HTTP

From DreamHost

Jump to: navigation, search

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a method used to transfer or convey information on the World Wide Web. It is a patented open internet protocol whose original purpose was to provide a way to publish and receive HTML pages. HTTP is a request/response protocol between clients and servers. The originating client, such as a web browser, spider, or other end-user tool, is referred to as the user agent. The destination server, which stores or creates resources such as HTML files and images, is called the origin server.

Contents

HTTP Conversation

Below is a sample of part of an HTTP conversation:

Client Request

GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com

Server Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 22:38:34 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Unix)  (Debian/Linux)
Last-Modified: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 23:11:55 GMT
Etag: "3f80f-1b6-3e1cb03b"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 438
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

See Also

External Links

Personal tools