HTTP Caching
draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-12
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9111.
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Roy T. Fielding , Mark Nottingham , Julian Reschke | ||
| Last updated | 2020-10-02 (Latest revision 2020-08-27) | ||
| Replaces | draft-fielding-httpbis-http-cache | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Reviews |
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| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | WG Document | |
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| Document shepherd | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Became RFC 9111 (Internet Standard) | |
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draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-12
HTTP Working Group R. Fielding, Ed.
Internet-Draft Adobe
Obsoletes: 7234 (if approved) M. Nottingham, Ed.
Intended status: Standards Track Fastly
Expires: April 5, 2021 J. Reschke, Ed.
greenbytes
October 2, 2020
HTTP Caching
draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-12
Abstract
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a stateless application-
level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypertext information
systems. This document defines HTTP caches and the associated header
fields that control cache behavior or indicate cacheable response
messages.
This document obsoletes RFC 7234.
Editorial Note
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
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/>.
Working Group information can be found at <https://httpwg.org/>;
source code and issues list for this draft can be found at
<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core>.
The changes in this draft are summarized in Appendix C.13.
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/.
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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
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This Internet-Draft will expire on April 5, 2021.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Requirements Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2. Syntax Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3. Delta Seconds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Overview of Cache Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Storing Responses in Caches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1. Storing Header and Trailer Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2. Storing Incomplete Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3. Storing Responses to Authenticated Requests . . . . . . . 9
3.4. Combining Partial Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4. Constructing Responses from Caches . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1. Calculating Cache Keys with Vary . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2. Freshness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
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4.2.1. Calculating Freshness Lifetime . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.2. Calculating Heuristic Freshness . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.3. Calculating Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.4. Serving Stale Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.3. Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3.1. Sending a Validation Request . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3.2. Handling a Received Validation Request . . . . . . . 18
4.3.3. Handling a Validation Response . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.3.4. Freshening Stored Responses upon Validation . . . . . 20
4.3.5. Freshening Responses with HEAD . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.4. Invalidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5. Field Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.1. Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.2. Cache-Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.2.1. Request Cache-Control Directives . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.2.1.1. max-age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.2.1.2. max-stale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.2.1.3. min-fresh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.2.1.4. no-cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.2.1.5. no-store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.2.1.6. no-transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2.1.7. only-if-cached . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2.2. Response Cache-Control Directives . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2.2.1. must-revalidate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2.2.2. must-understand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.2.2.3. no-cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.2.2.4. no-store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.2.2.5. no-transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.2.2.6. public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.2.2.7. private . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.2.2.8. proxy-revalidate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.2.2.9. max-age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.2.2.10. s-maxage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
5.2.3. Cache Control Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
5.2.4. Cache Directive Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.3. Expires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.4. Pragma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.5. Warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6. Relationship to Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7.1. Cache Poisoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7.2. Timing Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7.3. Caching of Sensitive Information . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
8.1. Field Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
8.2. Cache Directive Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
8.3. Warn Code Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
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9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Appendix A. Collected ABNF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Appendix B. Changes from RFC 7234 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Appendix C. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
C.1. Between RFC7234 and draft 00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
C.2. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-00 . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
C.3. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-01 . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
C.4. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
C.5. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-03 . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
C.6. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-04 . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
C.7. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-05 . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
C.8. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-06 . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
C.9. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-07 . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
C.10. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-08 . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
C.11. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-09 . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
C.12. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-10 . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
C.13. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-11 . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1. Introduction
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a stateless application-
level request/response protocol that uses extensible semantics and
self-descriptive messages for flexible interaction with network-based
hypertext information systems. HTTP is defined by a series of
documents that collectively form the HTTP/1.1 specification:
o "HTTP Semantics" [Semantics]
o "HTTP Caching" (this document)
o "HTTP/1.1 Messaging" [Messaging]
HTTP is typically used for distributed information systems, where the
use of response caches can improve performance. This document
defines aspects of HTTP related to caching and reusing response
messages.
An HTTP cache is a local store of response messages and the subsystem
that controls storage, retrieval, and deletion of messages in it. A
cache stores cacheable responses to reduce the response time and
network bandwidth consumption on future equivalent requests. Any
client or server MAY use a cache, though a server that is acting as a
tunnel cannot.
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A shared cache is a cache that stores responses for reuse by more
than one user; shared caches are usually (but not always) deployed as
a part of an intermediary. A private cache, in contrast, is
dedicated to a single user; often, they are deployed as a component
of a user agent.
HTTP caching's goal is significantly improving performance by reusing
a prior response message to satisfy a current request. A cache
considers a stored response "fresh", as defined in Section 4.2, if it
can be reused without "validation" (checking with the origin server
to see if the cached response remains valid for this request). A
fresh response can therefore reduce both latency and network overhead
each time the cache reuses it. When a cached response is not fresh,
it might still be reusable if validation can freshen it (Section 4.3)
or if the origin is unavailable (Section 4.2.4).
This document obsoletes RFC 7234, with the changes being summarized
in Appendix B.
1.1. Requirements Notation
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
capitals, as shown here.
Section 2 of [Semantics] defines conformance criteria and contains
considerations regarding error handling.
1.2. Syntax Notation
This specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF)
notation of [RFC5234], extended with the notation for case-
sensitivity in strings defined in [RFC7405].
It also uses a list extension, defined in Section 5.7.1 of
[Semantics], that allows for compact definition of comma-separated
lists using a '#' operator (similar to how the '*' operator indicates
repetition). Appendix A shows the collected grammar with all list
operators expanded to standard ABNF notation.
