Motion on 503 Error Code

John C. Mallery (JCMA@ai.mit.edu)
Tue, 29 Nov 1994 16:00:15 +0100

I second the motion that 503 needs to distinguish between loaded and
unavailable.
503 has been used for loaded servers so it might be better to differentiate down
for maintenance by adding another error code.

That way, the loaded server need not cons headers.

503 is not being used for kicks and the Netascape behavior is entirely
antisocial.

What the netscape behavior will achieve is to make loaded server unable to
respond
to other clients.

Simple solution: just don't bother to answer the netscape clients when
running loaded.

John C. Mallery
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of technology
545 Technology Square, NE43-797
Camridge, MA 02139 USA

URL: http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/jcma/jcma.html