Subject: Re: Is HTTP/1.1 required for WebDAV?

From: "Charlie Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 11:24:43 -0700

Great question.  I also would like to know if WebDAV works over https (SSL).

>>> "Jim Luther" <[email-masked]> 01/31/03 10:28AM >>>

I thought it was pretty clear in rfc2518 (and rfc2518 bis) that WebDAV 
servers and clients are HTTP/1.1 servers and clients because the 
introduction section of the rfc starts off, "This document describes an 
extension to the HTTP/1.1 protocol that allows clients to perform 
remote web content authoring operations."

However, during interoperability testing I've found several servers 
which return HTTP/1.0 in the Status-Line of their response message and 
behave as HTTP/1.0 servers (i.e., they do not handle HTTP/1.1 
persistent connections correctly, there are no Content-Length headers 
in a response with a message-body, etc.). For the most part, the Mac OS 
X WebDAV file system client works with these servers but it works much 
slower because of transaction aborts and retries.

Should WebDAV clients refuse to use HTTP/1.0 servers and should WebDAV 
servers refuse to work with HTTP/1.0 clients?

If yes, should rfc2518 bis make HTTP/1.1 (or later) a MUST?

Jim Luther
Mac OS X File Systems group
Apple Computer, Inc.

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From: Brian Korver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 10:34:04 -0800

> Great question.  I also would like to know if WebDAV works over https 

WebDAV works over SSL.  It works, by definition, over anything
that HTTP works over.

-brian
[email-masked]

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From: Jim Luther <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 10:41:13 -0800

> WebDAV works over SSL.  It works, by definition, over anything

However, not all clients try to use SSL connections even if the server 
is using it. For example, Mac OS X's WebDAV file system client does not 
support SSL yet.

- Jim Luther