-text = quoted-string warn-date = <"> HTTP-date <"> A response MAY carry more than one Warning header.
The warn-text SHOULD be in a natural language and character set that
is most likely to be intelligible to the human user receiving the
response. This decision MAY be based on any available knowledge, such as the location of the cache or user, the Accept-Language field in a request, the Content-Language field in a response, etc. The default language is English and the default character set is ISO-8859-1. If a character set other than ISO-8859-1 is used, it MUST be encoded in the warn-text using the method described in RFC 2047 [14]. Warning headers can in general be applied to any message, however
some specific warn-codes are specific to caches and can only be
applied to response messages. New Warning headers SHOULD be added after any existing Warning headers. A cache MUST NOT delete any Warning header that it received with a message. However, if a cache successfully validates a cache entry, it SHOULD remove any Warning
headers previously attached to that entry except as specified for
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 148]
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specific Warning codes. It MUST then add any Warning headers received in the validating response. In other words, Warning headers are those that would be attached to the most recent relevant response. When multiple Warning headers are attached to a response, the user agent ought to inform the user of as many of them as possible, in the order that they appear in the response. If it is not possible to inform the user of all of the warnings, the user agent SHOULD follow these heuristics:
- Warnings that appear early in the response take priority over
those appearing later in the response. - Warnings in the user's preferred character set take priority
over warnings in other character sets but with identical warn
codes and warn-agents.
Systems that generate multiple Warning headers SHOULD order them with
this user agent behavior in mind.
Requirements for the behavior of caches with respect to Warnings are
stated in section 13.1.2. This is a list of the currently-defined warn-codes, each with a recommended warn-text in English, and a description of its meaning. 110 Response is stale MUST be included whenever the returned response is stale. 111 Revalidation failed
MUST be included if a cache returns a stale response because an
attempt to revalidate the response failed, due to an inability to reach the server. 112 Disconnected operation
SHOULD be included if the cache is intentionally disconnected from
the rest of the network for a period of time. 113 Heuristic expiration
MUST be included if the cache heuristically chose a freshness
lifetime greater than 24 hours and the response's age is greater than 24 hours. 199 Miscellaneous warning
The warning text MAY include arbitrary information to be presented
to a human user, or logged. A system receiving this warning MUST NOT take any automated action, besides presenting the warning to the user. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 149]
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214 Transformation applied
MUST be added by an intermediate cache or proxy if it applies any
transformation changing the content-coding (as specified in the
Content-Encoding header) or media-type (as specified in the
Content-Type header) of the response, or the entity-body of the response, unless this Warning code already appears in the response. 299 Miscellaneous persistent warning
The warning text MAY include arbitrary information to be presented
to a human user, or logged. A system receiving this warning MUST NOT take any automated action.
If an implementation sends a message with one or more Warning headers
whose version is HTTP/1.0 or lower, then the sender MUST include in each warning-value a warn-date that matches the date in the response.
If an implementation receives a message with a warning-value that
includes a warn-date, and that warn-date is different from the Date value in the response, then that warning-value MUST be deleted from the message before storing, forwarding, or using it. (This prevents bad consequences of naive caching of Warning header fields.) If all of the warning-values are deleted for this reason, the Warning header MUST be deleted as well. 14.47 WWW-Authenticate
The WWW-Authenticate response-header field MUST be included in 401
(Unauthorized) response messages. The field value consists of at
least one challenge that indicates the authentication scheme(s) and
parameters applicable to the Request-URI. WWW-Authenticate = "WWW-Authenticate" ":" 1#challenge The HTTP access authentication process is described in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" [43]. User
agents are advised to take special care in parsing the WWW
Authenticate field value as it might contain more than one challenge, or if more than one WWW-Authenticate header field is provided, the
contents of a challenge itself can contain a comma-separated list of
authentication parameters. 15 Security Considerations This section is meant to inform application developers, information providers, and users of the security limitations in HTTP/1.1 as described by this document. The discussion does not include definitive solutions to the problems revealed, though it does make some suggestions for reducing security risks. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 150]
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15.1 Personal Information
HTTP clients are often privy to large amounts of personal information
(e.g. the user's name, location, mail address, passwords, encryption keys, etc.), and SHOULD be very careful to prevent unintentional leakage of this information via the HTTP protocol to other sources.
We very strongly recommend that a convenient interface be provided
for the user to control dissemination of such information, and that designers and implementors be particularly careful in this area.
History shows that errors in this area often create serious security
and/or privacy problems and generate highly adverse publicity for the
implementor's company. 15.1.1 Abuse of Server Log Information A server is in the position to save personal data about a user's
requests which might identify their reading patterns or subjects of
interest. This information is clearly confidential in nature and its handling can be constrained by law in certain countries. People using
the HTTP protocol to provide data are responsible for ensuring that
such material is not distributed without the permission of any
individuals that are identifiable by the published results. 15.1.2 Transfer of Sensitive Information Like any generic data transfer protocol, HTTP cannot regulate the content of the data that is transferred, nor is there any a priori
method of determining the sensitivity of any particular piece of
information within the context of any given request. Therefore,
applications SHOULD supply as much control over this information as
possible to the provider of that information. Four header fields are worth special mention in this context: Server, Via, Referer and From.
Revealing the specific software version of the server might allow the
server machine to become more vulnerable to attacks against software
that is known to contain security holes. Implementors SHOULD make the Server header field a configurable option.
