Re: NUDGE: Our piece on Host: and URLs (Fwd)

At 09:35 AM 5/10/97 -0700, Roy T. Fielding wrote:

>Why?  There is currently no need for host to be an FQDN, for either
>the Host field-value or a full-URL.  Please explain.

I am puzzled too - It is not necessary nor practical very easy to expand an
abbreviated name to a FQDN. I had this code in libwww for a long time but
got so mane reactions due to badly setup domain names that I had to take it
out again.

The solution I wrote up to the problem is:

In section 14.23 Host:

<<<<<

A client MUST include a Host header field in all HTTP/1.1 request messages
on the Internet (i.e., on any message corresponding to a request for a URL
which includes an Internet host address for the service being requested).
If the Host field is not already present, an HTTP/1.1 proxy MUST add a Host
field to the request message prior to forwarding it on the Internet. All
Internet-based HTTP/1.1 servers MUST respond with a 400 status code to any
HTTP/1.1 request message which lacks a Host header field.

=====

A client MUST include a Host header field in all HTTP/1.1 request messages
on the Internet (i.e., on any message corresponding to a request for a URL
which includes an Internet host address for the service being requested).

If the Host field is not already present, an HTTP/1.1 proxy MUST add a Host
field to the request message prior to forwarding it on the Internet. The
proxy MUST use the network location of the origin server or gateway given
by the original URL. It SHOULD use the value as is and not try to expand
abbreviated host names as the proxy client may be in another domain than
the proxy.

All Internet-based HTTP/1.1 servers MUST respond with a 400 status code to
any HTTP/1.1 request message which lacks a Host header field.

Henrik
--
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen, <frystyk@w3.org>
World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/People/Frystyk

Received on Monday, 12 May 1997 07:26:46 UTC