- From: Ross Patterson <ROSSP@ss1.reston.vmd.sterling.com>
- Date: Thu, 07 Jan 99 09:19:12 EST
- To: CGI-WG@golux.com, ipp@pwg.org, http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com, SERVLET-INTEREST@java.sun.com
kugler@us.ibm.com writes: >Ross Patterson wrote: >> >>>... >>>5. Origin servers MUST remove the Transfer-Encoding before passing a >>>request body to a plug-in, servlet, (Fast)CGI, or across any other >gateway >>>boundary. >> >>That's not clearly stated in either the HTTP 1.1 or CGI 1.1 >specifications. > >An unfortunate omission, IMO. Not really. The HTTP Working Group generally avoids discussion of any purely-internal interfaces, including CGI, servlets, NSAPI, etc. And of course CGI 1.1, which predates any discussion of transfer-codings in HTTP, couldn't be expected to address the issue. The CGI Working Group <CGI-WG at Golux.Com> is working on getting CGI 1.1 finally up to snuff for publication as an RFC, and then plans to undertake CGI 1.2, which is targeted at addressing HTTP 1.1 issues (among other things). As often happens with protocol revisions, there is likely to be some debate about the scope of changes from CGI 1.1 to 1.2, and now that you've raised this point about removing transfer-codings I expect that will be discussed. >Section 4.4 says: > >> All HTTP/1.1 applications that receive entities MUST accept the >> "chunked" transfer-coding (section 3.6), thus allowing this mechanism >> to be used for messages when the message length cannot be determined >> in advance. > >Apparently that should be interpreted as "MUST accept the 'chunked' >TRANSFER-CODING, but NEED NOT accept REQUESTs with that transfer-coding." Correct - all HTTP 1.1 servers must be able to process requests encoded as chunked data, but they are still allowed to refuse the request for other reasons. For example, the targeted resource might not accept the method you've specified (many servers refuse POST for static files with 403 Forbidden or (in HTTP 1.1) 405 Method Not Allowed), or the request might require authorization (401 Not Authorized), or as you've noted already it might exceed the server's willingness to buffer data. Ross Patterson VM Software Division Sterling Software, Inc.
Received on Thursday, 7 January 1999 06:48:14 UTC