Web and HTTP
Application Layer 2-1
Application Layer 2-2
Web and HTTP
First, a review…
web page consists of objects
object can be HTML file, JPEG image, Java applet,
audio file,…
web page consists of base HTML-file which
includes several referenced objects
each object is addressable by a URL, e.g.,
[Link]/someDept/[Link]
host name path name
Application Layer 2-3
HTTP overview
HTTP: hypertext
transfer protocol
Web’s application layer
protocol PC running
client/server model Firefox browser
client: browser that
requests, receives,
(using HTTP protocol) server
and “displays” Web running
objects Apache Web
server: Web server server
sends (using HTTP
protocol) objects in iphone running
response to requests Safari browser
Application Layer 2-4
HTTP Protocol Application Layer
UDP/TCP Protocol Transport Layer
Network Layer
Data Link Layer
Physical Layer
Application Layer 2-5
Client Server
HTTP Protocol Application Layer Application Layer HTTP Protocol
TCP Protocol Transport Layer Transport Layer TCP Protocol
Network Layer Network Layer
Data Link Layer Data Link Layer
Physical Layer Physical Layer
Application Layer 2-6
Connection Oriented
Application Layer 2-7
HTTP overview (continued)
uses TCP:
client initiates TCP
connection (creates
socket) to server, port 80
server accepts TCP
connection from client
HTTP messages
(application-layer protocol
messages) exchanged
between browser (HTTP
client) and Web server
(HTTP server)
TCP connection closed
Application Layer 2-8
HTTP connections
non-persistent HTTP persistent HTTP
at most one object multiple objects can
sent over TCP be sent over single
connection TCP connection
connection then between client, server
closed
downloading multiple
objects required
multiple connections
Application Layer 2-9
Non-persistent HTTP
suppose user enters URL: (contains text,
[Link]/someDepartment/[Link] references to 10
jpeg images)
1a. HTTP client initiates TCP
connection to HTTP server
(process) at 1b. HTTP server at host
[Link] on port [Link] waiting
80 for TCP connection at port 80.
“accepts” connection, notifying
2. HTTP client sends HTTP request client
message (containing URL) into
TCP connection socket. 3. HTTP server receives request
Message indicates that client message, forms response
wants object message containing requested
someDepartment/[Link] object, and sends message into
its socket
time
Application Layer 2-10
Non-persistent HTTP (cont.)
4. HTTP server closes TCP
connection.
5. HTTP client receives response
message containing html file,
displays html. Parsing html file,
finds 10 referenced jpeg objects
time
6. Steps 1-5 repeated for each of
10 jpeg objects
Application Layer 2-11
Non-persistent HTTP: response time
RTT (definition): time for a
small packet to travel from
client to server and back
HTTP response time: initiate TCP
one RTT to initiate TCP
connection
connection RTT
one RTT for HTTP request
request
file
and first few bytes of HTTP RTT
time to
response to return transmit
file
file transmission time file
received
non-persistent HTTP
response time =
time time
2RTT+ file transmission
time
Application Layer 2-12
Persistent HTTP
non-persistent HTTP issues: persistent HTTP:
requires 2 RTTs per object server leaves connection
OS overhead for each TCP open after sending
connection response
browsers often open subsequent HTTP
parallel TCP connections messages between same
to fetch referenced objects client/server sent over
open connection
client sends requests as
soon as it encounters a
referenced object
as little as one RTT for all
the referenced objects
Application Layer 2-13
HTTP request message
two types of HTTP messages: request, response
HTTP request message:
ASCII (human-readable format)
carriage return character
line-feed character
request line
(GET, POST, GET /[Link] HTTP/1.1\r\n
HEAD commands) Host: [Link]\r\n
User-Agent: Firefox/3.6.10\r\n
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml\r\n
header Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5\r\n
lines Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate\r\n
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7\r\n
carriage return, Keep-Alive: 115\r\n
line feed at start Connection: keep-alive\r\n
\r\n
of line indicates
end of header lines
Application Layer 2-14
HTTP request message: general format
method sp URL sp version cr lf request
line
header field name value cr lf
header
~
~ ~
~ lines
header field name value cr lf
cr lf
~
~ entity body ~
~ body
Application Layer 2-15
Uploading form input
POST method:
web page often includes
form input
input is uploaded to
server in entity body
URL method:
uses GET method
input is uploaded in URL
field of request line:
[Link]/animalsearch?monkeys&banana
Application Layer 2-16
Method types
HTTP/1.0: HTTP/1.1:
GET GET, POST
POST PUT
uploads file in entity
body to path specified
in URL field
DELETE
deletes file specified in
the URL field
Application Layer 2-17
HTTP response message
status line
(protocol
status code HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n
status phrase) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 [Link] GMT\r\n
Server: Apache/2.0.52 (CentOS)\r\n
Last-Modified: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 [Link]
GMT\r\n
header ETag: "17dc6-a5c-bf716880"\r\n
Accept-Ranges: bytes\r\n
lines Content-Length: 2652\r\n
Keep-Alive: timeout=10, max=100\r\n
Connection: Keep-Alive\r\n
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-
1\r\n
\r\n
data, e.g., data data data data data ...
requested
HTML file
Application Layer 2-18
HTTP response status codes
status code appears in 1st line in server-to-
client response message.
some sample codes:
200 OK
request succeeded, requested object later in this msg
301 Moved Permanently
requested object moved, new location specified later in this msg
(Location:)
400 Bad Request
request msg not understood by server
404 Not Found
requested document not found on this server
505 HTTP Version Not Supported
Application Layer 2-19
Web caches (proxy server)
goal: satisfy client request without involving origin server
user sets browser: Web
accesses via cache
browser sends all HTTP proxy
requests to cache server
object in cache: cache client
origin
returns object server
else cache requests
object from origin
server, then returns
object to client
client origin
server
Application Layer 2-20
More about Web caching
cache acts as both why Web caching?
client and server reduce response time
server for original for client request
requesting client
client to origin server reduce traffic on an
typically cache is institution’s access link
installed by ISP Internet dense with
(university, company, caches: enables “poor”
residential ISP) content providers to
effectively deliver
content (so too does
P2P file sharing)
Application Layer 2-21
Conditional GET
client server
Goal: don’t send object if
cache has up-to-date
cached version HTTP request msg
object
If-modified-since: <date>
no object transmission not
delay modified
lower link utilization HTTP response
before
HTTP/1.0
cache: specify date of 304 Not Modified
<date>
cached copy in HTTP
request
If-modified-since:
<date> HTTP request msg
server: response contains If-modified-since: <date> object
modified
no object if cached copy after
HTTP response
is up-to-date: HTTP/1.0 200 OK <date>
HTTP/1.0 304 Not <data>
Modified
Application Layer 2-22