Proxies which serve as a portal through a network firewall SHOULD
take special precautions regarding the transfer of header information
that identifies the hosts behind the firewall. In particular, they SHOULD remove, or replace with sanitized versions, any Via fields generated behind the firewall.
The Referer header allows reading patterns to be studied and reverse
links drawn. Although it can be very useful, its power can be abused
if user details are not separated from the information contained in
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 151]
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the Referer. Even when the personal information has been removed, the Referer header might indicate a private document's URI whose publication would be inappropriate. The information sent in the From field might conflict with the user's privacy interests or their site's security policy, and hence it SHOULD NOT be transmitted without the user being able to disable, enable, and modify the contents of the field. The user MUST be able
to set the contents of this field within a user preference or
application defaults configuration. We suggest, though do not require, that a convenient toggle interface
be provided for the user to enable or disable the sending of From and
Referer information. The User-Agent (section 14.43) or Server (section 14.38) header
fields can sometimes be used to determine that a specific client or
server have a particular security hole which might be exploited. Unfortunately, this same information is often used for other valuable purposes for which HTTP currently has no better mechanism. 15.1.3 Encoding Sensitive Information in URI's
Because the source of a link might be private information or might
reveal an otherwise private information source, it is strongly
recommended that the user be able to select whether or not the
Referer field is sent. For example, a browser client could have a toggle switch for browsing openly/anonymously, which would
respectively enable/disable the sending of Referer and From
information.
Clients SHOULD NOT include a Referer header field in a (non-secure)
HTTP request if the referring page was transferred with a secure
protocol.
Authors of services which use the HTTP protocol SHOULD NOT use GET
based forms for the submission of sensitive data, because this will cause this data to be encoded in the Request-URI. Many existing servers, proxies, and user agents will log the request URI in some place where it might be visible to third parties. Servers can use
POST-based form submission instead
15.1.4 Privacy Issues Connected to Accept Headers
Accept request-headers can reveal information about the user to all
servers which are accessed. The Accept-Language header in particular
can reveal information the user would consider to be of a private
nature, because the understanding of particular languages is often Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 152]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
strongly correlated to the membership of a particular ethnic group.
User agents which offer the option to configure the contents of an
Accept-Language header to be sent in every request are strongly
encouraged to let the configuration process include a message which
makes the user aware of the loss of privacy involved.
An approach that limits the loss of privacy would be for a user agent
to omit the sending of Accept-Language headers by default, and to ask
the user whether or not to start sending Accept-Language headers to a
server if it detects, by looking for any Vary response-header fields generated by the server, that such sending could improve the quality of service. Elaborate user-customized accept header fields sent in every request, in particular if these include quality values, can be used by servers as relatively reliable and long-lived user identifiers. Such user identifiers would allow content providers to do click-trail tracking,
and would allow collaborating content providers to match cross-server
click-trails or form submissions of individual users. Note that for many users not behind a proxy, the network address of the host
running the user agent will also serve as a long-lived user
identifier. In environments where proxies are used to enhance privacy, user agents ought to be conservative in offering accept header configuration options to end users. As an extreme privacy measure, proxies could filter the accept headers in relayed requests.
General purpose user agents which provide a high degree of header
configurability SHOULD warn users about the loss of privacy which can
be involved. 15.2 Attacks Based On File and Path Names
Implementations of HTTP origin servers SHOULD be careful to restrict
the documents returned by HTTP requests to be only those that were
intended by the server administrators. If an HTTP server translates HTTP URIs directly into file system calls, the server MUST take
special care not to serve files that were not intended to be
delivered to HTTP clients. For example, UNIX, Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems use ".." as a path component to indicate a directory level above the current one. On such a system, an HTTP
server MUST disallow any such construct in the Request-URI if it
would otherwise allow access to a resource outside those intended to
be accessible via the HTTP server. Similarly, files intended for
reference only internally to the server (such as access control
files, configuration files, and script code) MUST be protected from inappropriate retrieval, since they might contain sensitive information. Experience has shown that minor bugs in such HTTP server implementations have turned into security risks. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 153]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
15.3 DNS Spoofing Clients using HTTP rely heavily on the Domain Name Service, and are
thus generally prone to security attacks based on the deliberate
mis-association of IP addresses and DNS names. Clients need to be
cautious in assuming the continuing validity of an IP number/DNS name
association. In particular, HTTP clients SHOULD rely on their name resolver for confirmation of an IP number/DNS name association, rather than caching the result of previous host name lookups. Many platforms already can cache host name lookups locally when appropriate, and they SHOULD be configured to do so. It is proper for these lookups to be cached, however, only when the TTL (Time To Live) information
reported by the name server makes it likely that the cached
information will remain useful.
If HTTP clients cache the results of host name lookups in order to
achieve a performance improvement, they MUST observe the TTL information reported by DNS. If HTTP clients do not observe this rule, they could be spoofed when a previously-accessed server's IP address changes. As network renumbering is expected to become increasingly common [24], the possibility of this form of attack will grow. Observing this requirement thus reduces this potential security vulnerability.
This requirement also improves the load-balancing behavior of clients
for replicated servers using the same DNS name and reduces the
likelihood of a user's experiencing failure in accessing sites which use that strategy. 15.4 Location Headers and Spoofing
If a single server supports multiple organizations that do not trust
one another, then it MUST check the values of Location and Content
Location headers in responses that are generated under control of
said organizations to make sure that they do not attempt to
invalidate resources over which they have no authority. 15.5 Content-Disposition Issues
RFC 1806 [35], from which the often implemented Content-Disposition
(see section 19.5.1) header in HTTP is derived, has a number of very serious security considerations. Content-Disposition is not part of the HTTP standard, but since it is widely implemented, we are documenting its use and risks for implementors. See RFC 2183 [49] (which updates RFC 1806) for details. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 154]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
15.6 Authentication Credentials and Idle Clients
Existing HTTP clients and user agents typically retain authentication
information indefinitely. HTTP/1.1. does not provide a method for a server to direct clients to discard these cached credentials. This is a significant defect that requires further extensions to HTTP.
