One document matched: draft-ietf-http-pep-04.txt
Differences from draft-ietf-http-pep-03.txt
HTTP Working Group D. Connolly, W3C
INTERNET-DRAFT R. Khare, W3C
<draft-ietf-http-pep-04> H. Frystyk, W3C
Expires 15 January, 1998 15 July, 1997
Status of this Document
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This document is also available as a W3C Working Draft. The most recent
release is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-http-pep.
Distribution of this document is unlimited. Please send comments to the
HTTP working group at http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com. Discussions of the
working group are archived at http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/. The
editor maintains background information about PEP at
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/PEP/
The contribution of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) staff time to the
HTTP working group is part of the W3C HTTP Activity.
Abstract
HTTP is used increasingly in applications that need more facilities than
the standard version of the protocol provides, ranging from distributed
authoring, collaboration, and printing, to various remote procedure call
mechanisms. The Protocol Extension Protocol (PEP) is an extension
mechanism designed to address the tension between private agreement and
public specification and to accommodate extension of applications such
as HTTP clients, servers, and proxies. The PEP mechanism is designed to
associate each extension with a URI[2], and use a few new RFC 822[1]
derived header fields to carry the extension identifier and related
information between the parties involved in an extended transaction.
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This document defines PEP and describes the interactions between PEP and
HTTP/1.1[7]. PEP is intended to be compatible with HTTP/1.0[5] inasmuch
as HTTP/1.1 is compatible with HTTP/1.0 (see [7], section 19.7). It is
proposed that the PEP extension mechanism be included in future versions
of HTTP.
The PEP extension mechanism may be applicable to other information
exchange not mentioned in this document. It is recommended that readers
get acquainted with section 0 for a suggested reading of this
specification and a list of sections specific for HTTP based
applications.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction...............................................3
1.1 Requirements.............................................3
1.2 Purpose..................................................4
1.3 Operational Overview.....................................4
1.4 Guide to this Specification..............................5
2 The PEP Extension Space in HTTP............................5
3 Notational Conventions.....................................6
3.1 Bag Syntax...............................................7
4 Extension Declarations.....................................7
4.1 Mapping Header Fields....................................8
4.2 The Strength of a Declaration............................9
4.3 End-to-End Extension Declarations........................9
4.4 Hop-by-Hop Extension Declarations.......................10
5 Extension Policy Information..............................10
5.1 The Realm of a Policy...................................11
5.2 Policy Expirations......................................12
5.3 Extra Parameters........................................12
5.4 End-to-End Policies.....................................12
5.5 Hop-by-Hop Policies.....................................13
6 Publishing an Extension...................................13
7 Binding HTTP Requests.....................................14
7.1 Extending Existing HTTP Methods.........................15
7.2 Adding New HTTP Methods.................................15
8 HTTP Status Codes.........................................16
8.1 420 Bad Extensions......................................16
8.2 421 Bad Mapping.........................................17
9 HTTP Proxy Servers........................................17
9.1 Proxy Servers as End-to-End Recipients..................17
9.1.1 Proxy Servers Acting on Behalf of User Agents.......17
9.1.2 Proxy Servers Acting on Behalf of Origin Servers....18
9.2 Proxy Servers and Repeated Hop-by-Hop Extensions........18
10 Practical Considerations for HTTP.........................19
10.1 Interaction with Existing HTTP/1.1 Methods.............19
10.2 Interaction with Existing HTTP/1.1 Headers.............19
10.3 Server Initiated Extension Declarations................20
11 Security Considerations...................................21
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12 Normative References......................................21
13 Bibliography: Informative References......................22
14 Acknowledgements..........................................23
15 Authors Addresses.........................................23
16 Summary of PEP Interactions...............................24
17 Examples..................................................25
17.1 Client Queries a Server for DAV........................25
17.2 Client Informs a Server about
ZipFlate Compression Extension.........................25
17.3 Server Uses Content-Digest Extension...................26
17.4 Server Requires the Client to use Payment Extension....27
1 Introduction
1.1 Requirements
HTTP is a generic request-response protocol, designed to accommodate a
variety of applications, from network information exchange and searching
to file transfer and repository access to query and forms processing.
Most HTTP transactions are initiated by a user agent issuing a request
to be applied to a resource on some origin server, with intermediaries
between them in some cases. The origin server replies with a response
indicating the result of the transaction.
Semantically, however, an HTTP transaction is between an end user and a
principal responsible for the publication of a given resource. The end
user is the representative accessing information provided by a
publishing party. The publishing party is the one responsible for the
service provided at any particular URI, for example, the mapping between
the URI and any representation of the resource to which it refers.
Exactly who takes the role as end user or publisher is beyond the scope
of this document.
HTTP, as is the case for most transaction based information exchange
protocols, is used increasingly in applications that need more
facilities than the standard version of the protocol provides, from
distributed authoring, collaboration and printing, to various remote
procedure call mechanisms.
Many extended applications do not require agreement across the whole
Internet about the extended facilities; rather, it suffices:
o That conforming peers supporting a particular protocol extension
or feature can employ it dynamically with no prior agreement;
o That it is possible for one party having a capability for a new
protocol to require that the other party either understand and abide
by the new protocol or abort the operation;
o That negotiation of matching capabilities is possible.
The need for extensibility creates a tension between dynamically
extensible applications and public, static specifications.
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1.2 Purpose
The Protocol Extension Protocol (PEP) is an extension mechanism designed
to accommodate dynamic extension of applications such as HTTP clients
and servers by software components; and to address the tension between
private agreement and public specification. The kind of extensions
capable of being introduced by PEP range from:
o extending a single protocol message;
o introducing new encodings;
o initiating HTTP-derived protocols for new applications; to...
o switching to protocols which, once initiated, run independent of
the original protocol stack.
This document defines the protocol extension mechanism referred to as
"PEP". The PEP design is the result of analyzing a variety of extensions
and extension mechanisms in HTTP and HTTP-like protocols, and the
motivation behind them.
