- From: Fish <fish@infidels.org>
- Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 09:00:34 -0700
- To: "Marc Wrona" <mwrona@advertising.com>, <www-talk@w3.org>
Marc -- > I've been reading, with great interest, RFC2616; specifically the sections > on persistant connetions and pipelining. Can anyone tell me if there is a > way to 'force' a browser into using persitent connections, and even > pipelining, via HTML (assuming the browser supports HTTP 1.1)? Yes, and the answer is no. :) HTML has nothing whatsoever to do with HTTP. HTML is a markup language. HTTP is a transport protocol. > I've been playing with MSIE 5.0, and created a test page with hyperlinks > pointing to the same server. Every load results in multiple connections > being made to the webserver. I've already verified that HTTP/1.1 support > has been activated (via tools/options/etc.). And, traces confirm that > HTTP/1.1 is being sent in the "GET" start-line. Have I misinterpreted the > specification? Sounds like it. :) > I'm under the assumption that because the hyperlinks > reference the same address/port, a single connection should be used to > retrieve the 'documents'. If the server that's servicing your requests is an HTTP/1.1 compliant server, it should -- if it *can*. Servers do get busy and may not be able to maintain a persistent connection for very long when they're under heavy load. The specification doesn't *require* that HTTP/1.1 servers *must* maintain a persistent connection. Persistent connections must be *negotiated* between the client and the server and either party may, if it so chooses, refuse to keep a connection persistent. Then too, just because you send a server an HTTP/1.1 request doesn't mean it *must* respond with HTTP/1.1 responses. The server might only support HTTP/1.0, in which case the connection would be closed once the response has been sent. Read section 8.1.2.1 ("Negotiation") again. Carefully. :) -- "Fish" (David B. Trout) fish@infidels.org
Received on Tuesday, 24 October 2000 12:00:50 UTC