The following core rules are included by reference, as defined in
[RFC5234], Appendix B.1: ALPHA (letters), CR (carriage return), CRLF
(CR LF), CTL (controls), DIGIT (decimal 0-9), DQUOTE (double quote),
HEXDIG (hexadecimal 0-9/A-F/a-f), HTAB (horizontal tab), LF (line
feed), OCTET (any 8-bit sequence of data), SP (space), and VCHAR (any
visible [USASCII] character).
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[Semantics] defines the following rules:
HTTP-date = <HTTP-date, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.7>
OWS = <OWS, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.3>
field-name = <field-name, see [Semantics], Section 5.4.3>
quoted-string = <quoted-string, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.4>
token = <token, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.2>
1.3. Delta Seconds
The delta-seconds rule specifies a non-negative integer, representing
time in seconds.
delta-seconds = 1*DIGIT
A recipient parsing a delta-seconds value and converting it to binary
form ought to use an arithmetic type of at least 31 bits of non-
negative integer range. If a cache receives a delta-seconds value
greater than the greatest integer it can represent, or if any of its
subsequent calculations overflows, the cache MUST consider the value
to be 2147483648 (2^31) or the greatest positive integer it can
conveniently represent.
| *Note:* The value 2147483648 is here for historical reasons,
| represents infinity (over 68 years), and does not need to be
| stored in binary form; an implementation could produce it as a
| canned string if any overflow occurs, even if the calculations
| are performed with an arithmetic type incapable of directly
| representing that number. What matters here is that an
| overflow be detected and not treated as a negative value in
| later calculations.
2. Overview of Cache Operation
Proper cache operation preserves the semantics of HTTP transfers
([Semantics]) while reducing the transfer of information already held
in the cache. Although caching is an entirely OPTIONAL feature of
HTTP, it can be assumed that reusing a cached response is desirable
and that such reuse is the default behavior when no requirement or
local configuration prevents it. Therefore, HTTP cache requirements
are focused on preventing a cache from either storing a non-reusable
response or reusing a stored response inappropriately, rather than
mandating that caches always store and reuse particular responses.
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The base cache key comprises the request method and target URI used
to retrieve the stored response; the method determines under which
circumstances that response can be used to satisfy a request.
However, many HTTP caches in common use today only cache GET
responses, and therefore only use the URI as the cache key,
forwarding other methods.
If a request target is subject to content negotiation, the cache
might store multiple responses for it. Caches differentiate these
responses by incorporating values of the original request's selecting
header fields into the cache key as well, as per Section 4.1.
Caches might incorporate additional material into the cache key. For
example, user agent caches might include the referring site's
identity, thereby "double keying" the cache to avoid some privacy
risks (see Section 7.2).
Most commonly, caches store the successful result of a retrieval
request: i.e., a 200 (OK) response to a GET request, which contains a
representation of the target resource (Section 8.3.1 of [Semantics]).
However, it is also possible to store redirects, negative results
(e.g., 404 (Not Found)), incomplete results (e.g., 206 (Partial
Content)), and responses to methods other than GET if the method's
definition allows such caching and defines something suitable for use
as a cache key.
A cache is disconnected when it cannot contact the origin server or
otherwise find a forward path for a request. A disconnected cache
can serve stale responses in some circumstances (Section 4.2.4).
3. Storing Responses in Caches
A cache MUST NOT store a response to a request unless:
o the request method is understood by the cache;
o the response status code is final (see Section 14 of [Semantics]);
o if the response status code is 206 or 304, or the "must-
understand" cache directive (see Section 5.2) is present: the
cache understands the response status code;
o the "no-store" cache directive is not present in the response (see
Section 5.2);
o if the cache is shared: the "private" response directive is either
not present or allows a shared cache to store a modified response;
see Section 5.2.2.7);
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o if the cache is shared: the Authorization header field is not
present in the request (see Section 10.6.2 of [Semantics]) or a
response directive is present that explicitly allows shared
caching (see Section 3.3); and,
o the response contains at least one of:
* a public response directive (see Section 5.2.2.6);
* a private response directive, if the cache is not shared (see
Section 5.2.2.7);
* an Expires header field (see Section 5.3);
* a max-age response directive (see Section 5.2.2.9);
* if the cache is shared, an s-maxage response directive (see
Section 5.2.2.10);
* a Cache Control Extension that allows it to be cached (see
Section 5.2.3); or,
* a status code that is defined as heuristically cacheable (see
Section 4.2.2).
Note that a cache-control extension can override any of the
requirements listed; see Section 5.2.3.
In this context, a cache has "understood" a request method or a
response status code if it recognizes it and implements all specified
caching-related behavior.
Note that, in normal operation, some caches will not store a response
that has neither a cache validator nor an explicit expiration time,
as such responses are not usually useful to store. However, caches
are not prohibited from storing such responses.
3.1. Storing Header and Trailer Fields
Caches MUST include all received header fields - including
unrecognised ones - when storing a response; this assures that new
HTTP header fields can be successfully deployed. However, the
following exceptions are made:
o The Connection header field and fields whose names are listed in
it are required by Section 13.1 of [Messaging] to be removed
before forwarding the message. This MAY be implemented by doing
so before storage.
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o Likewise, some fields' semantics require them to be removed before
forwarding the message, and this MAY be implemented by doing so
before storage; see Section 13.1 of [Messaging] for some examples.
o Header fields that are specific to a client's proxy configuration
MUST NOT be stored, unless the cache incorporates the identity of
the proxy into the cache key. Effectively, this is limited to
Proxy-Authenticate (Section 10.7.1 of [Semantics]), Proxy-
Authentication-Info (Section 10.7.3 of [Semantics]), and Proxy-
Authorization (Section 10.7.2 of [Semantics]).