Circumstances under which credential caching can interfere with the
application's security model include but are not limited to:
- Clients which have been idle for an extended period following
which the server might wish to cause the client to reprompt the
user for credentials.
- Applications which include a session termination indication
(such as alogout' orcommit' button on a page) after which the server side of the application `knows' that there is no further reason for the client to retain the credentials. This is currently under separate study. There are a number of work arounds to parts of this problem, and we encourage the use of password protection in screen savers, idle time-outs, and other
methods which mitigate the security problems inherent in this
problem. In particular, user agents which cache credentials are
encouraged to provide a readily accessible mechanism for discarding
cached credentials under user control. 15.7 Proxies and Caching By their very nature, HTTP proxies are men-in-the-middle, and represent an opportunity for man-in-the-middle attacks. Compromise of
the systems on which the proxies run can result in serious security
and privacy problems. Proxies have access to security-related information, personal information about individual users and organizations, and proprietary information belonging to users and content providers. A compromised proxy, or a proxy implemented or configured without regard to security and privacy considerations, might be used in the commission of a wide range of potential attacks.
Proxy operators should protect the systems on which proxies run as
they would protect any system that contains or transports sensitive
information. In particular, log information gathered at proxies often contains highly sensitive personal information, and/or information about organizations. Log information should be carefully guarded, and appropriate guidelines for use developed and followed. (Section 15.1.1). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 155]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Caching proxies provide additional potential vulnerabilities, since
the contents of the cache represent an attractive target for
malicious exploitation. Because cache contents persist after an HTTP request is complete, an attack on the cache can reveal information
long after a user believes that the information has been removed from
the network. Therefore, cache contents should be protected as sensitive information.
Proxy implementors should consider the privacy and security
implications of their design and coding decisions, and of the
configuration options they provide to proxy operators (especially the
default configuration).
Users of a proxy need to be aware that they are no trustworthier than
the people who run the proxy; HTTP itself cannot solve this problem. The judicious use of cryptography, when appropriate, may suffice to protect against a broad range of security and privacy attacks. Such cryptography is beyond the scope of the HTTP/1.1 specification. 15.7.1 Denial of Service Attacks on Proxies They exist. They are hard to defend against. Research continues. Beware. 16 Acknowledgments
This specification makes heavy use of the augmented BNF and generic
constructs defined by David H. Crocker for RFC 822 [9]. Similarly, it
reuses many of the definitions provided by Nathaniel Borenstein and
Ned Freed for MIME [7]. We hope that their inclusion in this
specification will help reduce past confusion over the relationship
between HTTP and Internet mail message formats. The HTTP protocol has evolved considerably over the years. It has
benefited from a large and active developer community--the many
people who have participated on the www-talk mailing list--and it is
that community which has been most responsible for the success of
HTTP and of the World-Wide Web in general. Marc Andreessen, Robert Cailliau, Daniel W. Connolly, Bob Denny, John Franks, Jean-Francois Groff, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker, Hakon W. Lie, Ari Luotonen, Rob McCool, Lou Montulli, Dave Raggett, Tony Sanders, and Marc
VanHeyningen deserve special recognition for their efforts in
defining early aspects of the protocol.
This document has benefited greatly from the comments of all those
participating in the HTTP-WG. In addition to those already mentioned, the following individuals have contributed to this specification: Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 156]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Gary Adams Ross Patterson
Harald Tveit Alvestrand Albert Lunde
Keith Ball John C. Mallery
Brian Behlendorf Jean-Philippe Martin-Flatin
Paul Burchard Mitra
Maurizio Codogno David Morris
Mike Cowlishaw Gavin Nicol
Roman Czyborra Bill Perry
Michael A. Dolan Jeffrey Perry David J. Fiander Scott Powers
Alan Freier Owen Rees
Marc Hedlund Luigi Rizzo
Greg Herlihy David Robinson
Koen Holtman Marc Salomon
Alex Hopmann Rich Salz
Bob Jernigan Allan M. Schiffman
Shel Kaphan Jim Seidman
Rohit Khare Chuck Shotton
John Klensin Eric W. Sink Martijn Koster Simon E. Spero Alexei Kosut Richard N. Taylor David M. Kristol Robert S. Thau
Daniel LaLiberte Bill (BearHeart) Weinman
Ben Laurie Francois Yergeau
Paul J. Leach Mary Ellen Zurko
Daniel DuBois Josh Cohen
Much of the content and presentation of the caching design is due to
suggestions and comments from individuals including: Shel Kaphan, Paul Leach, Koen Holtman, David Morris, and Larry Masinter.
Most of the specification of ranges is based on work originally done
by Ari Luotonen and John Franks, with additional input from Steve Zilles. Thanks to the "cave men" of Palo Alto. You know who you are.