The specification also describes the interactions between PEP and
HTTP/1.1[7] including scoping rules and cache semantics. PEP is intended
to be compatible with HTTP/1.0[5] inasmuch as HTTP/1.1 is compatible
with HTTP/1.0 (see section 0 and 0) and it is proposed that the PEP
extension mechanism be included in future versions of HTTP.
1.3 Operational Overview
PEP is intended to be used as follows:
o Some party designs and specifies an extension; the party assigns
the extension an identifier, which is a URI, and makes one or more
representations of the extension available at that address (see
section 0).
o A party using a PEP compliant agent with an implementation of
the extension wishes to use it; the agent declares the use of the
extension by referencing its URI in a PEP extension declaration (see
section 0).
o Information about extensions can be passed between agents
including information of where they can be used and under what
conditions (see section 0).
If an extension becomes ubiquitous, it may be incorporated into a new
version of the base protocol, hence transitioning from dynamic extension
to static specification. In this case, applications can refer to the new
version of the base protocol instead of the PEP extension (see section
0).
PEP extension declarations are characterized by the following
properties:
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o They link features introduced by the extension to the URI
identifying the extension, potentially allowing a recipient to
interpret the message correctly with no prior agreement.
o They contain a strength and a scope allowing the sender to
define the appropriate action to be taken by the recipient even if it
does not understand the semantics of the extension.
o Any agent can generate declarations independent of other agents
The advantage of including the extension identifier is that, at the cost
of some extra bytes to spell out the URI, the use of a central registry
of extension names is avoided. PEP can also be used to extend
applications to support centrally registered extensions, assuming a URI
is published as part of the registration (see section 0).
The PEP mechanism is designed to accommodate but does not require
dynamic extension of clients, servers, and proxies by software
components as follows:
o Clients and servers could be implemented with software component
interfaces that allow dynamic installation of extension facilities.
o An implementation compatible with a software component interface
supported by the agent could be made available at the URI identifying
the extension.
o An agent receiving a message referring to an extension not known
by the agent could dereference the extension's identifier and
dynamically load support for the extended facility.
The representation and implementation of dynamic extensible software
component interfaces is outside the scope of this specification.
1.4 Guide to this Specification
This specification is organized as follows: Section 0 describes how PEP
fits into HTTP. This is not required reading but may further the
understanding of the specification. Section 0 is an overview of the
notational conventions used throughout the specification.
Section 0, 0, and 0 is the core part of the specification describing the
generic PEP extension mechanism. Section 0, 0, 0, and 0 describe the
interactions between PEP and HTTP/1.1[7].
The generic PEP extension mechanism may be applicable to other
information exchange protocols. Such mappings, however, are outside the
scope of this specification.
2 The PEP Extension Space in HTTP
PEP is designed to support dynamic extensibility of HTTP methods,
headers, and status codes. Before describing in detail how PEP does
this, it is constructive to have a look at how methods, headers, and
status codes behave in HTTP:
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Methods
The method token in an HTTP request indicates the method to be
performed on the resource identified by the Request-URI. Methods need
a priori agreement of semantics and can not be extended dynamically.
If an HTTP server does not know a method, it must report an error
message (see [7] section 5.1.1). A limitation of the method space is
that a request can only contain a single method. Hence, it is not
possible to support multiple, simultaneous extensions unless having a
multiplicity of methods.
Status Codes
The status code element is a 3-digit integer result code of the
attempt to understand and satisfy the request. Status codes are like
method tokens in that there can only be a single status code in a
response. However, status codes are somewhat easier to extend, as
unknown status codes must be treated as the x00 code of that class
(see [7] section 6.1.1). For example, a new status code, 223 (My New
Code) would default to 200 (OK).
Headers
Header fields can be used to pass information about any of the
parties involved in the transaction, the transaction itself, or the
resource identified by the Request-URI. The advantage of headers is
that the header space is relatively open compared to that of methods
and status codes. New headers can be introduced and must be ignored
if the recipient does not recognize the header without affecting the
outcome of the transaction (see [7] section 7.1).
In order to achieve the desired flexibility, PEP is designed to use the
header space for describing extensions and not directly HTTP methods or
status codes. Instead, PEP introduces a placeholder in the method space
and status code space respectively guaranteeing that all interactions
with existing HTTP applications perform according to the PEP
specification. The two placeholders are:
o a special PEP method and a PEP- method prefix which indicates
that a request contains one or more PEP extensions that must be
adhered to or the transaction aborted (see section 0);
o a special status code 420 (Bad Extensions) that indicates that
the policy for accessing the resource was not met and that further
information can be found in the response for diagnosing the problem
(see section 0).
These two placeholders allow for multiple PEP extensions to be deployed
simultaneously without overloading the method space or the status code
space.
3 Notational Conventions
This specification uses the same notational conventions and basic
parsing constructs as RFC 2068[7]. In particular the BNF constructs
"token", "quoted-string", "field-name", "URI", and "delta-seconds" in
this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2068[7].
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The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119[9].
PEP does not rely on particular features defined in URLs that cannot
potentially be expressed using URNs (see section 0). Therefore, the more
generic term URI[2] is used throughout the specification.
3.1 Bag Syntax
The bag element is a recursive structure that uses braces ("{" and "}")
to delimit attribute-value pairs that may consist of tokens, quoted-
strings, URIs and recursively defined bags. The BNF for the bag syntax
is as follows:
bag = "{" bagname *bagitem "}"
bagname = token
bagitem = bag
| token
| quoted-string
The bag semantics are defined by its context and the bag name. The value
of a quoted string may be a URI in some cases. Unless explicitly defined
otherwise, all tokens within a bag are case-insensitive. Comments as
defined by RFC 822[1] indicated by surrounding the comment text with
parentheses MUST NOT be used within a bag construct.