Caches MAY either store trailer fields separate from header fields,
or discard them. Caches MUST NOT combine trailer fields with header
fields.
3.2. Storing Incomplete Responses
If the request method is GET, the response status code is 200 (OK),
and the entire response header section has been received, a cache MAY
store a response body that is not complete (Section 3.3 of
[Semantics]) if the stored response is recorded as being incomplete.
Likewise, a 206 (Partial Content) response MAY be stored as if it
were an incomplete 200 (OK) response. However, a cache MUST NOT
store incomplete or partial-content responses if it does not support
the Range and Content-Range header fields or if it does not
understand the range units used in those fields.
A cache MAY complete a stored incomplete response by making a
subsequent range request (Section 13.2 of [Semantics]) and combining
the successful response with the stored response, as defined in
Section 3.4. A cache MUST NOT use an incomplete response to answer
requests unless the response has been made complete, or the request
is partial and specifies a range wholly within the incomplete
response. A cache MUST NOT send a partial response to a client
without explicitly marking it using the 206 (Partial Content) status
code.
3.3. Storing Responses to Authenticated Requests
A shared cache MUST NOT use a cached response to a request with an
Authorization header field (Section 10.6.2 of [Semantics]) to satisfy
any subsequent request unless the response contains a Cache-Control
field with a response directive (Section 5.2.2) that allows it to be
stored by a shared cache and the cache conforms to the requirements
of that directive for that response.
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In this specification, the following response directives have such an
effect: must-revalidate (Section 5.2.2.1), public (Section 5.2.2.6),
and s-maxage (Section 5.2.2.10).
3.4. Combining Partial Content
A response might transfer only a partial representation if the
connection closed prematurely or if the request used one or more
Range specifiers (Section 13.2 of [Semantics]). After several such
transfers, a cache might have received several ranges of the same
representation. A cache MAY combine these ranges into a single
stored response, and reuse that response to satisfy later requests,
if they all share the same strong validator and the cache complies
with the client requirements in Section 14.3.7.3 of [Semantics].
When combining the new response with one or more stored responses, a
cache MUST use the header fields provided in the new response, aside
from Content-Range, to replace all instances of the corresponding
header fields in the stored response.
4. Constructing Responses from Caches
When presented with a request, a cache MUST NOT reuse a stored
response, unless:
o The presented target URI (Section 6.1 of [Semantics]) and that of
the stored response match, and
o the request method associated with the stored response allows it
to be used for the presented request, and
o selecting header fields nominated by the stored response (if any)
match those presented (see Section 4.1), and
o the stored response does not contain the no-cache cache directive
(Section 5.2.2.3), unless it is successfully validated
(Section 4.3), and
o the stored response is either:
* fresh (see Section 4.2), or
* allowed to be served stale (see Section 4.2.4), or
* successfully validated (see Section 4.3).
Note that a cache-control extension can override any of the
requirements listed; see Section 5.2.3.
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When a stored response is used to satisfy a request without
validation, a cache MUST generate an Age header field (Section 5.1),
replacing any present in the response with a value equal to the
stored response's current_age; see Section 4.2.3.
A cache MUST write through requests with methods that are unsafe
(Section 8.2.1 of [Semantics]) to the origin server; i.e., a cache is
not allowed to generate a reply to such a request before having
forwarded the request and having received a corresponding response.
Also, note that unsafe requests might invalidate already-stored
responses; see Section 4.4.
When more than one suitable response is stored, a cache MUST use the
most recent one (as determined by the Date header field). It can
also forward the request with "Cache-Control: max-age=0" or "Cache-
Control: no-cache" to disambiguate which response to use.
A cache that does not have a clock available MUST NOT use stored
responses without revalidating them upon every use.
4.1. Calculating Cache Keys with Vary
When a cache receives a request that can be satisfied by a stored
response that has a Vary header field (Section 11.2.1 of
[Semantics]), it MUST NOT use that response unless all the selecting
header fields nominated by the Vary header field match in both the
original request (i.e., that associated with the stored response),
and the presented request.
The selecting header fields from two requests are defined to match if
and only if those in the first request can be transformed to those in
the second request by applying any of:
o adding or removing whitespace, where allowed in the header field's
syntax
o combining multiple header fields with the same field name (see
Section 5.4.4 of [Semantics])
o normalizing both header field values in a way that is known to
have identical semantics, according to the header field's
specification (e.g., reordering field values when order is not
significant; case-normalization, where values are defined to be
case-insensitive)
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If (after any normalization that might take place) a header field is
absent from a request, it can only match another request if it is
also absent there.
A Vary header field value containing a member "*" always fails to
match.
The stored response with matching selecting header fields is known as
the selected response.
If multiple selected responses are available (potentially including
responses without a Vary header field), the cache will need to choose
one to use. When a selecting header field has a known mechanism for
doing so (e.g., qvalues on Accept and similar request header fields),
that mechanism MAY be used to select preferred responses; of the
remainder, the most recent response (as determined by the Date header
field) is used, as per Section 4.
Note that in practice, some resources might send the Vary header
field on responses inconsistently. When a cache has multiple
responses for a target URI, and one or more omits the Vary header
field, it SHOULD use the most recent non-empty value available to
select an appropriate response for the request.