Jim Gettys (the current editor of this document) wishes particularly
to thank Roy Fielding, the previous editor of this document, along with John Klensin, Jeff Mogul, Paul Leach, Dave Kristol, Koen Holtman, John Franks, Josh Cohen, Alex Hopmann, Scott Lawrence, and Larry Masinter for their help. And thanks go particularly to Jeff Mogul and Scott Lawrence for performing the "MUST/MAY/SHOULD" audit. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 157]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
The Apache Group, Anselm Baird-Smith, author of Jigsaw, and Henrik Frystyk implemented RFC 2068 early, and we wish to thank them for the
discovery of many of the problems that this document attempts to
rectify. 17 References
[1] Alvestrand, H., "Tags for the Identification of Languages", RFC
1766, March 1995.
[2] Anklesaria, F., McCahill, M., Lindner, P., Johnson, D., Torrey,
D. and B. Alberti, "The Internet Gopher Protocol (a distributed document search and retrieval protocol)", RFC 1436, March 1993.
[3] Berners-Lee, T., "Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW", RFC
1630, June 1994.
[4] Berners-Lee, T., Masinter, L. and M. McCahill, "Uniform Resource
Locators (URL)", RFC 1738, December 1994.
[5] Berners-Lee, T. and D. Connolly, "Hypertext Markup Language
2.0", RFC 1866, November 1995.
[6] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and H. Frystyk, "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol -- HTTP/1.0", RFC 1945, May 1996.
[7] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies",
RFC 2045, November 1996.
[8] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Communication
Layers", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989.
[9] Crocker, D., "Standard for The Format of ARPA Internet Text
Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, August 1982.
[10] Davis, F., Kahle, B., Morris, H., Salem, J., Shen, T., Wang, R.,
Sui, J., and M. Grinbaum, "WAIS Interface Protocol Prototype Functional Specification," (v1.5), Thinking Machines Corporation, April 1990.
[11] Fielding, R., "Relative Uniform Resource Locators", RFC 1808,
June 1995.
[12] Horton, M. and R. Adams, "Standard for Interchange of USENET
Messages", RFC 1036, December 1987. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 158]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
[13] Kantor, B. and P. Lapsley, "Network News Transfer Protocol", RFC
977, February 1986.
[14] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part
Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text", RFC 2047, November 1996.
[15] Nebel, E. and L. Masinter, "Form-based File Upload in HTML", RFC
1867, November 1995.
[16] Postel, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", STD 10, RFC 821,
August 1982.
[17] Postel, J., "Media Type Registration Procedure", RFC 1590,
November 1996.
[18] Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "File Transfer Protocol", STD 9, RFC
959, October 1985.
[19] Reynolds, J. and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2, RFC 1700,
October 1994.
[20] Sollins, K. and L. Masinter, "Functional Requirements for
Uniform Resource Names", RFC 1737, December 1994.
[21] US-ASCII. Coded Character Set - 7-Bit American Standard Code for
Information Interchange. Standard ANSI X3.4-1986, ANSI, 1986.
[22] ISO-8859. International Standard -- Information Processing -
8-bit Single-Byte Coded Graphic Character Sets - Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1, ISO-8859-1:1987. Part 2: Latin alphabet No. 2, ISO-8859-2, 1987. Part 3: Latin alphabet No. 3, ISO-8859-3, 1988. Part 4: Latin alphabet No. 4, ISO-8859-4, 1988. Part 5: Latin/Cyrillic alphabet, ISO-8859-5, 1988. Part 6: Latin/Arabic alphabet, ISO-8859-6, 1987. Part 7: Latin/Greek alphabet, ISO-8859-7, 1987. Part 8: Latin/Hebrew alphabet, ISO-8859-8, 1988. Part 9: Latin alphabet No. 5, ISO-8859-9, 1990.
[23] Meyers, J. and M. Rose, "The Content-MD5 Header Field", RFC
1864, October 1995.
[24] Carpenter, B. and Y. Rekhter, "Renumbering Needs Work", RFC
1900, February 1996.
[25] Deutsch, P., "GZIP file format specification version 4.3", RFC
1952, May 1996. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 159]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
[26] Venkata N. Padmanabhan, and Jeffrey C. Mogul. "Improving HTTP
Latency", Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, v. 28, pp. 25-35, Dec. 1995. Slightly revised version of paper in Proc. 2nd International WWW Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web, Oct. 1994,
which is available at
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/DDay/mogul/HTTPLat ency.html.
[27] Joe Touch, John Heidemann, and Katia Obraczka. "Analysis of HTTP
Performance", <URL: http://www.isi.edu/touch/pubs/http-perf96/>, ISI Research Report ISI/RR-98-463, (original report dated Aug. 1996), USC/Information Sciences Institute, August 1998.
[28] Mills, D., "Network Time Protocol (Version 3) Specification,
Implementation and Analysis", RFC 1305, March 1992.
[29] Deutsch, P., "DEFLATE Compressed Data Format Specification
version 1.3", RFC 1951, May 1996.
[30] S. Spero, "Analysis of HTTP Performance Problems,"
http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdma-release/http-prob.html.
[31] Deutsch, P. and J. Gailly, "ZLIB Compressed Data Format
Specification version 3.3", RFC 1950, May 1996.
[32] Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P., Hostetler, J., Leach, P.,
Luotonen, A., Sink, E. and L. Stewart, "An Extension to HTTP: Digest Access Authentication", RFC 2069, January 1997.
[33] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H. and T.
Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2068, January 1997.
[34] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[35] Troost, R. and Dorner, S., "Communicating Presentation
Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header", RFC 1806, June 1995.