4 Extension Declarations
Extension declaration bags are used to indicate the PEP extensions that
have been applied to a message. The grammar for an extension declaration
is as follows:
ext-decl = "{" req-ext-attr *opt-ext-attr "}"
req-ext-attr = map
opt-ext-attr = strength
| attribute-ext
map = "{" "map" <"> URI <"> #(header-wildcard) "}"
strength = "{" "strength" ( "must" | "may" ) "}"
attribute-ext = bag
header-wildcard = field-name [ ( wildcard ) | ( "=" field-name ) ]
wildcard = "*"
The map attribute bag contains the URI identifying the extension and a
list of any header field names introduced by the extension (see section
0 and 0). If the extension identifier is relative, it is interpreted
relative to the base URI of the message as defined by RFC 1808[4].
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The strength attribute bag indicates whether the recipient MUST or MAY
obey the semantics given by the extension or report an error (see
section 0).
An extension declaration bag (ext-decl) can be extended through the use
of one or more attribute-ext bags. Unrecognized attribute-ext bags
SHOULD be ignored and MUST NOT be removed by proxies when forwarding the
extension declaration (see section 0).
Extension declarations can either be hop-by-hop or end-to-end (see [7],
section 13.5.1) depending on the scope of the declaration (see section 0
and 0). End-to-end declarations MUST be transmitted to the ultimate
recipient of the extension declaration. Hop-by-hop declarations are
meaningful only for a single transport-level connection.
4.1 Mapping Header Fields
The header-wildcard in a map attribute bag indicates that any header
field-name in the message that matches the header-wildcard is introduced
by the extension declaration. A header-wildcard contains a field-name,
optionally assigned a value or terminated with a wildcard.
If a field-name is assigned a value then that value is the name of the
header-field appearing in the message instead of the field-name itself.
This can be used to distinguish header fields introduced by multiple
extension declarations of the same extension in a message.
A field-name directly followed by a wildcard indicates that all header
fields in the message matching the field-name value using prefix-
matching are introduced by this extension declaration. Linear white
space (LWS) MUST NOT be used between the field-name and the wildcard.
Examples of header-wildcard values are
Path, Destination
Path-*
Path=P1, Destination=D1
The last example indicates that the extension is using the header fields
"Path" and "Destination" but that they in the message are written as
"P1" and "D1". All header-wildcard values are case-insensitive including
when taking part in prefix-matching. For example, the "Path-*" example
above matches header fields like "Path-Discovery", "path-length", etc.
Agents SHOULD NOT overload well-known or widely deployed header fields
with new semantics unless the new semantics are a superset of the
existing semantics so that the header fields still can be interpreted
according to the old semantics.
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Agents SHOULD NOT reuse already mapped header fields in the same
message. If a header field is mapped by multiple extension declarations
in the same message, the recipient SHOULD report an error (see section
0).
Proxies adding extension declarations to a message MUST make sure that
any header fields introduced do not conflict with already mapped header
fields (see section 0).
4.2 The Strength of a Declaration
The strength attribute bag can be used to specify the actions to be
taken by the ultimate recipient of the extension declaration. The
strength value can indicate that
1. the recipient MUST obey the extension declaration or report an error;
or
2. the recipient MAY obey the extension declaration or ignore it
altogether.
If the strength is "must", the ultimate recipient MUST consult and
adhere to the rules given by the extension when processing the message
or report an error (see section 0 and 0).
If the strength is "may" the ultimate recipient of the extension MAY
consult and adhere to the rules given by the extension when processing
the message, or ignore the extension declaration completely. An agent
may not be able to distinguish whether the ultimate recipient does not
understand an extension referred to by an extension declaration of
strength "may" or simply ignores the extension declaration.
If no strength attribute is present, the default strength is "may".
Not accepting or ignoring an extension declaration is different from not
accepting a mapping of header field-names introduced by the map
attribute bag. If the ultimate recipient cannot accept a mapping, for
example if a field-name is already mapped by another extension
declaration, it SHOULD report an error (see section 0).
4.3 End-to-End Extension Declarations
End-to-end declarations MUST be transmitted to the ultimate recipient of
the declaration. The PEP header field is an end-to-end header field and
is defined as follows:
pep = "PEP" ":" 1#ext-decl
For example
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GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: some.host
PEP: {{map "http://www.w3.org/PEP/DAV"}}
If multiple end-to-end extensions are declared in the same message, the
declarations MUST be listed in the order in which they were applied to
the message.
Proxies MAY under certain conditions act as the ultimate recipient of
declarations on behalf of user agents and origin servers (see section
0).
4.4 Hop-by-Hop Extension Declarations
Hop-by-hop extension declarations are meaningful only for a single
transport-level connection. The C-PEP header field is a hop-by-hop
header field and MUST NOT be communicated by proxies over further
connections. The C-PEP header has the following grammar:
c-pep = "C-PEP" ":" 1#ext-decl
For example
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: some.host
Credentials: Henrik
C-PEP: {{map "http://www.w3.org/PEP/ProxyAuth" Credentials}}
Connection: C-PEP, Credentials
In HTTP, the C-PEP header field MUST be protected by a Connection header
by including C-PEP as a Connection header directive. The directive MUST
be handled according to the HTTP/1.1 specification of the Connection
header (see section 0 and [7], section 14.10).
An agent MUST NOT send the C-PEP header field to an HTTP/1.0 proxy as it
does not obey the HTTP/1.1 rules for parsing the Connection header field
(see [7], section 19.7.1).
If multiple hop-by-hop extensions are declared in the same message, the
extension declarations MUST be listed in the order in which they were
applied. Hop-by-hop C-PEP declarations MUST be processed before any end-
to-end PEP declarations.
5 Extension Policy Information
Extension Policy bags are used to indicate the extensions that may be
applied to a message. Extension policies differ from extension
declarations in that the latter is information about which extensions
have been applied to a message. An extension policy is defined as
follows:
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policy-decl = "{" req-pol-attr *opt-pol-attr "}"
req-pol-attr = id
opt-pol-attr = for
| max-age
| parameters
| strength
| attribute-ext
id = "{" "id" <"> URI <"> "}"
for = "{" "for" #URI-wildcard "}"
max-age = "{" "max-age" delta-seconds "}"
parameters = "{" "params" *bagitem "}"
URI-wildcard = <"> URI <"> [ wildcard ]
The id attribute specifies the URI identifying the extension (see
section 0). If the extension identifier is relative, it is interpreted
relative to the base URI of the message as defined by RFC 1808[4].
