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INTERNET-DRAFT                                               S. Lawrence
draft-ietf-httpext-guidelines                      Agranat Systems, Inc.
                                                            1 April 1990


                   Guidelines for Extentions to HTTP

Status of this Memo


   This document is intended to become and Internet-Draft, at which time
   this entire section will be replaced by the proper boilerplate text.

   The revision you are looking at is:
      $Id: draft-ietf-httpext-guidelines.ms,v 1.2 1997/12/15 21:26:48
      lawrence Exp $

   This is a work in progress; many sections below are empty and may
   remain so until someone volunteers to produce a first draft for them.
   The editor is actively soliciting volunteers.  Discussion of this
   document and related work is on the 'ietf-http-ext@w3.org' mailing
   list; pointers are available at:

      http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/ietf-ext-wg/

Abstract

      The widespread use and apparently simple structure of HTTP
      [HTTP10][HTTP11] have led to its adoption as a base for the
      development of other protocols.  Some of these other protocols
      have chosen to be encapsulated entirely within HTTP, others have
      chosen to extend HTTP in various ways, and some have used some
      combination of these approaches.  In the course of the definition
      of HTTP/1.1 [HTTP11], much has been learned about the backward
      compatibility and interoperability implications of various
      mechanisms that might be chosen for extending HTTP; the purpose of
      this memo is to capture some of that knowlege and make it
      available to the protocol development community.

1. Use of HTTP Mechanisms for Extentions

 1.1 Response Version

 1.2 Response Status Codes

 1.3 New Header Fields

  1.3.1 New Header Values



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INTERNET-DRAFT      Guidelines for Extentions to HTTP   11 December 1997


 1.4 Use of the POST Method

 1.5 New Transfer Encodings

      Must be either self-terminating or must add a transfer length
      indication somewhere (Content-Length doesn't do this).

2. Existing HTTP Extention Features

 2.1 Usage of the Upgrade mechanism

3. Transport Related Extensions

 3.1 Transport Requirements of HTTP

 3.2 Issues for Transactional HTTP

 3.3 Issues for Use of HTTP over Datagram Protocols

  3.3.1 Issues for Use of a Transaction Identifier.

4. HTTP Management

 4.1 Content Issues

      Advice for content authors to ensure adequate description of
      content to firewall administrators such as mime-type declarations

 4.2 Operational Issues

      Dealing with multiple chained proxies and cache architectures is
      currently troublesome areas such as authentication and cache
      control.

 4.3 Cache Control

      Advice for proper usage of cacheability headers

5. Security Considerations

6. IANA Considerations

      Instructions and proceedures for any IANA or other registry
      referenced here; pointer to 'Guidelines for Writing an IANA
      Considerations Section in RFCs' [IANAreg]. .


7. References



Lawrence                                                        [Page 2]





INTERNET-DRAFT      Guidelines for Extentions to HTTP   11 December 1997


7. Author's Address

   Scott Lawrence
   Agranat Systems, Inc.
   1345 Main St.
   Waltham, MA 02154

   Phone: (781) 893-7868
   EMail: lawrence@agranat.com










































Lawrence                                                        [Page 3]