If no selected response is available, the cache cannot satisfy the
presented request. Typically, it is forwarded to the origin server
in a (possibly conditional; see Section 4.3) request.
4.2. Freshness
A fresh response is one whose age has not yet exceeded its freshness
lifetime. Conversely, a stale response is one where it has.
A response's freshness lifetime is the length of time between its
generation by the origin server and its expiration time. An explicit
expiration time is the time at which the origin server intends that a
stored response can no longer be used by a cache without further
validation, whereas a heuristic expiration time is assigned by a
cache when no explicit expiration time is available.
A response's age is the time that has passed since it was generated
by, or successfully validated with, the origin server.
When a response is "fresh" in the cache, it can be used to satisfy
subsequent requests without contacting the origin server, thereby
improving efficiency.
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The primary mechanism for determining freshness is for an origin
server to provide an explicit expiration time in the future, using
either the Expires header field (Section 5.3) or the max-age response
directive (Section 5.2.2.9). Generally, origin servers will assign
future explicit expiration times to responses in the belief that the
representation is not likely to change in a semantically significant
way before the expiration time is reached.
If an origin server wishes to force a cache to validate every
request, it can assign an explicit expiration time in the past to
indicate that the response is already stale. Compliant caches will
normally validate a stale cached response before reusing it for
subsequent requests (see Section 4.2.4).
Since origin servers do not always provide explicit expiration times,
caches are also allowed to use a heuristic to determine an expiration
time under certain circumstances (see Section 4.2.2).
The calculation to determine if a response is fresh is:
response_is_fresh = (freshness_lifetime > current_age)
freshness_lifetime is defined in Section 4.2.1; current_age is
defined in Section 4.2.3.
Clients can send the max-age or min-fresh request directives
(Section 5.2.1) to constrain or relax freshness calculations for the
corresponding response. However, caches are not required to honor
them.
When calculating freshness, to avoid common problems in date parsing:
o Although all date formats are specified to be case-sensitive, a
cache recipient SHOULD match day, week, and time-zone names case-
insensitively.
o If a cache recipient's internal implementation of time has less
resolution than the value of an HTTP-date, the recipient MUST
internally represent a parsed Expires date as the nearest time
equal to or earlier than the received value.
o A cache recipient MUST NOT allow local time zones to influence the
calculation or comparison of an age or expiration time.
o A cache recipient SHOULD consider a date with a zone abbreviation
other than GMT or UTC to be invalid for calculating expiration.
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Note that freshness applies only to cache operation; it cannot be
used to force a user agent to refresh its display or reload a
resource. See Section 6 for an explanation of the difference between
caches and history mechanisms.
4.2.1. Calculating Freshness Lifetime
A cache can calculate the freshness lifetime (denoted as
freshness_lifetime) of a response by using the first match of:
o If the cache is shared and the s-maxage response directive
(Section 5.2.2.10) is present, use its value, or
o If the max-age response directive (Section 5.2.2.9) is present,
use its value, or
o If the Expires response header field (Section 5.3) is present, use
its value minus the value of the Date response header field, or
o Otherwise, no explicit expiration time is present in the response.
A heuristic freshness lifetime might be applicable; see
Section 4.2.2.
Note that this calculation is not vulnerable to clock skew, since all
of the information comes from the origin server.
When there is more than one value present for a given directive
(e.g., two Expires header fields, multiple Cache-Control: max-age
directives), the directive's value is considered invalid. Caches are
encouraged to consider responses that have invalid freshness
information to be stale.
4.2.2. Calculating Heuristic Freshness
Since origin servers do not always provide explicit expiration times,
a cache MAY assign a heuristic expiration time when an explicit time
is not specified, employing algorithms that use other header field
values (such as the Last-Modified time) to estimate a plausible
expiration time. This specification does not provide specific
algorithms, but does impose worst-case constraints on their results.
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A cache MUST NOT use heuristics to determine freshness when an
explicit expiration time is present in the stored response. Because
of the requirements in Section 3, this means that heuristics can only
be used on responses without explicit freshness whose status codes
are defined as "heuristically cacheable" (e.g., see Section 14.1 of
[Semantics]), and those responses without explicit freshness that
have been marked as explicitly cacheable (e.g., with a "public"
response directive).
Note that in previous specifications heuristically cacheable response
status codes were called "cacheable by default."
If the response has a Last-Modified header field (Section 7.9.2 of
[Semantics]), caches are encouraged to use a heuristic expiration
value that is no more than some fraction of the interval since that
time. A typical setting of this fraction might be 10%.
| *Note:* Section 13.9 of [RFC2616] prohibited caches from
| calculating heuristic freshness for URIs with query components
| (i.e., those containing '?'). In practice, this has not been
| widely implemented. Therefore, origin servers are encouraged
| to send explicit directives (e.g., Cache-Control: no-cache) if
| they wish to prevent caching.
4.2.3. Calculating Age
The Age header field is used to convey an estimated age of the
response message when obtained from a cache. The Age field value is
the cache's estimate of the number of seconds since the origin server
generated or validated the response. The Age value is therefore the
sum of the time that the response has been resident in each of the
caches along the path from the origin server, plus the time it has
been in transit along network paths.
Age calculation uses the following data:
age_value The term "age_value" denotes the value of the Age header
field (Section 5.1), in a form appropriate for arithmetic
operation; or 0, if not available.
date_value The term "date_value" denotes the value of the Date
header field, in a form appropriate for arithmetic operations.