The for attribute bag specifies which resources, the policy is intended
for (see section 0) and the max-age attribute bag when the information
should be considered stale (see section 0). The params attribute bag can
be used to pass additional information about the extension policy (see
section 0).
The strength attribute indicates whether the policy is a requirement or
optional for the resource(s) for which it applies (see section 0).
An extension policy bag (policy-decl) can be extended through the use of
one or more attribute-ext bags. Unrecognized attribute-ext bags SHOULD
be ignored and MUST NOT be removed by proxies when forwarding the
extension policy (see section 0).
Extension policies can either be hop-by-hop or end-to-end policies (see
[7], section 13.5.1) depending on the scope (see section 0 and 0). End-
to-end policies MUST be transmitted to the ultimate recipient of the
extension policy. Hop-by-hop policies are meaningful only for a single
transport-level connection.
Note: It is expected that extension policies will be integrated with
other metadata initiatives like the PICS-NG initiative[11], for example.
5.1 The Realm of a Policy
The for attribute bag specifies the resource(s) identified by URI(s) to
which the policy applies. A URI followed by a LWS and a wildcard ("*")
represents the set of URIs that contains the given URI using prefix
matching. A URI with no wildcard means that URI only.
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Examples of URI-wildcards are
{for "/" *}
{for "http://www.w3.org/pub/" *}
{for "secret/Overview.html"}
An empty for attribute bag (no bagitems included) indicates that the
policy is not applied to any resource. If no for attribute bag is
present, the default value is the Request-URI.
A realm can include any number of resources but note that a single
wildcard "*" is not a valid URI-wildcard value.
5.2 Policy Expirations
The max-age attribute bag can be used to specify a date/time after which
the recipient SHOULD consider the policy stale. The max-age attribute
bag value indicates that the information should no longer be used if the
age is greater than the specified time in seconds (see [7] section
13.2.3 for how to calculate the age). A max-age attribute bag cannot be
used to force the recipient to discard the policy information; its
semantics apply only to the caching mechanism of policy information.
5.3 Extra Parameters
The params attribute bag can be used to include additional information
about the extension or modifiers on the use of the extension. The params
values may or may not be case-sensitive, depending on the semantics of
the parameter name. The params attribute bag is defined as a generic bag
structure, which may be nested. No default parameters are defined.
Note: PEP implementations should pass any parameters to the module or
modules handling the particular extension as this may have impact the
use of the extension.
5.4 End-to-End Policies
End-to-end policies MUST be transmitted to the ultimate recipient of a
message. The PEP-Info header field is an end-to-end header and is
defines as follows:
pep-info = "PEP-Info" ":" 1#policy-decl
For example
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 412
PEP-Info: {{id "http://some.org/payment-extension"}
{for "/cgi-bin/buy" *}
{strength must}}
<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN" >
<html> ...
Proxies MAY under certain conditions act as the ultimate recipients of
extension policies on behalf of user agents and origin servers (see
section 0).
5.5 Hop-by-Hop Policies
Hop-by-hop policies are meaningful only for a single transport-level
connection. The C-PEP-Info header field is a hop-by-hop header field and
MUST NOT be communicated by proxies over further connections. The C-PEP-
Info header has the following grammar:
c-pep-info = "C-PEP-Info" ":" 1#policy-decl
For example
HTTP/1.1 420 Bad Extensions
C-PEP-Info: {{id "http://some.org/provide-stats"}
{for "/" *}}
Connection: C-PEP-Info
...
In HTTP, the C-PEP-Info header field MUST be protected by a Connection
header by including C-PEP-Info as a Connection header directive. The
directive MUST be handled according to the HTTP/1.1 specification of the
Connection header (see section 0 and [7], section 14.10).
An agent MUST NOT send the C-PEP-Info header field to an HTTP/1.0 proxy
as it does not obey the HTTP/1.1 rules for parsing the Connection header
field (see [7], section 19.7.1).
6 Publishing an Extension
While the protocol extension definition should be published at the
address of the extension identifier, this is not a requirement of this
specification. The only absolute requirement is that distinct names be
used for distinct semantics. For example, one way to achieve this is to
use a mid, cid, or uuid URI. The association between the extension
identifier and the specification might be made by distributing a
specification, which references the extension identifier.
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It is strongly recommended that the integrity and persistence of the
extension identifier is maintained and kept unquestioned throughout the
lifetime of the extension. Care should be taken not to distribute
conflicting specifications that reference the same name. Even when a URI
is used to publish extension specifications, care must be taken that the
specification made available at that address does not change
significantly over time. One agent may associate the identifier with the
old semantics, and another might associate it with the new semantics.
The extension definition may be made available in different
representations ranging from
o a human-readable specification defining the extension semantics,
o downloadable code which implements the semantics defined by the
extension,
o a formal interface description provided by the extension, to
o a machine-readable specification defining the extension
semantics.
For example, a software component that implements the specification may
reside at the same address as a human-readable specification
(distinguished by content negotiation). The human-readable
representation serves to document the extension and encourage
deployment, while the software component allows clients and servers to
be dynamically extended.
7 Binding HTTP Requests
An HTTP request is called a "binding" request if it includes at least
one PEP extension declaration of strength "must". An HTTP server MUST
NOT return a 2xx status-code without obeying all extension
declaration(s) of strength "must" in a binding request. This section
describes how the binding request mechanism in PEP interacts with
existing HTTP applications.
In [7], section 7.1, it is stated that "Unrecognized header fields
SHOULD be ignored by the recipient and MUST be forwarded by proxies."
