Overview

Web technology has become the foundation for all sorts of critical networked applications and far-reaching methods of data exchange, and beneath it all is a fundamental protocol that most of us take for granted but know very little about: HyperText Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. While the average Web user can remain blissfully unaware of the dozens of HTTP transactions required to download a Web page, understanding HTTP is essential for practically all Web-based programming and administration. Whether you're writing CGI programs, developing Web-based software, or managing a Web server, you need to have some knowledge of HTTP. And with the increasing emphasis on web services, which depend heavily on HTTP for interapplication communication, a strong understanding of HTTP is even more essential. ""HTTP: The Definitive Guide"" documents everything that technical people need for using HTTP efficiently-including the ""black arts"" and ""tricks of the trade""-and does so in a clear and readable manner. Written by experts with years of practical and teaching experience, this book is the definitive technical bible on HTTP and related core Web technologies because it clearly explains the """"why"""" as well as the """"how"""". A reader can understand how web applications work, how the core Internet protocols and architectural building blocks interact, and how to correctly implement Internet clients and servers. Technical professionals doing Internet software development and architecture, IT professionals who need to understand Internet architectural components and interactions, 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. ""

Full Product Details

Author:   David Gourley ,  Brian Totty ,  Marjorie Sayer ,  Anshu Aggarwal
Publisher:   O'Reilly Media
Imprint:   O'Reilly Media
Dimensions:   Width: 18.00cm , Height: 3.50cm , Length: 32.50cm
Weight:   1.210kg
ISBN:  

9781565925090

ISBN 10:   1565925092
Pages:   658
Publication Date:   05 November 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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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

Reviews

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

"""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"

Author Information

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.

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