HTTP over SCTP without chunked encoding

At the recent HTTP WG meeting the subject of HTTP over SCTP was discussed,
and in particular the question was raised as to whether or not SCTP could
be used to avoid chunked encoding.  There are two ways to do this, but one
of them (EXPLICIT_EOR socket option) conflicts with current thinking about
how best to send HTTP over multiple SCTP streams.  The other approach is
to use the payload protocol identified or PPID.

The PPID is an optional value that is set by the sender and read by the
receiver.  The approach would be to define two PPID values (allocated by
IANA), say HTTP_MESSAGE_PIECE and HTTP_MESSAGE_END.  The sender would set
the PPID to HTTP_MESSAGE_END for the last sctp_sendmsg() call for the
current HTTP object, thereby allowing the receiver to identify the end of
the current HTTP object.

I'm far from being an expert in HTTP, and I would be grateful for feedback
on the suitability of this mechanism.  Thanks very much.

- Jon Leighton

Received on Thursday, 2 April 2009 07:48:34 UTC