Hence, using a PEP or a C-PEP extension declaration is not sufficient to
evoke the correct behavior from existing HTTP agents in a binding
request. However, in [7], section 5.1.1, Method, it is said that
"Servers SHOULD return 501 (Not Implemented) if the method is
unrecognized or not implemented by the server." A similar statement is
made in [5], section 9.5. It is therefore safe to assume that using the
method name will produce the correct result from existing HTTP servers
and proxies.
PEP uses the HTTP request method name to extend existing HTTP/1.1
methods and to introduce new methods (see section 0). In both cases, a
binding HTTP request invalidates cached entries as described in [7],
section 13.10. Responses to binding requests are not cachable.
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7.1 Extending Existing HTTP Methods
The method name of all HTTP/1.1 requests containing a PEP extension
declaration of strength "must" that semantically extends that method
MUST be prefixed by "PEP-" (see section 0). For example, a client might
express the binding rights-management constraints in an HTTP PUT request
as follows:
PEP-PUT /a-resource HTTP/1.1
PEP: {{map "http://www.w3.org/PEP/rights-management"
copyright, contributions} {strength must}}
copyright: http://www.w3.org/COPYRIGHT.html
contributions: http://www.w3.org/PATCHES.html
Host: www.w3.org
Content-Length: 1203
Content-Type: text/html
<!doctype html ...
The ultimate recipient of a binding HTTP request with the "PEP-" prefix
on the method name MUST process the request by performing the following
actions in the order they occur:
1.Identify all extension declarations (both hop-by-hop and end-to-end)
of strength "must"; the server MAY ignore declarations of strength
"may" without affecting the result of the transaction;
2.Evaluate and process the extensions identified in 1) in the order
they were declared (see section 0 and 0) or if the extension
declarations do not match the policy for accessing the resource then
respond with a 420 (Bad Extensions) status-code (see section 0);
3.Strip the "PEP-" prefix from the method name and process the reminder
of the request according to the semantics of the existing HTTP/1.1
method name as defined in [7].
The "PEP-" prefix is reserved by PEP and MUST NOT be used by other HTTP
extensions.
7.2 Adding New HTTP Methods
The PEP method can be used for all PEP extension declarations of
strength "must" that do not naturally extend existing HTTP/1.1 methods.
Such methods can be address space manipulation extensions like MOVE and
COPY, for example:
PEP /source.html HTTP/1.1
PEP: {{map "http"//www.w3.org/DAV/MOVE" Destination}
{strength must}}
Destination: destination.html
Host: some.host
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The PEP method indicates that the semantics of this request are defined
by one or more PEP extension declarations of strength "must" included in
the request. The PEP method does not have any HTTP message semantics
besides being a placeholder for PEP extension declarations and hence all
other semantics MUST be defined by the declaration(s) included in the
request.
The ultimate recipient of a PEP request MUST process the request by
doing the following:
1.Identify all extension declarations (both hop-by-hop and end-to-end)
of strength "must"; the server MAY ignore declarations of strength
"may" without affecting the result of the transaction;
2.Evaluate and process the extensions identified in 1) in the order
they were declared (see section 0 and 0) or if the extension
declarations do not match the policy for accessing the resource then
respond with a 420 (Bad Extensions) status-code (see section 0);
A successful response SHOULD be 200 (OK) if the response includes an
entity, 202 (Accepted) if the action has not yet been enacted, or 204
(No Content) if the response is OK but does not include an entity. If no
extension declarations have strength "must", the response SHOULD be 400
(Bad Request).
The PEP method is reserved by PEP and MUST NOT be used by other HTTP
extensions.
8 HTTP Status Codes
PEP introduces two new status codes in addition to the ones already
defined by HTTP/1.1[7]. Each Status-Code is described below, including a
description the metainformation required in the response.
8.1 420 Bad Extensions
The policy for accessing the resource has not been met in the request.
The response MUST include a PEP-Info or a C-PEP-Info header field
specifying the extensions required by the publishing party for accessing
the resource. The server MAY use the for attribute bag to indicate
whether the policy applies to other resources.
The client MAY repeat the request using the appropriate extension(s). If
the initial request already included the extensions requested in the 420
response, then the response indicates that access has been refused for
those extension declarations.
If the 420 response contains the same set of extension policies as the
prior response, then the client MAY present any entity included in the
response to the user, since that entity may include relevant diagnostic
information.
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Implementers may note the similarity to the way authentication
challenges are issued with the 401 (Unauthorized) status-code (see [7],
section 10.4.2)
8.2 421 Bad Mapping
The mappings indicated by one or more map attribute bags in the request
were refused. The client MAY repeat the request using a new set of
mappings if it believes that it can find a unique set of header fields
for which the transaction will succeed.
9 HTTP Proxy Servers
This section describes the role of caching and non-caching proxies and
how they interact with PEP extensions. Normally, the ultimate recipient
of an end-to-end extension declaration or an end-to-end extension policy
is an origin server or a user agent.
In this case, a proxy MUST forward all components of the extension,
including declarations, policies, headers, and any methods and status
codes defined by this specification.
In other cases, however, intermediate caching and non-caching proxies
MAY be authorized to act on behalf of origin servers and/or user agents.
How such an agreement is reached between a party representing the proxy
and the party on which behalf it can act, is outside the scope of PEP,
but for example, the parties may be within the same trust domain.
9.1 Proxy Servers as End-to-End Recipients
9.1.1 Proxy Servers Acting on Behalf of User Agents
In case a proxy is authorized to act as the ultimate recipient on behalf
of its proxy clients on end-to-end extensions, it MUST obey the
following rules:
o The proxy SHOULD remove the extension declaration(s) and any
header fields that are part of these declaration(s) on which it can
act authoritatively before forwarding the response to the proxy
client;
o it SHOULD issue extension policies for the extensions on which
it can act authoritatively as if it was a user agent;
o if an extension declaration added by an HTTP proxy is of
strength "must", the proxy MUST either prepend the "PEP-" method name
prefix or use the PEP method instead of the method name used in the
proxy client request, before forwarding the response to the origin
server (see section 0).