See Section 9.2.2 of [Semantics] for the definition of the Date
header field, and for requirements regarding responses without it.
now The term "now" means "the current value of the clock at the host
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performing the calculation". A host ought to use NTP ([RFC5905])
or some similar protocol to synchronize its clocks to Coordinated
Universal Time.
request_time The current value of the clock at the host at the time
the request resulting in the stored response was made.
response_time The current value of the clock at the host at the time
the response was received.
A response's age can be calculated in two entirely independent ways:
1. the "apparent_age": response_time minus date_value, if the local
clock is reasonably well synchronized to the origin server's
clock. If the result is negative, the result is replaced by
zero.
2. the "corrected_age_value", if all of the caches along the
response path implement HTTP/1.1 or greater. A cache MUST
interpret this value relative to the time the request was
initiated, not the time that the response was received.
apparent_age = max(0, response_time - date_value);
response_delay = response_time - request_time;
corrected_age_value = age_value + response_delay;
These are combined as
corrected_initial_age = max(apparent_age, corrected_age_value);
unless the cache is confident in the value of the Age header field
(e.g., because there are no HTTP/1.0 hops in the Via header field),
in which case the corrected_age_value MAY be used as the
corrected_initial_age.
The current_age of a stored response can then be calculated by adding
the time (in seconds) since the stored response was last validated by
the origin server to the corrected_initial_age.
resident_time = now - response_time;
current_age = corrected_initial_age + resident_time;
4.2.4. Serving Stale Responses
A "stale" response is one that either has explicit expiry information
or is allowed to have heuristic expiry calculated, but is not fresh
according to the calculations in Section 4.2.
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A cache MUST NOT generate a stale response if it is prohibited by an
explicit in-protocol directive (e.g., by a "no-store" or "no-cache"
cache directive, a "must-revalidate" cache-response-directive, or an
applicable "s-maxage" or "proxy-revalidate" cache-response-directive;
see Section 5.2.2).
A cache MUST NOT generate a stale response unless it is disconnected
or doing so is explicitly permitted by the client or origin server
(e.g., by the max-stale request directive in Section 5.2.1, by
extension directives such as those defined in [RFC5861], or by
configuration in accordance with an out-of-band contract).
4.3. Validation
When a cache has one or more stored responses for a requested URI,
but cannot serve any of them (e.g., because they are not fresh, or
one cannot be selected; see Section 4.1), it can use the conditional
request mechanism Section 12.1 of [Semantics] in the forwarded
request to give the next inbound server an opportunity to select a
valid stored response to use, updating the stored metadata in the
process, or to replace the stored response(s) with a new response.
This process is known as "validating" or "revalidating" the stored
response.
4.3.1. Sending a Validation Request
When generating a conditional request for validation, a cache starts
with either a request it is attempting to satisfy, or - if it is
initiating the request independently - it synthesises a request using
a stored response by copying the method, target URI, and request
header fields identified by the Vary header field Section 4.1.
It then updates that request with one or more precondition header
fields. These contain validator metadata sourced from stored
response(s) that have the same cache key.
The precondition header fields are then compared by recipients to
determine whether any stored response is equivalent to a current
representation of the resource.
One such validator is the timestamp given in a Last-Modified header
field (Section 7.9.2 of [Semantics]), which can be used in an If-
Modified-Since header field for response validation, or in an If-
Unmodified-Since or If-Range header field for representation
selection (i.e., the client is referring specifically to a previously
obtained representation with that timestamp).
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Another validator is the entity-tag given in an ETag field
(Section 7.9.3 of [Semantics]). One or more entity-tags, indicating
one or more stored responses, can be used in an If-None-Match header
field for response validation, or in an If-Match or If-Range header
field for representation selection (i.e., the client is referring
specifically to one or more previously obtained representations with
the listed entity-tags).
4.3.2. Handling a Received Validation Request
Each client in the request chain may have its own cache, so it is
common for a cache at an intermediary to receive conditional requests
from other (outbound) caches. Likewise, some user agents make use of
conditional requests to limit data transfers to recently modified
representations or to complete the transfer of a partially retrieved
representation.
If a cache receives a request that can be satisfied by reusing one of
its stored 200 (OK) or 206 (Partial Content) responses, the cache
SHOULD evaluate any applicable conditional header field preconditions
received in that request with respect to the corresponding validators
contained within the selected response. A cache MUST NOT evaluate
conditional header fields that only apply to an origin server, occur
in a request with semantics that cannot be satisfied with a cached
response, or occur in a request with a target resource for which it
has no stored responses; such preconditions are likely intended for
some other (inbound) server.
The proper evaluation of conditional requests by a cache depends on
the received precondition header fields and their precedence, as
defined in Section 12.3 of [Semantics]. The If-Match and If-
Unmodified-Since conditional header fields are not applicable to a
cache.
A request containing an If-None-Match header field (Section 12.1.2 of
[Semantics]) indicates that the client wants to validate one or more
of its own stored responses in comparison to whichever stored
response is selected by the cache. If the field value is "*", or if
the field value is a list of entity-tags and at least one of them
matches the entity-tag of the selected stored response, a cache
recipient SHOULD generate a 304 (Not Modified) response (using the
metadata of the selected stored response) instead of sending that
stored response.
When a cache decides to revalidate its own stored responses for a
request that contains an If-None-Match list of entity-tags, the cache
MAY combine the received list with a list of entity-tags from its own
stored set of responses (fresh or stale) and send the union of the
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two lists as a replacement If-None-Match header field value in the
forwarded request. If a stored response contains only partial
content, the cache MUST NOT include its entity-tag in the union
unless the request is for a range that would be fully satisfied by
that partial stored response. If the response to the forwarded
request is 304 (Not Modified) and has an ETag field value with an
entity-tag that is not in the client's list, the cache MUST generate
a 200 (OK) response for the client by reusing its corresponding
stored response, as updated by the 304 response metadata
(Section 4.3.4).
