CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Jim Gettys/DEC - W3C

Minutes of the HyperText Transfer Protocol Working Group (HTTP)

These minutes are based on notes taken by Henrik Nielsen.


HTTP 1.0

A final draft needs to be produced before the group can finish all
discussion.  The draft will be available 1 August, for anticipated Last
Call later in the month.


Access Authentication - MD5 Digest

There are really no objections to the current state of this proposal.
HTTP does not provide the possibility of having MIME headers after the
HTTP object.

There are multiple implementations:


   o NCSA server and client
   o Spyglass
   o Dave Kristol's server


HTTP Session Extension

Ted Hardie, NASA, led this discussion.


   o This proposal would avoid TCP latency, overhead, and slow start
     performance problems.

   o Ted described a proposal from Alex Hopmann, who was not present.

   o Henrik noted that Request-ID header makes the proposal more
     flexible as the server can send them back out of order

   o There was general talk about sessions with a server.

   o Jeff Mogul of DECWRL has made an extensive study and simulation of
     persistent connection HTTP. The results of this work can be found
     at:

     http://www.research.digital.com/wrl/publications/abstracts/95.4.html

   o Is it a good idea to save headers while a connection is kept alive?

      -  Eric Sink:  No big advantage -- 10% (from implementation).

      -  Larry Masinter:  for almost all headers, it's a win; the only
         issue is those headers for which there is no way to say 'the
         default' by giving a header explicitly.

      -  Authentication may be the biggest performance win.


   o A number of implementations were mentioned; performance is unclear,
     and most likely to be seen over long haul and dial up lines, rather
     than in a local network, where most naive tests are performed.

   o The general consensus is that persistent connections are a good
     idea.  There are concerns about upward compatibility and
     interoperability with 1.0; this may or may not require 1.1; it was
     suggested that operation under 1.0 might be written up as an
     experimental protocol.

   o An open question is the timeouts for the TCP connection; there is
     some data from Jeff Mogul's simulation.


Problem With HTTP PUT and POST

Henrik Nielsen described a problem with HTTP PUT and POST that has
recently been uncovered, and solicited feedback.


HTTP/1.1

A HTTP/1.1 draft will be available in mid-August.


HTTP/NG

HTTP/NG: Andy Norman, Ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com.  Stefek Zaba has an
experimental implementation of what they call HTTP/NG, and has been
talking to Simon Spero.  Simon was not at the meeting, so there was
little discussion of NG.

Larry Masinter pointed out that people are trying to do transactions
with HTTP when HTTP does not have a transaction mechanism (e.g., when
you try to abort an operation in the middle, you have no way to know
whether or not it completed).

Many RPC implementations do what people are trying to do with HTTP-NG:
keep connections open, let them time out, handle more complex
operations, interleave multiple calls and results on the same
connection.

This begs the question:  Who has implemented a non-blocking (streaming)
RPC system that can be used if we are to avoid rolling our own?  Does it
have the needed facilities?

John Klensin, Applications Area co-Director, expressed great displeasure
with the current state of the working group.  Some issues he raised, but
not necessarily an exhaustive list include:


   o Working group chairs that do not warn the Area Director before an
     IETF meeting that they cannot attend are asking to be shot.  John
     promised to convey his displeasure directly to the chairs.

   o How will we make progress?

   o We have a collective problem in the working group.  We should stick
     to the milestones.

   o Without NG as a milestone for this group, 1.1 will likely end up
     out of control.  Without Simon Spero present, and with his RSI
     problems, John is very concerned about NG. Jim Gettys volunteered
     to edit HTTP/NG, if Simon is unable to deal with it due to his
     problems.  When will it become a Proposed Standard?


Harald Alvestrand, Applications Area co-Director, noted that there is no
reason to wait for an IETF meeting to send a document to the IESG for
standardization.


Proposed New Milestones

 Aug 1995  Send HTTP/1.0 of to the IESG as a Proposed Standard.

 Oct 1995  Session as experimental extension.

 Apr 1996  HTTP/1.1 as Proposed Standard.

 Dec 1996  HTTP/NG as Proposed Standard.  Jim Gettys volunteered to
           help Simon with writing.