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An example of a proxy acting on behalf of one or more user agents is an
elementary school wishing to enforce a certain policy for accessing
information on the Internet. The local school proxy can act
authoritatively as a retrieval filter on behalf of the pupils instead of
having distributed filtering enabled on each of the user agents using
the client.
9.1.2 Proxy Servers Acting on Behalf of Origin Servers
In case a proxy is authorized to act as the ultimate recipient on behalf
of an origin server on end-to-end extensions, it MUST obey the following
rules:
o The proxy SHOULD remove the extension declaration(s) and any
header fields that are part of these declaration(s) on which it can
act authoritatively before forwarding the request to the origin
server;
o it SHOULD issue extension policies for the extensions on which
it can act authoritatively as if it was an origin server;
o if an extension declaration added by an HTTP proxy is of
strength "must" and there are no other extension declarations of
strength "must" in the request, the proxy MUST remove any "PEP-"
method name prefix before forwarding the request to the origin server
(see section 0);
o if a request uses the PEP method, the proxy MUST NOT forward the
request to the origin server unless the communication between the
proxy and the origin server can be completed using an existing
HTTP/1.1 method.
An example of a proxy acting on behalf of an origin server is a
corporation having a subscription on an on-line journal. All access to
the origin server goes through the corporate firewall that runs a
caching proxy server. The organization reports to the publisher of the
journal on a m onthly basis at which point the subscription is re-
evaluated. In the day-to-day access, the proxy has the authority to act
authoritatively on behalf of the origin server registering usage of the
journal.
9.2 Proxy Servers and Repeated Hop-by-Hop Extensions
If a PEP extension is to be used on parts of a message path, including
user agents, origin servers, and proxies, not covered by end-to-end or
hop-by-hop extension declarations, it can be defined as a repeated hop-
by-hop extension. This can for example be the case for a proxy extension
applied to a subset of proxies in a message path.
It is for the designer of the extension to decide whether it can repeat
itself on a hop-by-hop basis. In other words, any scope more complex
than a hop-by-hop or an end-to-end scope is a property of the extension
and is transparent to PEP.
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10 Practical Considerations for HTTP
This section describes some practical considerations intended for PEP
extended HTTP applications. The issues described may not apply to other
information retrieval protocols.
10.1 Interaction with Existing HTTP/1.1 Methods
Extension designers should consider whether an extension is to work with
existing HTTP/1.1 methods using the "PEP-" method token prefix or with
the PEP method (see section 0 and 0). This specification does not
provide an absolute rule for when to use the PEP method compared to the
"PEP-" method token prefix except that the "PEP-" method token prefix is
required in situations where intermediate proxies may act
authoritatively on behalf of origin servers or user agents (see section
0 and 0). In case the extension can be used with existing methods then
it should be considered whether the extension can be used with any of
the existing HTTP/1.1 methods or only a subset of them.
Some HTTP/1.1 methods follow the convention of being "safe" to the
requester meaning that they should never have the significance of taking
an action other than retrieval (see [7], section 9.1). This is for
example the case of the GET and the HEAD method. As PEP extension
declarations of strength "must" explicitly modify or replace the method
name, existing HTTP applications will never be able to mistake a PEP
enabled message for any of the existing HTTP messages indicated as being
safe.
Some extensions may have the property of "idempotence" in that (aside
from error or expiration issues) the side effects of N > 0 identical
extended requests is the same as for a single extended request. If this
is not the case for a PEP extension then it should consider whether it
wants to 1) disable itself on repeated requests, and/or 2) inform a user
about the behavior of repeating identical requests with this extension.
10.2 Interaction with Existing HTTP/1.1 Headers
Designers of extensions to be used within the HTTP messaging model
should consider the interaction with existing HTTP/1.1 headers.
Especially, it should be noted that PEP is designed to be compatible
with HTTP/1.0[5] inasmuch as HTTP/1.1 is compatible with HTTP/1.0 (see
[7], section 19.7).
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The Connection header as described in [7], section 14.10, allows the
sender to specify options that are desired for that particular transport
connection only. All PEP hop-by-hop extension declarations and policies
along with any header fields introduced by extension declarations MUST
be included as Connection header directives. PEP applications MUST NOT
send any hop-by-hop extension declarations or policies to HTTP/1.0
proxies as they do not obey the rules of HTTP/1.1 for parsing the
Connection header field (see also [7], section 19.7.1).
The Upgrade header, [7], section 14.41, allows the client to specify
what additional communication protocols it supports and would like to
use if the server finds it appropriate to switch protocols. PEP provides
the same functionality but without the need for a central registry of
protocol names. PEP compliant agents MAY use the 101 (Switching
Protocols) status code to switch to HTTP-based protocols and protocols,
which once initiated, run completely independently of HTTP.
The content coding values in the Content-Encoding header as described in
[7], section 14.12, indicate an encoding transformation that has been
applied to an entity. PEP provides the same functionality but without
the need for a central registry of content codings. As both content
codings and PEP extension declarations are ordered, using both may lead
to ambiguous situations. Simultaneous use of both mechanisms is
therefore strongly discouraged.
An origin server can explicitly prevent intermediaries from applying a
Content-Encoding to a resource by using the no-transform Cache-Control
directive (see [7], section 14.9.4).
10.3 Server Initiated Extension Declarations
PEP extension declarations can be generated by servers as well as
clients. If a PEP compliant server sends a response with an extension
declaration referring to an extension that modifies the message in such
a way that the message can not be decoded without using the extension,
and the corresponding request was either
1.received from a client whose version is lower than HTTP/1.1, or
2.received with a Via header field indicating that it was forwarded by
a proxy whose version is lower than HTTP/1.1,
and the response does not already include an Expires header, then the
sender SHOULD include an Expires header field whose field-value is
identical to the field-value of its Date header field(see [7], section
14.12). If all agents in the message path are HTTP/1.1, then the sender
SHOULD use the Cache-Control header field instead of the Expires header
field to mark the entity uncachable.