If an If-None-Match header field is not present, a request containing
an If-Modified-Since header field (Section 12.1.3 of [Semantics])
indicates that the client wants to validate one or more of its own
stored responses by modification date. A cache recipient SHOULD
generate a 304 (Not Modified) response (using the metadata of the
selected stored response) if one of the following cases is true: 1)
the selected stored response has a Last-Modified field value that is
earlier than or equal to the conditional timestamp; 2) no Last-
Modified field is present in the selected stored response, but it has
a Date field value that is earlier than or equal to the conditional
timestamp; or, 3) neither Last-Modified nor Date is present in the
selected stored response, but the cache recorded it as having been
received at a time earlier than or equal to the conditional
timestamp.
A cache that implements partial responses to range requests, as
defined in Section 13.2 of [Semantics], also needs to evaluate a
received If-Range header field (Section 12.1.5 of [Semantics])
regarding its selected stored response.
4.3.3. Handling a Validation Response
Cache handling of a response to a conditional request depends upon
its status code:
o A 304 (Not Modified) response status code indicates that the
stored response can be updated and reused; see Section 4.3.4.
o A full response (i.e., one with a payload body) indicates that
none of the stored responses nominated in the conditional request
is suitable. Instead, the cache MUST use the full response to
satisfy the request and MAY replace the stored response(s).
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o However, if a cache receives a 5xx (Server Error) response while
attempting to validate a response, it can either forward this
response to the requesting client, or act as if the server failed
to respond. In the latter case, the cache MAY send a previously
stored response (see Section 4.2.4).
4.3.4. Freshening Stored Responses upon Validation
When a cache receives a 304 (Not Modified) response and already has
one or more stored 200 (OK) responses for the applicable cache key,
the cache needs to identify which (if any) are to be updated by the
new information provided, and then do so.
The stored response(s) to update are identified by using the first
match (if any) of:
o If the new response contains a strong validator (see Section 7.9.1
of [Semantics]), then that strong validator identifies the
selected representation for update. All the stored responses with
the same strong validator are identified for update. If none of
the stored responses contain the same strong validator, then the
cache MUST NOT use the new response to update any stored
responses.
o If the new response contains a weak validator and that validator
corresponds to one of the cache's stored responses, then the most
recent of those matching stored responses is identified for
update.
o If the new response does not include any form of validator (such
as where a client generates an If-Modified-Since request from a
source other than the Last-Modified response header field), and
there is only one stored response, and that stored response also
lacks a validator, then that stored response is identified for
update.
For each stored response identified for update, the cache MUST use
the header fields provided in the 304 (Not Modified) response to
replace all instances of the corresponding header fields in the
stored response, with the following exceptions:
o The exceptions to header field storage in Section 3.1 also apply
to header field updates.
o Caches MUST NOT update the following header fields: Content-
Encoding, Content-Length, Content-MD5 (Section 14.15 of
[RFC2616]), Content-Range, ETag.
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4.3.5. Freshening Responses with HEAD
A response to the HEAD method is identical to what an equivalent
request made with a GET would have been, except it lacks a body.
This property of HEAD responses can be used to invalidate or update a
cached GET response if the more efficient conditional GET request
mechanism is not available (due to no validators being present in the
stored response) or if transmission of the representation body is not
desired even if it has changed.
When a cache makes an inbound HEAD request for a target URI and
receives a 200 (OK) response, the cache SHOULD update or invalidate
each of its stored GET responses that could have been selected for
that request (see Section 4.1).
For each of the stored responses that could have been selected, if
the stored response and HEAD response have matching values for any
received validator fields (ETag and Last-Modified) and, if the HEAD
response has a Content-Length header field, the value of Content-
Length matches that of the stored response, the cache SHOULD update
the stored response as described below; otherwise, the cache SHOULD
consider the stored response to be stale.
If a cache updates a stored response with the metadata provided in a
HEAD response, the cache MUST use the header fields provided in the
HEAD response to replace all instances of the corresponding header
fields in the stored response (subject to the exceptions in
Section 4.3.4) and append new header fields to the stored response's
header section unless otherwise restricted by the Cache-Control
header field.
4.4. Invalidation
Because unsafe request methods (Section 8.2.1 of [Semantics]) such as
PUT, POST or DELETE have the potential for changing state on the
origin server, intervening caches are required to invalidate stored
responses to keep their contents up to date. Invalidate means that
the cache will either remove all stored responses whose target URI
matches the given URI, or will mark them as "invalid" and in need of
a mandatory validation before they can be sent in response to a
subsequent request.
Note that this does not guarantee that all appropriate responses are
invalidated globally; a state-changing request would only invalidate
responses in the caches it travels through.
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A cache MUST invalidate the target URI (Section 6.1 of [Semantics])
and the URI(s) in the Location and Content-Location response header
fields (if present) when a non-error status code is received in
response to an unsafe request method.
However, a cache MUST NOT invalidate a URI from a Location or
Content-Location response header field if the host part of that URI
differs from the host part in the target URI (Section 6.1 of
[Semantics]). This helps prevent denial-of-service attacks.
A cache MUST invalidate the target URI (Section 6.1 of [Semantics])
when it receives a non-error response to a request with a method
whose safety is unknown.
