HTTP Protocol

• Running Example: Joe's Hardware Store
• Chapter-by-Chapter Guide
• Typographic Conventions
• Comments and Questions
• Acknowledgments

• Part I: HTTP: The Web's Foundation
  • Chapter 1. Overview of HTTP
    • HTTP: The Internet's Multimedia Courier
    • Web Clients and Servers
    • Resources
    • Transactions
    • Messages
    • Connections
    • Protocol Versions
    • Architectural Components of the Web
    • The End of the Beginning
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 2. URLs and Resources
    • Navigating the Internet's Resources
    • URL Syntax
    • URL Shortcuts
    • Shady Characters
    • A Sea of Schemes
    • The Future
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 3. HTTP Messages
    • The Flow of Messages
    • The Parts of a Message
    • Methods
    • Status Codes
    • Headers
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 4. Connection Management
    • TCP Connections
    • TCP Performance Considerations
    • HTTP Connection Handling
    • Parallel Connections
    • Persistent Connections
    • Pipelined Connections
    • The Mysteries of Connection Close
    • For More Information
• Part II: HTTP Architecture
  • Chapter 5. Web Servers
    • Web Servers Come in All Shapes and Sizes
    • A Minimal Perl Web Server
    • What Real Web Servers Do
    • Step 1: Accepting Client Connections
    • Step 2: Receiving Request Messages
    • Step 3: Processing Requests
    • Step 4: Mapping and Accessing Resources
    • Step 5: Building Responses
    • Step 6: Sending Responses
    • Step 7: Logging
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 6. Proxies
    • Web Intermediaries
    • Why Use Proxies?
    • Where Do Proxies Go?
    • Client Proxy Settings
    • Tricky Things About Proxy Requests
    • Tracing Messages
    • Proxy Authentication
    • Proxy Interoperation
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 7. Caching
    • Redundant Data Transfers
    • Bandwidth Bottlenecks
    • Flash Crowds
    • Distance Delays
    • Hits and Misses
    • Cache Topologies
    • Cache Processing Steps
    • Keeping Copies Fresh
    • Controlling Cachability
    • Setting Cache Controls
    • Detailed Algorithms
    • Caches and Advertising
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 8. Integration Points: Gateways, Tunnels, and Relays
    • Gateways
    • Protocol Gateways
    • Resource Gateways
    • Application Interfaces and Web Services
    • Tunnels
    • Relays
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 9. Web Robots
    • Crawlers and Crawling
    • Robotic HTTP
    • Misbehaving Robots
    • Excluding Robots
    • Robot Etiquette
    • Search Engines
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 10. HTTP-NG
    • HTTP's Growing Pains
    • HTTP-NG Activity
    • Modularize and Enhance
    • Distributed Objects
    • Layer 1: Messaging
    • Layer 2: Remote Invocation
    • Layer 3: Web Application
    • WebMUX
    • Binary Wire Protocol
    • Current Status
    • For More Information
• Part III: Identification, Authorization, and Security
  • Chapter 11. Client Identification and Cookies
    • The Personal Touch
    • HTTP Headers
    • Client IP Address
    • User Login
    • Fat URLs
    • Cookies
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 12. Basic Authentication
    • Authentication
    • Basic Authentication
    • The Security Flaws of Basic Authentication
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 13. Digest Authentication
    • The Improvements of Digest Authentication
    • Digest Calculations
    • Quality of Protection Enhancements
    • Practical Considerations
    • Security Considerations
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 14. Secure HTTP
    • Making HTTP Safe
    • Digital Cryptography
    • Symmetric-Key Cryptography
    • Public-Key Cryptography
    • Digital Signatures
    • Digital Certificates
    • HTTPS: The Details
    • A Real HTTPS Client
    • Tunneling Secure Traffic Through Proxies
    • For More Information