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11 Security Considerations
o The for parameter allows one party to give information about the
extensions used by another party's resources. The parties may provide
resources on different servers, or at different addresses on the same
server. While distinguishing between the parties responsible for
different resources at the same server may be infeasible, clients
SHOULD ignore information given by one server about another unless
they have reason to trust it, or reason to believe that trusting it
will have no significant negative consequences.
o Dynamic installation of extension facilities as described in the
introduction involves software written by one party (the provider of
the implementation) to be executed under the authority of another
(the party operating the host software). This opens the host party to
a variety of "Trojan horse" attacks by the provider, or a malicious
third party that forges implementations under a provider's name. See,
for example RFC2046[6], section 4.5.2 for a discussion of these
risks.
12 Normative References
[1] D. H. Crocker. "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text
Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, UDEL, August 1982
[2] T. Berners-Lee, "Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW. A Unifying
Syntax for the Expression of Names and Addresses of Objects on the
Network as used in the World-Wide Web", RFC 1630, CERN, June 1994.
[3] T. Berners-Lee, L. Masinter, M. McCahill. "Uniform Resource Locators
(URL)" RFC 1738, CERN, Xerox PARC, University of Minnesota, December
1994.
[4] R. Fielding, "Relative Uniform Resource Locators", RFC 1808, UC
Irvine, June 1995.
[5] T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, H. Frystyk, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol
-- HTTP/1.0", RFC 1945, W3C/MIT, UC Irvine, W3C/MIT, May 1996.
[6] N. Freed, N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
(MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, Innosoft, First Virtual,
November 1996.
[7] R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. C. Mogul, H. Frystyk, T. Berners-Lee,
"Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2068, U.C. Irvine, DEC
W3C/MIT, DEC, W3C/MIT, W3C/MIT, January 1997
[8] D. Kristol, L. Montulli, "HTTP State Management Mechanism", RFC 2109,
Bell Laboratories Lucent Technologies, Netscape Communications,
February 1997
[9] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", RFC 2119, Harvard University, March 1997
[10] J. C. Mogul, R. Fielding, J. Gettys, H. Frystyk, "Use and
interpretation of HTTP version numbers", Internet Draft RFC 2145,
DEC, U.C. Irvine, DEC W3C/MIT, W3C/MIT, HTTP Working Group, May,
1997.
[11] O. Lassila, "PICS-NG Metadata Model and Label Syntax", W3C Working
draft, May 1997. This is work in progress
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[12] H. Schulzrinne, A. Rao, R. Lanphier, "Real Time Streaming Protocol
(RTSP)", Internet Draft draft-ietf-mmusic-rtsp-02, Columbia
U./Netscape/Progressive Networks, March 1997. This is work in
progress
[13] T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Locators
(URL)", Internet Draft draft-fielding-url-syntax-05, W3C/MIT, U.C.
Irvine, Xerox Corporation, May 1997. This is work in progress
13 Bibliography: Informative References
[14] D. Eastlake, "Universal Payment Preamble", Internet Draft draft-
eastlake-universal-payment-03, CyberCash, March 1996. This is work in
progress.
[15] D. M. Kristol, "A Proposed Extension Mechanism for HTTP", Internet
Draft draft-kristokl-http-extensions-00, January 1995. Document
expired.
[16] JEPI, "Selecting Payment Mechanisms Over HTTP", Internet Draft draft-
khare-jepi-uppflow-00, W3C, August 1996. Document expired.
[17] J. Miller et al, "PICS Label Syntax and Communication Protocols
(Version 1.1)", W3C Recommendation REC-PICS-labels, W3C, 31 October
1996
[18] Y. Goland et al, "Extensions for Distributed Authoring and
Versioning", Internet Draft, draft-jensen-webdav-ext-01, 26 March
1997. This is work in progress.
[19] N. Borenstein, "A User Agent Configuration Mechanism For Multimedia
Mail Format Information", RFC 1524 pp. 12, Bellcore, September 1993.
[20] J. Klensin, N. Freed, M. Rose, E. Stefferud, and D. Crocker. "SMTP
Service Extensions", RFC 1869, MCI, Innosoft, Dover Beach Consulting,
Network Management Associates, Brandenburg Consulting, November 1995.
[21] D. Robinson, "The WWW Common Gateway Interface Version 1.1", Internet
Draft draft-robinson-www-interface-01, February 1996. Document
expired.
[22] A. Baird-Smith, "Jigsaw: An object oriented server", W3C Note, June
1996
[22] H. Frystyk, "Libwww Architecture", December 1996
[23] R. Thau, "Design considerations for the Apache Server API", Fifth
International World Wide Web Conference, May 6-10, 1996, Paris,
France
[24] Netscape Corporation, "The Netscape Server API"
[25] Microsoft Corporation, "Internet Server API Documentation"
[26] Open Market, Inc, "FastCGI - Restoring All CGI's Good Properties --
and Then Some"
[27] Spyglass, "Spyglass MicroServer Application Development Interface"
[28] J. Franks, "WN - a Server for the HTTP"
[29] Roxen, "Introduction to Roxen Challenger"
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14 Acknowledgements
The PEP protocol is the product of a substantial amount of investigation
and collaboration. Dave Kristol did some of the first writing on HTTP
extension mechanisms[2]. Jim Miller and Dave Raggett sketched out an
initial design, which Rohit Khare wrote up in a number of drafts. Tim
Berners-Lee, Anselm Baird-Smith, Eric Prud'hommeaux, Paul Leach and
Daniel Dardailler deserve special recognition for their efforts in
commenting in the design phase of the protocol. Also thanks to Henning
Schulzrinne, Anup Rao and Robert Lanphier for pointing out the
generalities of PEP and providing support for integration with RTSP[12].
This specification is a direct reflection of some implementation work: a
client implementation in [10] (see the HTPEP module) and a server
implementation by Eui-Suk Chung and Anit Chakraborty for the JEPI
project.