Here, a "non-error response" is one with a 2xx (Successful) or 3xx
(Redirection) status code.
5. Field Definitions
This section defines the syntax and semantics of HTTP fields related
to caching.
--------------- ----------- ------
Field Name Status Ref.
--------------- ----------- ------
Age standard 5.1
Cache-Control standard 5.2
Expires standard 5.3
Pragma standard 5.4
Warning obsoleted 5.5
--------------- ----------- ------
Table 1
5.1. Age
The "Age" header field conveys the sender's estimate of the time
since the response was generated or successfully validated at the
origin server. Age values are calculated as specified in
Section 4.2.3.
Age = delta-seconds
The Age field value is a non-negative integer, representing time in
seconds (see Section 1.3). A cache SHOULD consider a response to be
stale if an Age field is present and its value is invalid (i.e.,
contains a list or something other than a non-negative integer).
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The presence of an Age header field implies that the response was not
generated or validated by the origin server for this request.
However, lack of an Age header field does not imply the origin was
contacted, since the response might have been received from an
HTTP/1.0 cache that does not implement Age.
5.2. Cache-Control
The "Cache-Control" header field is used to list directives for
caches along the request/response chain. Such cache directives are
unidirectional in that the presence of a directive in a request does
not imply that the same directive is present in the response, or to
be repeated in it.
See Section 5.2.3 for information about how Cache-Control directives
defined elsewhere are handled.
| *Note:* Some HTTP/1.0 caches might not implement Cache-Control.
A proxy, whether or not it implements a cache, MUST pass cache
directives through in forwarded messages, regardless of their
significance to that application, since the directives might apply to
all recipients along the request/response chain. It is not possible
to target a directive to a specific cache.
Cache directives are identified by a token, to be compared case-
insensitively, and have an optional argument that can use both token
and quoted-string syntax. For the directives defined below that
define arguments, recipients ought to accept both forms, even if a
specific form is required for generation.
Cache-Control = #cache-directive
cache-directive = token [ "=" ( token / quoted-string ) ]
For the cache directives defined below, no argument is defined (nor
allowed) unless stated otherwise.
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------------------ ----------------------------------
Cache Directive Reference
------------------ ----------------------------------
max-age Section 5.2.1.1, Section 5.2.2.9
max-stale Section 5.2.1.2
min-fresh Section 5.2.1.3
must-revalidate Section 5.2.2.1
must-understand Section 5.2.2.2
no-cache Section 5.2.1.4, Section 5.2.2.3
no-store Section 5.2.1.5, Section 5.2.2.4
no-transform Section 5.2.1.6, Section 5.2.2.5
only-if-cached Section 5.2.1.7
private Section 5.2.2.7
proxy-revalidate Section 5.2.2.8
public Section 5.2.2.6
s-maxage Section 5.2.2.10
------------------ ----------------------------------
Table 2
5.2.1. Request Cache-Control Directives
This section defines cache request directives. They are advisory;
caches MAY implement them, but are not required to.
5.2.1.1. max-age
Argument syntax:
delta-seconds (see Section 1.3)
The "max-age" request directive indicates that the client prefers a
response whose age is less than or equal to the specified number of
seconds. Unless the max-stale request directive is also present, the
client does not wish to receive a stale response.
This directive uses the token form of the argument syntax: e.g.,
'max-age=5' not 'max-age="5"'. A sender MUST NOT generate the
quoted-string form.
5.2.1.2. max-stale
Argument syntax:
delta-seconds (see Section 1.3)
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The "max-stale" request directive indicates that the client will
accept a response that has exceeded its freshness lifetime. If a
value is present, then the client is willing to accept a response
that has exceeded its freshness lifetime by no more than the
specified number of seconds. If no value is assigned to max-stale,
then the client will accept a stale response of any age.
This directive uses the token form of the argument syntax: e.g.,
'max-stale=10' not 'max-stale="10"'. A sender MUST NOT generate the
quoted-string form.
5.2.1.3. min-fresh
Argument syntax:
delta-seconds (see Section 1.3)
The "min-fresh" request directive indicates that the client prefers a
response whose freshness lifetime is no less than its current age
plus the specified time in seconds. That is, the client wants a
response that will still be fresh for at least the specified number
of seconds.
This directive uses the token form of the argument syntax: e.g.,
'min-fresh=20' not 'min-fresh="20"'. A sender MUST NOT generate the
quoted-string form.
5.2.1.4. no-cache
The "no-cache" request directive indicates that the client prefers
stored response not be used to satisfy the request without successful
validation on the origin server.
5.2.1.5. no-store
The "no-store" request directive indicates that a cache MUST NOT
store any part of either this request or any response to it. This
directive applies to both private and shared caches. "MUST NOT
store" in this context means that the cache MUST NOT intentionally
store the information in non-volatile storage, and MUST make a best-
effort attempt to remove the information from volatile storage as
promptly as possible after forwarding it.
This directive is NOT a reliable or sufficient mechanism for ensuring
privacy. In particular, malicious or compromised caches might not
recognize or obey this directive, and communications networks might
be vulnerable to eavesdropping.
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Note that if a request containing this directive is satisfied from a
cache, the no-store request directive does not apply to the already
stored response.
5.2.1.6. no-transform
The "no-transform" request directive indicates that the client is
asking for intermediaries to avoid transforming the payload, as
defined in Section 6.5 of [Semantics].
