RE: Host header issue

I cant say if this is consensus, but my take was that
you only use the host header when you are proxying/requesting
http urls.  This is because the Host: header and value
only make sense for HTTP URLS.

The main point of adding the host header was to address
the "shortcoming" of http urls that didnt indicate
a host portion.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry Masinter [mailto:masinter@parc.xerox.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 04, 1999 5:01 PM
> To: Geoff Macartney
> Cc: http-wg@hplb.hpl.hp.com
> Subject: RE: Host header issue
> 
> 
> > In the recent discussion on this topic I haven't seen a query on the
> > text in section 14.23 "Host"  of RFC 2616 which says :
> > 
> >   "If the requested URI does not include an Internet host
> >    name for the service being requested, then the Host 
> header field MUST
> >    be given with an empty value. "
> >
> > It is the "with an empty value" that confuses me - this seems to
> > contradict what is written in section 5.1.2:
> >   "The most common form of Request-URI is that used to identify a
> >    resource on an origin server or gateway. In this case 
> the absolute
> >    path of the URI MUST be transmitted (see section 3.2.1, 
> abs_path) as
> >    the Request-URI, and the network location of the URI 
> (authority) MUST
> > 
> >    be transmitted in a Host header field. "
> > [...]
> >        GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
> >        Host: www.w3.org
> > 
> > If the text in 14.23 were followed you'd get
> > 
> >        GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
> >        Host:
> > 
> > which would surely be wrong. My understanding from the spec and this
> > discussion thread is that it should be possible to identify 
> the host,
> > whether by a relative URI plus valid Host value or by an 
> absolute URI
> > (plus redundant Host header, which I suppose you could legitimately
> > allow to have an empty value in this case?)
> > 
> > Is this one for the errata?
> 
> Well, it probably deserves a clarification. What I vaguely recall
> is that we were trying to leave room for non-HTTP based proxying,
> e.g., where you asked your proxy
> 
>        GET news:comp.infosystems.www HTTP/1.1
>        Host:
> 
> Clearly not the interpretation you read into it. Does anyone else
> recall what we really meant?
> 
>