[36] Mogul, J., Fielding, R., Gettys, J. and H. Frystyk, "Use and
Interpretation of HTTP Version Numbers", RFC 2145, May 1997. [jg639]
[37] Palme, J., "Common Internet Message Headers", RFC 2076, February
1997. [jg640]
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 160]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
[38] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of Unicode and
ISO-10646", RFC 2279, January 1998. [jg641]
[39] Nielsen, H.F., Gettys, J., Baird-Smith, A., Prud'hommeaux, E.,
Lie, H., and C. Lilley. "Network Performance Effects of HTTP/1.1, CSS1, and PNG," Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM '97, Cannes France, September 1997.[jg642]
[40] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, November
1996. [jg643]
[41] Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on Character Sets and Languages",
BCP 18, RFC 2277, January 1998. [jg644]
[42] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource
Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax and Semantics", RFC 2396, August 1998. [jg645]
[43] Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P., Hostetler, J., Lawrence, S.,
Leach, P., Luotonen, A., Sink, E. and L. Stewart, "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication", RFC 2617, June 1999. [jg646]
[44] Luotonen, A., "Tunneling TCP based protocols through Web proxy
servers," Work in Progress. [jg647]
[45] Palme, J. and A. Hopmann, "MIME E-mail Encapsulation of
Aggregate Documents, such as HTML (MHTML)", RFC 2110, March 1997.
[46] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP
9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[47] Masinter, L., "Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol
(HTCPCP/1.0)", RFC 2324, 1 April 1998.
[48] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Five: Conformance Criteria and Examples",
RFC 2049, November 1996.
[49] Troost, R., Dorner, S. and K. Moore, "Communicating Presentation
Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header Field", RFC 2183, August 1997. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 161]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
18 Authors' Addresses Roy T. Fielding
Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-3425, USA Fax: +1 (949) 824-1715 EMail: fielding@ics.uci.edu
James Gettys
World Wide Web Consortium
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Fax: +1 (617) 258 8682 EMail: jg@w3.org Jeffrey C. Mogul
Western Research Laboratory
Compaq Computer Corporation
250 University Avenue Palo Alto, California, 94305, USA EMail: mogul@wrl.dec.com
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
World Wide Web Consortium
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Fax: +1 (617) 258 8682 EMail: frystyk@w3.org
Larry Masinter
Xerox Corporation
3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, CA 94034, USA EMail: masinter@parc.xerox.com Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 162]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Paul J. Leach
Microsoft Corporation
1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052, USA EMail: paulle@microsoft.com
Tim Berners-Lee
Director, World Wide Web Consortium
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Fax: +1 (617) 258 8682 EMail: timbl@w3.org Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 163]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
19 Appendices 19.1 Internet Media Type message/http and application/http In addition to defining the HTTP/1.1 protocol, this document serves as the specification for the Internet media type "message/http" and "application/http". The message/http type can be used to enclose a single HTTP request or response message, provided that it obeys the MIME restrictions for all "message" types regarding line length and encodings. The application/http type can be used to enclose a
pipeline of one or more HTTP request or response messages (not
intermixed). The following is to be registered with IANA [17]. Media Type name: message Media subtype name: http Required parameters: none Optional parameters: version, msgtype version: The HTTP-Version number of the enclosed message (e.g., "1.1"). If not present, the version can be determined from the first line of the body. msgtype: The message type -- "request" or "response". If not present, the type can be determined from the first line of the body. Encoding considerations: only "7bit", "8bit", or "binary" are
permitted
Security considerations: none Media Type name: application Media subtype name: http Required parameters: none Optional parameters: version, msgtype version: The HTTP-Version number of the enclosed messages (e.g., "1.1"). If not present, the version can be determined from the first line of the body. msgtype: The message type -- "request" or "response". If not present, the type can be determined from the first line of the body. Encoding considerations: HTTP messages enclosed by this type are in "binary" format; use of an appropriate
Content-Transfer-Encoding is required when
transmitted via E-mail. Security considerations: none Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 164]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
19.2 Internet Media Type multipart/byteranges
When an HTTP 206 (Partial Content) response message includes the
content of multiple ranges (a response to a request for multiple
non-overlapping ranges), these are transmitted as a multipart message-body. The media type for this purpose is called "multipart/byteranges". The multipart/byteranges media type includes two or more parts, each with its own Content-Type and Content-Range fields. The required
boundary parameter specifies the boundary string used to separate
each body-part. Media Type name: multipart Media subtype name: byteranges Required parameters: boundary Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: only "7bit", "8bit", or "binary" are
permitted
Security considerations: none For example: HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 06:25:24 GMT Last-Modified: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 04:58:08 GMT Content-type: multipart/byteranges; boundary=THIS_STRING_SEPARATES --THIS_STRING_SEPARATES Content-type: application/pdf Content-range: bytes 500-999/8000 ...the first range... --THIS_STRING_SEPARATES Content-type: application/pdf Content-range: bytes 7000-7999/8000 ...the second range --THIS_STRING_SEPARATES- Notes: 1) Additional CRLFs may precede the first boundary string in the entity. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 165]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
2) Although RFC 2046 [40] permits the boundary string to be quoted, some existing implementations handle a quoted boundary string incorrectly. 3) A number of browsers and servers were coded to an early draft
of the byteranges specification to use a media type of
multipart/x-byteranges, which is almost, but not quite compatible with the version documented in HTTP/1.1. 19.3 Tolerant Applications
Although this document specifies the requirements for the generation
of HTTP/1.1 messages, not all applications will be correct in their implementation. We therefore recommend that operational applications
be tolerant of deviations whenever those deviations can be
interpreted unambiguously.
