chopping list

Martin Hamilton (martin@mrrl.lut.ac.uk)
Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:39:52 +0100 

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OK, here's a list of sections (drawn from the v11-06 draft) which
*I* think might perhaps more properly belong in an implementors
guide.  You will probably disagree with me :-)

To avoid a flamewar on the list...  Can I suggest that anyone with
strong opinions about which parts should be in the base HTTP spec
please sit down with a strong cup of coffee and go over the draft
before posting anything?  Thanks!

You might also consider mailing me first - I'll summarise any
comments I receive to the list.

The bottom line seems to be...

  1. this cuts the spec down quite a bit, but perhaps at the
        cost of some things which really do need to be in it?
        These can be extracted and put back in, of course

  2. still (IMHO) some scope for trimming the remaining bits
        of the spec, but not on a whole section basis?

  3. MUSTs and SHOULDs aplenty - what is their status in an
        implementation guide.  Advisory?

Martin


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8 Connections.............................................41
 8.1 Persistent Connections ..............................41
  8.1.1 Purpose ..........................................41
  8.1.2 Overall Operation ................................42
  8.1.3 Proxy Servers ....................................43
  8.1.4 Practical Considerations .........................43
 8.2 Message Transmission Requirements ...................44

12 Content Negotiation....................................64
 12.1 Server-driven Negotiation ..........................65
 12.2 Agent-driven Negotiation ...........................66
 12.3 Transparent Negotiation ............................66

13 Caching in HTTP........................................67
  13.1.1 Cache Correctness ...............................68
  13.1.2 Warnings ........................................69
  13.1.3 Cache-control Mechanisms ........................70
  13.1.4 Explicit User Agent Warnings ....................70
  13.1.5 Exceptions to the Rules and Warnings ............70
  13.1.6 Client-controlled Behavior ......................71
 13.2 Expiration Model ...................................71
  13.2.1 Server-Specified Expiration .....................71
  13.2.2 Heuristic Expiration ............................72
  13.2.3 Age Calculations ................................72
  13.2.4 Expiration Calculations .........................75
  13.2.5 Disambiguating Expiration Values ................75
  13.2.6 Disambiguating Multiple Responses ...............76
 13.3 Validation Model ...................................77
  13.3.1 Last-modified Dates .............................77
  13.3.2 Entity Tag Cache Validators .....................78
  13.3.3 Weak and Strong Validators ......................78
  13.3.4 Rules for When to Use Entity Tags and Last-modified Dates
   .......................................................80
  13.3.5 Non-validating Conditionals .....................81
 13.4 Response Cachability ...............................82
 13.5 Constructing Responses From Caches .................82
  13.5.1 End-to-end and Hop-by-hop Headers ...............83
  13.5.2 Non-modifiable Headers ..........................83
  13.5.3 Combining Headers ...............................84
  13.5.4 Combining Byte Ranges ...........................84
 13.6 Caching Negotiated Responses .......................85
 13.7 Shared and Non-Shared Caches .......................86
 13.8 Errors or Incomplete Response Cache Behavior .......86
 13.9 Side Effects of GET and HEAD .......................86
 13.10 Invalidation After Updates or Deletions ...........87
 13.11 Write-Through Mandatory ...........................87
 13.12 Cache Replacement .................................88
 13.13 History Lists .....................................88

15 Security Considerations...............................130
 15.1 Authentication of Clients .........................130
 15.2 Offering a Choice of Authentication Schemes .......131
 15.3 Abuse of Server Log Information ...................132
 15.4 Transfer of Sensitive Information .................132
 15.5 Attacks Based On File and Path Names ..............133
 15.6 Personal Information ..............................133
 15.7 Privacy Issues Connected to Accept Headers ........134
 15.8 DNS Spoofing ......................................134
 15.9 Location Headers and Spoofing .....................135

19 Appendices............................................141
 19.3 Tolerant Applications .............................142
 19.4 Differences Between HTTP Entities and RFC 1521 Entities   143
  19.4.1 Conversion to Canonical Form ...................143
  19.4.2 Conversion of Date Formats .....................144
  19.4.3 Introduction of Content-Encoding ...............144
  19.4.4 No Content-Transfer-Encoding ...................144
  19.4.5 HTTP Header Fields in Multipart Body-Parts .....144
  19.4.6 Introduction of Transfer-Encoding ..............144
  19.4.7 MIME-Version ...................................145
 19.5 Changes from HTTP/1.0 .............................145
  19.5.1 Changes to Simplify Multi-homed Web Servers and Conserve IP
  Addresses .............................................145
 19.6 Additional Features ...............................146
  19.6.1 Additional Request Methods .....................146
  19.6.2 Additional Header Field Definitions ............148
 19.7 Compatibility with Previous Versions ..............150
  19.7.1 Compatibility with HTTP/1.0 Persistent Connections151

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