• Part IV: Entities, Encodings, and Internationalization
  • Chapter 15. Entities and Encodings
    • Messages Are Crates, Entities Are Cargo
    • Content-Length: The Entity's Size
    • Entity Digests
    • Media Type and Charset
    • Content Encoding
    • Transfer Encoding and Chunked Encoding
    • Time-Varying Instances
    • Validators and Freshness
    • Range Requests
    • Delta Encoding
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 16. Internationalization
    • HTTP Support for International Content
    • Character Sets and HTTP
    • Multilingual Character Encoding Primer
    • Language Tags and HTTP
    • Internationalized URIs
    • Other Considerations
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 17. Content Negotiation and Transcoding
    • Content-Negotiation Techniques
    • Client-Driven Negotiation
    • Server-Driven Negotiation
    • Transparent Negotiation
    • Transcoding
    • Next Steps
    • For More Information
• Part V: Content Publishing and Distribution
  • Chapter 18. Web Hosting
    • Hosting Services
    • Virtual Hosting
    • Making Web Sites Reliable
    • Making Web Sites Fast
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 19. Publishing Systems
    • FrontPage Server Extensions for Publishing Support
    • WebDAV and Collaborative Authoring
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 20. Redirection and Load Balancing
    • Why Redirect?
    • Where to Redirect
    • Overview of Redirection Protocols
    • General Redirection Methods
    • Proxy Redirection Methods
    • Cache Redirection Methods
    • Internet Cache Protocol
    • Cache Array Routing Protocol
    • Hyper Text Caching Protocol
    • For More Information
  • Chapter 21. Logging and Usage Tracking
    • What to Log?
    • Log Formats
    • Hit Metering
    • A Word on Privacy
    • For More Information
• Part VI: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. URI Schemes
  • Appendix B. HTTP Status Codes
    • Status Code Classifications
    • Status Codes
  • Appendix C. HTTP Header Reference
    • Accept
    • Accept-Encoding
    • Accept-Language
    • Accept-Ranges
    • Age
    • Allow
    • Authorization
    • Cache-Control
    • Client-ip
    • Connection
    • Content-Base
    • Content-Encoding
    • Content-Language
    • Content-Length
    • Content-Location
    • Content-MD5
    • Content-Range
    • Content-Type
    • Cookie
    • Cookie2
    • Date
    • ETag
    • Expect
    • Expires
    • From
    • Host
    • If-Modified-Since
    • If-Match
    • If-None-Match
    • If-Range
    • If-Unmodified-Since
    • Last-Modified
    • Location
    • Max-Forwards
    • MIME-Version
    • Pragma
    • Proxy-Authenticate
    • Proxy-Authorization
    • Proxy-Connection
    • Public
    • Range
    • Referer
    • Retry-After
    • Server
    • Set-Cookie
    • Set-Cookie2
    • TE
    • Trailer
    • Title
    • Transfer-Encoding
    • UA-(CPU, Disp, OS, Color, Pixels)
    • Upgrade
    • User-Agent
    • Vary
    • Via
    • Warning
    • WWW-Authenticate
    • X-Cache
    • X-Forwarded-For
    • X-Pad
    • X-Serial-Number
  • Appendix D. MIME Types
    • Background
    • MIME Type Structure
    • MIME Type IANA Registration
    • MIME Type Tables
  • Appendix E. Base-64 Encoding
    • Base-64 Encoding Makes Binary Data Safe
    • Eight Bits to Six Bits
    • Base-64 Padding
    • Perl Implementation
    • For More Information
  • Appendix F. Digest Authentication
    • Digest WWW-Authenticate Directives
    • Digest Authorization Directives
    • Digest Authentication-Info Directives
    • Reference Code
  • Appendix G. Language Tags
    • First Subtag Rules
    • Second Subtag Rules
    • IANA-Registered Language Tags
    • ISO 639 Language Codes
    • ISO 3166 Country Codes
    • Language Administrative Organizations
  • Appendix H. MIME Charset Registry
    • MIME Charset Registry
    • Preferred MIME Names
    • Registered Charsets

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Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)