Clients SHOULD be tolerant in parsing the Status-Line and servers
tolerant when parsing the Request-Line. In particular, they SHOULD accept any amount of SP or HT characters between fields, even though only a single SP is required. The line terminator for message-header fields is the sequence CRLF. However, we recommend that applications, when parsing such headers, recognize a single LF as a line terminator and ignore the leading CR.
The character set of an entity-body SHOULD be labeled as the lowest
common denominator of the character codes used within that body, with
the exception that not labeling the entity is preferred over labeling
the entity with the labels US-ASCII or ISO-8859-1. See section 3.7.1 and 3.4.1.
Additional rules for requirements on parsing and encoding of dates
and other potential problems with date encodings include:
- HTTP/1.1 clients and caches SHOULD assume that an RFC-850 date
which appears to be more than 50 years in the future is in fact
in the past (this helps solve the "year 2000" problem).
- An HTTP/1.1 implementation MAY internally represent a parsed
Expires date as earlier than the proper value, but MUST NOT
internally represent a parsed Expires date as later than the
proper value.
- All expiration-related calculations MUST be done in GMT. The
local time zone MUST NOT influence the calculation or comparison
of an age or expiration time. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 166]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
- If an HTTP header incorrectly carries a date value with a time
zone other than GMT, it MUST be converted into GMT using the most conservative possible conversion. 19.4 Differences Between HTTP Entities and RFC 2045 Entities HTTP/1.1 uses many of the constructs defined for Internet Mail (RFC 822 [9]) and the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME [7]) to
allow entities to be transmitted in an open variety of
representations and with extensible mechanisms. However, RFC 2045 discusses mail, and HTTP has a few features that are different from those described in RFC 2045. These differences were carefully chosen to optimize performance over binary connections, to allow greater freedom in the use of new media types, to make date comparisons easier, and to acknowledge the practice of some early HTTP servers and clients.
This appendix describes specific areas where HTTP differs from RFC
- Proxies and gateways to strict MIME environments SHOULD be
aware of these differences and provide the appropriate conversions
where necessary. Proxies and gateways from MIME environments to HTTP
also need to be aware of the differences because some conversions
might be required. 19.4.1 MIME-Version HTTP is not a MIME-compliant protocol. However, HTTP/1.1 messages MAY
include a single MIME-Version general-header field to indicate what
version of the MIME protocol was used to construct the message. Use
of the MIME-Version header field indicates that the message is in
full compliance with the MIME protocol (as defined in RFC 2045[7]).
Proxies/gateways are responsible for ensuring full compliance (where
possible) when exporting HTTP messages to strict MIME environments. MIME-Version = "MIME-Version" ":" 1DIGIT "." 1DIGIT MIME version "1.0" is the default for use in HTTP/1.1. However, HTTP/1.1 message parsing and semantics are defined by this document and not the MIME specification. 19.4.2 Conversion to Canonical Form
RFC 2045 [7] requires that an Internet mail entity be converted to
canonical form prior to being transferred, as described in section 4 of RFC 2049 [48]. Section 3.7.1 of this document describes the forms allowed for subtypes of the "text" media type when transmitted over HTTP. RFC 2046 requires that content with a type of "text" represent
line breaks as CRLF and forbids the use of CR or LF outside of line
Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 167]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
break sequences. HTTP allows CRLF, bare CR, and bare LF to indicate a
line break within text content when a message is transmitted over
HTTP. Where it is possible, a proxy or gateway from HTTP to a strict MIME
environment SHOULD translate all line breaks within the text media
types described in section 3.7.1 of this document to the RFC 2049 canonical form of CRLF. Note, however, that this might be complicated
by the presence of a Content-Encoding and by the fact that HTTP
allows the use of some character sets which do not use octets 13 and
10 to represent CR and LF, as is the case for some multi-byte character sets.
Implementors should note that conversion will break any cryptographic
checksums applied to the original content unless the original content
is already in canonical form. Therefore, the canonical form is recommended for any content that uses such checksums in HTTP. 19.4.3 Conversion of Date Formats HTTP/1.1 uses a restricted set of date formats (section 3.3.1) to simplify the process of date comparison. Proxies and gateways from
other protocols SHOULD ensure that any Date header field present in a
message conforms to one of the HTTP/1.1 formats and rewrite the date if necessary. 19.4.4 Introduction of Content-Encoding
RFC 2045 does not include any concept equivalent to HTTP/1.1's
Content-Encoding header field. Since this acts as a modifier on the media type, proxies and gateways from HTTP to MIME-compliant
protocols MUST either change the value of the Content-Type header
field or decode the entity-body before forwarding the message. (Some
experimental applications of Content-Type for Internet mail have used
a media-type parameter of ";conversions=
HTTP does not use the Content-Transfer-Encoding (CTE) field of RFC
- Proxies and gateways from MIME-compliant protocols to HTTP MUST
remove any non-identity CTE ("quoted-printable" or "base64") encoding prior to delivering the response message to an HTTP client.
Proxies and gateways from HTTP to MIME-compliant protocols are
responsible for ensuring that the message is in the correct format
and encoding for safe transport on that protocol, where "safe Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 168]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
transport" is defined by the limitations of the protocol being used.
