Re: Conditional HEAD not supported

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chemolli Francesco (USI)" <ChemolliF@GruppoCredit.it>
To: "'Henrik Nordstrom'" <hno@safecore.se>; <squid-dev@squid-cache.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 12:12 AM
Subject: RE: Conditional HEAD not supported

> > It seems we do not hande conditional HEAD requests.
>
> [...]
>
> > It is true that the specifications for status 304 does not
> > mention HEAD
> > (only GET). However, the specification for HEAD (9.4) does say that
> > HEAD is identical to GET, and behaves in the same way except that no
> > message body is returned. So it is reasonable to expect that
> > the two can
> > be exchanged in any part of the specification except where related to
> > reply-message-body.
>
> I second your interpretation.
>

2616 is slightly clearer on this: yes we should be able to perform conditional HEAD's. :
"This method is often used for testing hypertext links for validity, accessibility, and recent modification."
and I also would expect to see a 304 to a conditional HEAD request.

> > On the bright side we are not alone in this. The implementation of
> > HEAD varies quite a lot between different servers. However,
> > at least two
> > major players (IIS and Apache) have read the specification in
> > such a way
> > that conditional HEAD is supported. (IIS is also one of the
> > most common
> > where HEAD is not compliant at all.. HEAD on a page processed
> > by SSI is
> > processed like GET, including reply-message-body)
>
> Yuck.
> Since Robert seems to have a contact at Microsoft's complaints center,
> maybe we could bug them about this (but maybe they already know and just
> don't care)...

:[
Unfortunately we'd have to show a security concern that the 'public' would agree with - that's about all they are interested in
listening to. I've been round the quoting RFC's gigon their browser security selection already. There's a bug ID open, but no
guarantee it'll go any where unless someone puts money behind it.

Ro
Received on Tue Jan 16 2001 - 06:28:39 MST