Behind every web transaction lies the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) --- the language of web browsers and servers, of portals and search engines, of e-commerce and web services. Understanding HTTP is essential for practically all web-based programming, design, analysis, and administration. While the basics of HTTP are elegantly simple, the protocol's advanced features are notoriously confusing, because they knit together complex technologies and terminology from many disciplines. This book clearly explains HTTP and these interrelated core technologies, in twenty-one logically organized chapters, backed up by hundreds of detailed illustrations and examples, and convenient reference appendices. HTTP: The Definitive Guide explains everything people need to use HTTP efficiently -- including the "black arts" and "tricks of the trade" -- in a concise and readable manner. In addition to explaining the basic HTTP features, syntax and guidelines, this book clarifies related, but often misunderstood topics, such as: TCP connection management, web proxy and cache architectures, web robots and robots.txt files, Basic and Digest authentication, secure HTTP transactions, entity body processing, internationalized content, and traffic redirection. Many technical professionals will benefit from this book. Internet architects and developers who need to design and develop software, IT professionals who need to understand Internet architectural components and interactions, multimedia designers who need to publish and host multimedia, performance engineers who need to optimize web performance, technical marketing professionals who need a clear picture of core web architectures and protocols, as well as untold numbers of students and hobbyists will all benefit from the knowledge packed in this volume. There are many books that explain how to use the Web, but this is the one that explains how the Web works. Written by experts with years of design and implementation experience, this book is the definitive technical bible that describes the "why" and the "how" of HTTP and web core technologies. HTTP: The Definitive Guide is an essential reference that no technically-inclined member of the Internet community should be without.

Table of Contents:
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 Systems FrontPage Server Extensions for Publishing Support WebDAV and Collaborative Authoring For More Information 20. Redirection and Load Balancing Why Redirect? Where to Redirect Overview of Redirection Protocols General Redirection Methods Proxy Redirection Methods Cache Redirection Methods Internet Cache Protocol Cache Array Routing Protocol Hyper Text Caching Protocol For More Information 21. Logging and Usage Tracking What to Log? Log Formats Hit Metering A Word on Privacy For More Information Part VI. Appendixes A. URI Schemes B. HTTP Status Codes C. HTTP Header Reference D. MIME Types E. Base-64 Encoding F. Digest Authentication G. Language Tags H. MIME Charset Registry Index