Re: HTTP 1.1 Server Available for Testing

On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, John C. Mallery wrote:

> Are you saying that 1.0 clients do not ignore headers they don't understand?

Some of those clients that advertise themselves as HTTP/1.0 will be
clients that have started implementing some of the HTTP/1.1 features
(but not all of them - so they still have to call themselves HTTP/1.0). 

> Or are you trying to say don't send chunked encoded stuff to 1.0 clients?
> 
> I checked every occurence of MUST in the spec to make sure we were conforming,
> and I believe we are.
> 
> CL-HTTP responds to 1.0 clients with 1.0 responses.  1.1 responses are
> reserved for clients or proxies that also advertise 1.1 functionality.

This brings up a question - How legitimate is it for the same server
(identified ipaddress:port) to change personality between HTTP/1.1
and HTTP/1.0?  If a server answers some requests with "HTTP/1.1 200 .."
and others with "HTTP/1.0 200 .." (or any other response code), this
may confuse HTTP/1.1-aware clients.  

draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-07 says:

3.1 HTTP Version

... Applications sending Request or Response messages, as defined by this
specification, MUST include an HTTP-Version of "HTTP/1.1".


8.2 Message Transmission Requirements

...
Clients SHOULD remember the version number of at least the most recently
used server...

Received on Thursday, 15 August 1996 17:45:25 UTC