The Cache-Status HTTP Response Header Field
draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-header-07
HTTP M. Nottingham
Internet-Draft Fastly
Intended status: Standards Track 26 January 2021
Expires: 30 July 2021
The Cache-Status HTTP Response Header Field
draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-header-07
Abstract
To aid debugging, HTTP caches often append header fields to a
response explaining how they handled the request. This specification
codifies that practice and updates it to align with HTTP's current
caching model.
Note to Readers
_RFC EDITOR: please remove this section before publication_
Discussion of this draft takes place on the HTTP working group
mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/
(https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/).
Working Group information can be found at https://httpwg.org/
(https://httpwg.org/); source code and issues list for this draft can
be found at https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/labels/cache-
header (https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/labels/cache-
header).
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 30 July 2021.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The Cache-Status HTTP Response Header Field . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. The hit parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. The fwd parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3. The fwd-status parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. The ttl parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5. The stored parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6. The collapsed parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.7. The key parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.8. The detail parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Defining New Proxy-Status Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1. Introduction
To aid debugging, HTTP caches often append header fields to a
response explaining how they handled the request. Unfortunately, the
semantics of these headers are often unclear, and both the semantics
and syntax used vary between implementations.
This specification defines a new HTTP response header field, "Cache-
Status" for this purpose.
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1.1. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
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