- From: Jim Whitehead <ejw@ics.uci.edu>
- Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 10:55:19 -0800
- To: Patrick Collins <pcollins@web.fairfax.com.au>, w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> My problem is this. Gisle's LibWWW modules only supports HTTP/1.0. But > so far I haven't noticed a problem communicating as an HTTP/1.0 WebDAV > client to an HTTP/1.1 WebDAV server (well mod_dav 0.9.14 actually). > > Can you please tell me, why was WebDAV built on top of HTTP/1.1 instead > of just HTTP/1.0. Or more specifically, are there specific features > available in HTTP/1.1 that will prevent my client from being a fully > Class1 and Class2 compliant WebDAV client? If so, I've got a lot more > work because I'll have to write an HTTP/1.1 version of Gisle's LibWWW. There were several reasons for using HTTP/1.1. 1) HTTP/1.0 is an Informational standard, and not a standards track document within the IETF. Since we wanted WebDAV to be a standards track protocol, we needed to build upon another standards track protocol. HTTP/1.1 is standards track. 2) HTTP/1.1 provides persistent connections, which provide significant performance improvements over HTTP/1.0, since a TCP connection does not need to be created for each method. Since WebDAV clients often send bursts of several methods, it is better for WebDAV clients to use HTTP/1.1 style persistent connections. 3) Digest authentication was defined to work with HTTP/1.1 (although I suspect it would also work with HTTP/1.0), and WebDAV needed to require a better authentication mechanism than HTTP Basic authentication. 4) HTTP/1.1 requires HTTP/1.1 compliant proxies to pass through unknown methods. HTTP/1.0 proxies have no such restriction. This allows new methods, such as those defined in WebDAV, to be passed through proxies. 5) The Host header, required for HTTP/1.1 clients, allows servers to manage multiple DNS hosts at the same time. Which of these features do you need to implement to be compliant? - you must ensure the Host header is sent with every method - you must implement Digest authentication - you must support persistent connections There may be other features too (these are just the most important ones that I can remember off the top of my head). - Jim
Received on Tuesday, 7 March 2000 13:55:17 UTC