Such a proxy or gateway SHOULD label the data with an appropriate
Content-Transfer-Encoding if doing so will improve the likelihood of
safe transport over the destination protocol. 19.4.6 Introduction of Transfer-Encoding HTTP/1.1 introduces the Transfer-Encoding header field (section 14.41). Proxies/gateways MUST remove any transfer-coding prior to forwarding a message via a MIME-compliant protocol. A process for decoding the "chunked" transfer-coding (section 3.6) can be represented in pseudo-code as: length := 0 read chunk-size, chunk-extension (if any) and CRLF while (chunk-size > 0) {
read chunk-data and CRLF
append chunk-data to entity-body
length := length + chunk-size
read chunk-size and CRLF
}
read entity-header
while (entity-header not empty) {
append entity-header to existing header fields
read entity-header
} Content-Length := length Remove "chunked" from Transfer-Encoding 19.4.7 MHTML and Line Length Limitations HTTP implementations which share code with MHTML [45] implementations need to be aware of MIME line length limitations. Since HTTP does not have this limitation, HTTP does not fold long lines. MHTML messages being transported by HTTP follow all conventions of MHTML, including line length limitations and folding, canonicalization, etc., since HTTP transports all message-bodies as payload (see section 3.7.2) and
does not interpret the content or any MIME header lines that might be
contained therein. 19.5 Additional Features
RFC 1945 and RFC 2068 document protocol elements used by some
existing HTTP implementations, but not consistently and correctly across most HTTP/1.1 applications. Implementors are advised to be aware of these features, but cannot rely upon their presence in, or interoperability with, other HTTP/1.1 applications. Some of these Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 169]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
describe proposed experimental features, and some describe features
that experimental deployment found lacking that are now addressed in
the base HTTP/1.1 specification. A number of other headers, such as Content-Disposition and Title, from SMTP and MIME are also often implemented (see RFC 2076 [37]). 19.5.1 Content-Disposition
The Content-Disposition response-header field has been proposed as a
means for the origin server to suggest a default filename if the user
requests that the content is saved to a file. This usage is derived from the definition of Content-Disposition in RFC 1806 [35]. content-disposition = "Content-Disposition" ":" disposition-type *( ";" disposition-parm ) disposition-type = "attachment" | disp-extension-token disposition-parm = filename-parm | disp-extension-parm filename-parm = "filename" "=" quoted-string disp-extension-token = token disp-extension-parm = token "=" ( token | quoted-string )
An example is
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="fname.ext"
The receiving user agent SHOULD NOT respect any directory path
information present in the filename-parm parameter, which is the only parameter believed to apply to HTTP implementations at this time. The filename SHOULD be treated as a terminal component only.
If this header is used in a response with the application/octet
stream content-type, the implied suggestion is that the user agent should not display the response, but directly enter a `save response as...' dialog. See section 15.5 for Content-Disposition security issues. 19.6 Compatibility with Previous Versions
It is beyond the scope of a protocol specification to mandate
compliance with previous versions. HTTP/1.1 was deliberately designed, however, to make supporting previous versions easy. It is worth noting that, at the time of composing this specification (1996), we would expect commercial HTTP/1.1 servers to:
- recognize the format of the Request-Line for HTTP/0.9, 1.0, and
1.1 requests; Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 170]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999 - understand any valid request in the format of HTTP/0.9, 1.0, or
1.1; - respond appropriately with a message in the same major version
used by the client. And we would expect HTTP/1.1 clients to: - recognize the format of the Status-Line for HTTP/1.0 and 1.1
responses; - understand any valid response in the format of HTTP/0.9, 1.0, or
1.1. For most implementations of HTTP/1.0, each connection is established
by the client prior to the request and closed by the server after
sending the response. Some implementations implement the Keep-Alive version of persistent connections described in section 19.7.1 of RFC 2068 [33]. 19.6.1 Changes from HTTP/1.0 This section summarizes major differences between versions HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1. 19.6.1.1 Changes to Simplify Multi-homed Web Servers and Conserve IP
Addresses
The requirements that clients and servers support the Host request
header, report an error if the Host request-header (section 14.23) is missing from an HTTP/1.1 request, and accept absolute URIs (section 5.1.2) are among the most important changes defined by this specification. Older HTTP/1.0 clients assumed a one-to-one relationship of IP addresses and servers; there was no other established mechanism for
distinguishing the intended server of a request than the IP address
to which that request was directed. The changes outlined above will allow the Internet, once older HTTP clients are no longer common, to support multiple Web sites from a single IP address, greatly simplifying large operational Web servers, where allocation of many IP addresses to a single host has created serious problems. The
Internet will also be able to recover the IP addresses that have been
allocated for the sole purpose of allowing special-purpose domain
names to be used in root-level HTTP URLs. Given the rate of growth of the Web, and the number of servers already deployed, it is extremely Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 171]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
important that all implementations of HTTP (including updates to
existing HTTP/1.0 applications) correctly implement these requirements:
- Both clients and servers MUST support the Host request-header.
- A client that sends an HTTP/1.1 request MUST send a Host header.
- Servers MUST report a 400 (Bad Request) error if an HTTP/1.1
request does not include a Host request-header. - Servers MUST accept absolute URIs.
