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Host header issue

From: Josh Cohen (Exchange) <joshco@exchange.microsoft.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 17:39:25 -0700
Message-ID: <BFF90FB6CF66D111BF4F0000F840DB850BCBBA5A@LASSIE>
To: http-wg@hplb.hpl.hp.com
X-Mailing-List: <http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com> archive/latest/554
In going over some implementation stuff here, I ran into
an issue that I apparently misread in the spec.

According to the spec, the host: header is always required
in HTTP/1.1.  In my mind, I always perceived that to mean
that it was required as long as a relativeURI was used
in the request.   Looking closely at the spec, I see
that is not the case.

It seems to me that if you have an absolute URI, the host
header is redundant.  If I remember correctly, from the wg
meetings in the long past, the host header was added because
absolute URIs werent used to origin servers.
Now that HTTP/1.1 allows the use of absolute URIs, doesnt
it seem wise to remove the requirement of the host: header when
they are used?

It certainly makes things simpler if Im build a new client/server
system to just use absolute URIs consistently.

Can anyone explain what the justification was for requiring
the host: header even when their is a perfectly good
host indication in the absoluteURI?

Frankly, I can't beleive I didn't raise this sooner, I always
assumed this was the case.   I only ran into it in a debate
here with a colleague.
Received on Saturday, 4 September 1999 17:43:00 UTC

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