This document has benefited greatly from the comments of all those
participating in the HTTP-WG. In addition to those already mentioned,
the following individuals have contributed to this specification:
o Eui-Suk Chung,
o Don Eastlake,
o Roy Fielding,
o Jim Gettys,
o Yaron Goland,
o Phill Hallam-Baker,
o Paul Hoffman,
o Koen Holtman,
o Ora Lassila,
o Larry Masinter, and
o Jim Whitehead
15 Authors Addresses
Dan Connolly
Architecture Domain Lead, World Wide Web Consortium
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.
Email: connolly@w3.org
Rohit Khare
Technical Staff, World Wide Web Consortium
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.
Email: khare@w3.org
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Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
Technical Staff, World Wide Web Consortium
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.
Email: frystyk@w3.org
Appendices
16 Summary of PEP Interactions
The following tables summarize the outcome of strength and scope rules
in PEP transactions involving PEP compliant and non-PEP compliant HTTP
proxies and origin servers. The summary is intended as a guide and index
to the text, but is necessarily cryptic and incomplete. This summary
should never be used or referenced separately from the complete PEP
specification. The tables should be read as follows
Standard processing
The action taken by an ultimate recipient not understanding or
ignoring the extension (see section 0)
Extended processing
The action taken by an ultimate recipient understanding and obeying
the extension (see section 0)
Forward extension
The action taken by an intermediate party which is not an ultimate
recipient (see section 0)
Strip extension
The action taken by an intermediate party which is the ultimate
recipient (see section 0)
420 (Bad Extensions)
The response from an ultimate recipient not understanding or not
wishing to obey the extension (see section 0)
501 (Not Implemented)
The response from an ultimate recipient not understanding the "PEP"
method or "PEP-" method token prefix (see section 0)
Table 1: Origin Server
Scope Hop-by-hop End-to-end
Strength Optional Required Optional Required
(may) (must) (may) (must)
PEP not Standard 501 (Not Standard 501 (Not
supported processing Implemented)processing Implemented)
Extension notStandard 420 (Bad Standard 420 (Bad
supported processing Extensions) processing Extensions)
Extension Extended Extended Extended Extended
supported processing processing processing processing
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Table 2: Proxy Server
Scope Hop-by-hop End-to-end
Strength Optional Required Optional Required
(may) (must) (may) (must)
PEP not Strip 501 (Not Forward 501 (Not
supported extension Implemented)extension Implemented)
Extension notStrip 420 (Bad Forward Forward
supported extension Extensions) extension extension
Extension Extended Extended Extended Extended
supported processing processing processing processing
and strip and strip and strip and strip
17 Examples
The following examples show various scenarios using PEP in HTTP/1.1
requests and responses. Information not essential for illustrating the
examples is left out (referred to as "à")
17.1 Client Queries a Server for DAV
In this example, the purpose of using PEP in the request is to determine
whether a server understands and supports the Distributed Authoring and
Versioning (DAV) protocol extension[5]. By making the request binding
(see section 0), the client forces the server to process the extension
declaration and obey the extension or report an error.
PEP-GET /some.url HTTP/1.1
Host: some.host
PEP: {{map "http://www.w3.org/PEP/DAV"}}
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
PEP-Info: {{id "http://www.w3.org/PEP/DAV"} {for "/Henrik" *}}
...
The response shows that the server does understand DAV and that the
client can use it on all resources matching the prefix "/Henrik" on that
server. The policy is informational and other factors like access
control may prevent the client from actually using DAV on any of these
resources.
PEP does not distinguish between querying about or using an extension û
the PEP declaration is identical. Whether it in fact is a query may
depend on the request method name and request modifiers.
17.2 Client Informs a Server about ZipFlate Compression Extension
This example shows a client informing a server that it is capable of
handling the zipflate compression extension in a response. By issuing an
extension policy instead of an extension declaration, the client
indicates that the extension is not used in the request.
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GET /Index HTTP/1.1
Host: some.host
PEP-Info: {{id "http://www.w3.org/PEP/Encoding"}}
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
PEP: {{map "http://www.w3.org/PEP/Encoding"}}
Cache-Control: no-transform
Vary: *
...
The response shows that the server knows the extension and decides to
use it in the response. It furthermore includes the no-transform cache-
control directive in order to avoid that proxies add their own content-
coding to the message (see section 0) and a Vary header field indicating
that a cache may not use the response to reply to a subsequent request
without revalidation.
In this example, the client could have used an extension declaration of
strength "may" instead of an extension policy to achieve the same
effect. The request would not have been affected as the compression
applies to message bodies and not headers. If the request were to
include a message body, however, the difference would be whether the
zipflate extension was applied to that body or not.
17.3 Server Uses Content-Digest Extension
This example shows a server applying the Content-Digest extension to a
response message indicating that the client may ignore it. The client
has not indicated whether it supports the extension or even if it
supports PEP.
GET /Index HTTP/1.1
Host: some.host
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
PEP: {{map "http://www.w3.org/PEP/Digest" Content-Digest}}
Content-Digest: "a0b1c2d3e4f5g6h7i8j9"
Cache-Control: max-age=3600
...
The response is fully cachable and does not require revalidation when
replying to subsequent requests.
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17.4 Server Requires the Client to use Payment Extension
The last example shows how a server requires a client to use a micro-
payment extension in order to access a resource causing an additional
roundtrip using the 420 (Bad Extensions) status code (see section 0).
The first request does not contain any PEP constructs leading to the
error message. A non-PEP compliant client will treat this as a 400 (Bad
Request) status code and will not be able to fulfill the server's
requirement in a second request (see [7], section 10.4.1)
GET /Index HTTP/1.1
Host: some.host
420 Bad Extensions
PEP-Info: {{id "http://www.w3.org/PEP/MiniPayment"}
{params {Price 0.02USD}} {strength must}}
PEP-GET /Index HTTP/1.1
Host: some.host
PEP: {{map "http://www.w3.org/PEP/MiniPayment" Price}
{strength must}}
Price: 0.02USD
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
...
The actual price is passed as an extra parameter in the extension
policy. The client agrees to the price and issues a new request
containing the proper extension declaration. If it did not agree with
the price, it could have tried a lower price and depending on the policy
of that resource, the server may have responded positively.
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