19.6.2 Compatibility with HTTP/1.0 Persistent Connections
Some clients and servers might wish to be compatible with some
previous implementations of persistent connections in HTTP/1.0 clients and servers. Persistent connections in HTTP/1.0 are explicitly negotiated as they are not the default behavior. HTTP/1.0 experimental implementations of persistent connections are faulty, and the new facilities in HTTP/1.1 are designed to rectify these problems. The problem was that some existing 1.0 clients may be sending Keep-Alive to a proxy server that doesn't understand Connection, which would then erroneously forward it to the next inbound server, which would establish the Keep-Alive connection and result in a hung HTTP/1.0 proxy waiting for the close on the response. The result is that HTTP/1.0 clients must be prevented from using Keep-Alive when talking to proxies. However, talking to proxies is the most important use of persistent connections, so that prohibition is clearly unacceptable. Therefore,
we need some other mechanism for indicating a persistent connection
is desired, which is safe to use even when talking to an old proxy that ignores Connection. Persistent connections are the default for HTTP/1.1 messages; we introduce a new keyword (Connection: close) for declaring non-persistence. See section 14.10. The original HTTP/1.0 form of persistent connections (the Connection: Keep-Alive and Keep-Alive header) is documented in RFC 2068. [33] 19.6.3 Changes from RFC 2068
This specification has been carefully audited to correct and
disambiguate key word usage; RFC 2068 had many problems in respect to the conventions laid out in RFC 2119 [34].
Clarified which error code should be used for inbound server failures
(e.g. DNS failures). (Section 10.5.5). Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 172]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
CREATE had a race that required an Etag be sent when a resource is
first created. (Section 10.2.2). Content-Base was deleted from the specification: it was not implemented widely, and there is no simple, safe way to introduce it without a robust extension mechanism. In addition, it is used in a similar, but not identical fashion in MHTML [45].
Transfer-coding and message lengths all interact in ways that
required fixing exactly when chunked encoding is used (to allow for
transfer encoding that may not be self delimiting); it was important to straighten out exactly how message lengths are computed. (Sections 3.6, 4.4, 7.2.2, 13.5.2, 14.13, 14.16) A content-coding of "identity" was introduced, to solve problems discovered in caching. (section 3.5) Quality Values of zero should indicate that "I don't want something" to allow clients to refuse a representation. (Section 3.9)
The use and interpretation of HTTP version numbers has been clarified
by RFC 2145. Require proxies to upgrade requests to highest protocol version they support to deal with problems discovered in HTTP/1.0 implementations (Section 3.1)
Charset wildcarding is introduced to avoid explosion of character set
names in accept headers. (Section 14.2) A case was missed in the Cache-Control model of HTTP/1.1; s-maxage was introduced to add this missing case. (Sections 13.4, 14.8, 14.9, 14.9.3) The Cache-Control: max-age directive was not properly defined for responses. (Section 14.9.3)
There are situations where a server (especially a proxy) does not
know the full length of a response but is capable of serving a
byterange request. We therefore need a mechanism to allow byteranges with a content-range not indicating the full length of the message. (Section 14.16)
Range request responses would become very verbose if all meta-data
were always returned; by allowing the server to only send needed headers in a 206 response, this problem can be avoided. (Section 10.2.7, 13.5.3, and 14.27) Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 173]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Fix problem with unsatisfiable range requests; there are two cases: syntactic problems, and range doesn't exist in the document. The 416
status code was needed to resolve this ambiguity needed to indicate
an error for a byte range request that falls outside of the actual
contents of a document. (Section 10.4.17, 14.16)
Rewrite of message transmission requirements to make it much harder
for implementors to get it wrong, as the consequences of errors here can have significant impact on the Internet, and to deal with the following problems:
- Changing "HTTP/1.1 or later" to "HTTP/1.1", in contexts where
this was incorrectly placing a requirement on the behavior of
an implementation of a future version of HTTP/1.x
Made it clear that user-agents should retry requests, not
"clients" in general.Converted requirements for clients to ignore unexpected 100
(Continue) responses, and for proxies to forward 100 responses, into a general requirement for 1xx responses.Modified some TCP-specific language, to make it clearer that
non-TCP transports are possible for HTTP.Require that the origin server MUST NOT wait for the request
body before it sends a required 100 (Continue) response.Allow, rather than require, a server to omit 100 (Continue) if
it has already seen some of the request body.Allow servers to defend against denial-of-service attacks and
broken clients. This change adds the Expect header and 417 status code. The message transmission requirements fixes are in sections 8.2, 10.4.18, 8.1.2.2, 13.11, and 14.20. Proxies should be able to add Content-Length when appropriate. (Section 13.5.2) Clean up confusion between 403 and 404 responses. (Section 10.4.4, 10.4.5, and 10.4.11) Warnings could be cached incorrectly, or not updated appropriately. (Section 13.1.2, 13.2.4, 13.5.2, 13.5.3, 14.9.3, and 14.46) Warning also needed to be a general header, as PUT or other methods may have need for it in requests. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 174]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
Transfer-coding had significant problems, particularly with interactions with chunked encoding. The solution is that transfer codings become as full fledged as content-codings. This involves
adding an IANA registry for transfer-codings (separate from content
codings), a new header field (TE) and enabling trailer headers in the future. Transfer encoding is a major performance benefit, so it was worth fixing [39]. TE also solves another, obscure, downward
interoperability problem that could have occurred due to interactions
between authentication trailers, chunked encoding and HTTP/1.0 clients.(Section 3.6, 3.6.1, and 14.39) The PATCH, LINK, UNLINK methods were defined but not commonly implemented in previous versions of this specification. See RFC 2068
[33].
The Alternates, Content-Version, Derived-From, Link, URI, Public and
Content-Base header fields were defined in previous versions of this
specification, but not commonly implemented. See RFC 2068 [33]. 20 Index Please see the PostScript version of this RFC for the INDEX. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 175]
RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1 June 1999
- Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society. Fielding, et al. Standards Track [Page 176]