Re: HTTP/1.0 request - should the server close the connection after response?

On 23 Feb 2012, at 18:19, Zhong Yu wrote:

> Thank you both. So, "Connection:keep-alive" in 1.0 is very dependable
> in practice, server should keep the connection alive.
> 
> If that's the case, shouldn't we remove the alarming languages in
> [part 1, A.1.2.]? They might be legitimate concerns in 1999, but no
> longer relevant today.
> 
>   However, some experimental implementations of HTTP/1.0
>   persistent connections are faulty; for example, if a HTTP/1.0 proxy
>   server doesn't understand Connection, it will erroneously forward
>   that header to the next inbound server, which would result in a hung
>   connection.
> 
>   ...
> 
>   Clients are also encouraged to consider the use of Connection: keep-
>   alive in requests carefully; while they can enable persistent
>   connections with HTTP/1.0 servers, clients using them need will need
>   to monitor the connection for "hung" requests (which indicate that
>   the client ought stop sending the header), and this mechanism ought
>   not be used by clients at all when a proxy is being used.


Aren't these two different things that you're confusing?

Your original question was about how a HTTP/1.1 server should handle the presence of "Connection:" in a HTTP/1.0 request.

The text above is warning HTTP/1.0 clients that HTTP/1.0 proxies may not handle the presence of "Connection:" properly.

Ben

> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Alvaro Lopez Ortega <alvaro@alobbs.com> wrote:
>> On 02/23/2012 05:56 PM, Willy Tarreau wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 10:32:39AM -0600, Zhong Yu wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>>  When an HTTP/1.1 server accepts an HTTP/1.0 request, should the server
>>>>>  always close the connection after sending the response? That seems to
>>>>>  be the safest way. While the server could try to keep the connection
>>>>>  by checking for Connection: keep-alive, the spec suggests that it is
>>>>>  problematic. What's your recommended best practice for this issue?
>>> 
>>> In haproxy we check for "Connection: keep-alive" in 1.0 and
>>> "Connection: close" in 1.1 and I've never had any report of
>>> unexpected behaviour by doing so.
>> 
>> 
>> Same thing for the Cherokee Web Server. I believe it's the behavior that
>> most of the servers and proxies implement.
>> 
>> All the best,
>> Alvaro
>

Received on Thursday, 23 February 2012 18:28:07 UTC