HTTP

"I think this book is an extremely useful, very comprehensive and clearly-written reference to all aspects of the internals of the Web going well beyond just the bare mechanics of HTTP. Even where its huge detail does stop on a topic, there are extensive and useful references for further reading on each topic covered given at the end of nearly every chapter." - John Collins, News@UK, March 2003

Brian Totty is the Vice President of R&D at Inktomi Corporation. He has led the technical design and development of web caching, streaming media, and Internet search technologies since he helped found Inktomi in 1996. David Gourley is the Chief Technology Officer of Endeca, where he leads the research and development of Endeca's products. David was a member of the founding engineering team at Inktomi, where he helped develop Inktomi's Internetsearch database, and was a key developer of Inktomi's web caching products. Marjorie Sayer writes about network caching software at Inktomi Corporation. Sailu Reddy writes about network caching software at Inktomi Corporation. Anshu Aggarwal is a Director of Engineering at Inktomi.

Preface Part I. HTTP: The Web's Foundation 1. Overview of HTTP HTTP: The Internet's Multimedia Courier Web Clients and Servers Resources Transactions Messages Connections Protocol Versions Architectural Components of the Web The End of the Beginning For More Information 2. URLs and Resources Navigating the Internet's Resources URL Syntax URL Shortcuts Shady Characters A Sea of Schemes The Future For More Information 3. HTTP Messages The Flow of Messages The Parts of a Message Methods Status Codes Headers For More Information 4. Connection Management TCP Connections TCP Performance Considerations HTTP Connection Handling Parallel Connections Persistent Connections Pipelined Connections The Mysteries of Connection Close For More Information Part II. HTTP Architecture 5. Web Servers Web Servers Come in All Shapes and Sizes A Minimal Perl Web Server What Real Web Servers Do Step 1: Accepting Client Connections Step 2: Receiving Request Messages Step 3: Processing Requests Step 4: Mapping and Accessing Resources Step 5: Building Responses Step 6: Sending Responses Step 7: Logging For More Information 6. Proxies Web Intermediaries Why Use Proxies? Where Do Proxies Go? Client Proxy Settings Tricky Things About Proxy Requests Tracing Messages Proxy Authentication Proxy Interoperation For More Information 7. Caching Redundant Data Transfers Bandwidth Bottlenecks Flash Crowds Distance Delays Hits and Misses Cache Topologies Cache Processing Steps Keeping Copies Fresh Controlling Cachability Setting Cache Controls Detailed Algorithms Caches and Advertising For More Information 8. Integration Points: Gateways, Tunnels, and Relays Gateways Protocol Gateways Resource Gateways Application Interfaces and Web Services Tunnels Relays For More Information 9. Web Robots Crawlers and Crawling Robotic HTTP Misbehaving Robots Excluding Robots Robot Etiquette Search Engines For More Information 10. HTTP-NG HTTP's Growing Pains HTTP-NG Activity Modularize and Enhance Distributed Objects Layer 1: Messaging Layer 2: Remote Invocation Layer 3: Web Application WebMUX Binary Wire Protocol Current Status For More Information Part III. Identification, Authorization, and Security 11. Client Identification and Cookies The Personal Touch HTTP Headers Client IP Address User Login Fat URLs Cookies For More Information 12. Basic Authentication Authentication Basic Authentication The Security Flaws of Basic Authentication For More Information 13. Digest Authentication The Improvements of Digest Authentication Digest Calculations Quality of Protection Enhancements Practical Considerations Security Considerations For More Information 14. Secure HTTP Making HTTP Safe Digital Cryptography Symmetric-Key Cryptography Public-Key Cryptography Digital Signatures Digital Certificates HTTPS: The Details A Real HTTPS Client Tunneling Secure Traffic Through Proxies For More Information Part IV. Entities, Encodings, and Internationalization 15. Entities and Encodings Messages Are Crates, Entities Are Cargo Content-Length: The Entity's Size Entity Digests Media Type and Charset Content Encoding Transfer Encoding and Chunked Encoding Time-Varying Instances Validators and Freshness Range Requests Delta Encoding For More Information 16. Internationalization HTTP Support for International Content Character Sets and HTTP ultilingual Character Encoding Primer Langaue Tags and HTTP Internationalized URIs Other Considerations For More Information 17. Content Negotiation and Transcoding Content-Negotiation Techniques Client-Driven Negotiation Server-Driven Negotiation Transparent Negotiation Transcoding Next Steps For More Information Part V. Content Publishing and Distribution 18. Web Hosting Hosting Services Virtual Hosting Making Web Sites Reliable Making Web Sites Fast For More Information 19. Publishing System