Re: new MIME Header element

Steve Putz (putz@parc.xerox.com)
Fri, 10 Jun 1994 09:02:45 PDT

Is it too late to consider changing the HTTP protocol to allow a full URL
in GET requests? In retrospect it seems a mistake to have GET just pass
the URL fragment following the host name part. As long as we are having
URLs stand in for URNs (which we are) then we should pass them around
complete. Then we would have requests like:

GET http://host.domain/docid HTTP/1.0

(or maybe GET http://host.domain/docid HTTP/2.0
or GETURL http://host.domain/docid HTTP/1.0)
rather than:

GET /docid HTTP/1.0

In addition to allowing easier merging of servers, this would also make
accessing a proxy server use the same protocol as accessing a regular
server.

We can upgrade most of the servers before modifying the clients to send
full URL requests. This would be also good practice for the change that
will be required when we eventually start using real URNs.

>Markus Stumpf wrote:
>> How about a MIME-header element Server-Name: ?

Tony Sanders wrote:
>Not really needed. Just assign different IP addresses to the different
>names and have the server discriminate on that. I already do this.

Most people don't want to muck with reconfiguring their system
to have alias IP addresses. I know I don't, and neither do our
local system administrators.

Steve Putz
Xerox PARC