5.2.1.7. only-if-cached
The "only-if-cached" request directive indicates that the client only
wishes to obtain a stored response. Caches that honor this request
directive SHOULD, upon receiving it, either respond using a stored
response consistent with the other constraints of the request, or
respond with a 504 (Gateway Timeout) status code.
5.2.2. Response Cache-Control Directives
This section defines cache response directives. A cache MUST obey
the Cache-Control directives defined in this section.
5.2.2.1. must-revalidate
The "must-revalidate" response directive indicates that once the
response has become stale, a cache MUST NOT reuse that response to
satisfy another request until it has been successfully validated by
the origin, as defined by Section 4.3.
The must-revalidate directive is necessary to support reliable
operation for certain protocol features. In all circumstances a
cache MUST obey the must-revalidate directive; in particular, if a
cache is disconnected, the cache MUST generate a 504 (Gateway
Timeout) response rather than reuse the stale response.
The must-revalidate directive ought to be used by servers if and only
if failure to validate a request on the representation could cause
incorrect operation, such as a silently unexecuted financial
transaction.
The must-revalidate directive also permits a shared cache to reuse a
response to a request containing an Authorization header field,
subject to the above requirement on revalidation (Section 3.3).
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5.2.2.2. must-understand
The "must-understand" response directive limits caching of the
response to a cache that understands and conforms to the requirements
for that response's status code. A cache MUST NOT store a response
containing the must-understand directive if the cache does not
understand the response status code.
5.2.2.3. no-cache
Argument syntax:
#field-name
The "no-cache" response directive, in its unqualified form (without
an argument), indicates that the response MUST NOT be used to satisfy
any other request without forwarding it for validation and receiving
a successful response; see Section 4.3.
This allows an origin server to prevent a cache from using the
response to satisfy a request without contacting it, even by caches
that have been configured to send stale responses.
The qualified form of no-cache response directive, with an argument
that lists one or more field names, indicates that a cache MAY use
the response to satisfy a subsequent request, subject to any other
restrictions on caching, if the listed header fields are excluded
from the subsequent response or the subsequent response has been
successfully revalidated with the origin server (updating or removing
those fields). This allows an origin server to prevent the re-use of
certain header fields in a response, while still allowing caching of
the rest of the response.
The field names given are not limited to the set of header fields
defined by this specification. Field names are case-insensitive.
This directive uses the quoted-string form of the argument syntax. A
sender SHOULD NOT generate the token form (even if quoting appears
not to be needed for single-entry lists).
*Note:* Although it has been back-ported to many implementations,
some HTTP/1.0 caches will not recognize or obey this directive.
Also, the qualified form of the directive is often handled by caches
as if an unqualified no-cache directive was received; i.e., the
special handling for the qualified form is not widely implemented.
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5.2.2.4. no-store
The "no-store" response directive indicates that a cache MUST NOT
store any part of either the immediate request or response, and MUST
NOT use the response to satisfy any other request.
This directive applies to both private and shared caches. "MUST NOT
store" in this context means that the cache MUST NOT intentionally
store the information in non-volatile storage, and MUST make a best-
effort attempt to remove the information from volatile storage as
promptly as possible after forwarding it.
This directive is NOT a reliable or sufficient mechanism for ensuring
privacy. In particular, malicious or compromised caches might not
recognize or obey this directive, and communications networks might
be vulnerable to eavesdropping.
5.2.2.5. no-transform
The "no-transform" response directive indicates that an intermediary
(regardless of whether it implements a cache) MUST NOT transform the
payload, as defined in Section 6.5 of [Semantics].
5.2.2.6. public
The "public" response directive indicates that a cache MAY store the
response even if it would otherwise be prohibited, subject to the
constraints defined in Section 3. In other words, public explicitly
marks the response as cacheable. For example, public permits a
shared cache to reuse a response to a request containing an
Authorization header field (Section 3.3).
Note that it is unnecessary to add the public directive to a response
that is already cacheable according to Section 3.
If a response with the public directive has no explicit freshness
information, it is heuristically cacheable (Section 4.2.2).
5.2.2.7. private
Argument syntax:
#field-name
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The unqualified "private" response directive indicates that a shared
cache MUST NOT store the response (i.e., the response is intended for
a single user). It also indicates that a private cache MAY store the
response, subject the constraints defined in Section 3, even if the
response would not otherwise be heuristically cacheable by a private
cache.
If a qualified private response directive is present, with an
argument that lists one or more field names, then only the listed
fields are limited to a single user: a shared cache MUST NOT store
the listed fields if they are present in the original response, but
MAY store the remainder of the response message without those fields,
subject the constraints defined in Section 3.
The field names given are not limited to the set of header fields
defined by this specification. Field names are case-insensitive.
This directive uses the quoted-string form of the argument syntax. A
sender SHOULD NOT generate the token form (even if quoting appears
not to be needed for single-entry lists).
*Note:* This usage of the word "private" only controls where the
response can be stored; it cannot ensure the privacy of the message
content. Also, the qualified form of the directive is often handled
by caches as if an unqualified private directive was received; i.e.,
the special handling for the qualified form is not widely
implemented.
5.2.2.8. proxy-revalidate
The "proxy-revalidate" response directive indicates that once the
response has become stale, a shared cache MUST NOT reuse that
response to satisfy another request until it has been successfully
validated by the origin, as defined by Section 4.3. This is
analogous to must-revalidate (Section 5.2.2.1), except that proxy-
revalidate does not apply to private caches.
Note that "proxy-revalidate" on its own does not imply that a
response is cacheable. For example, it might be combined with the
public directive (Section 5.2.2.6), allowing the response to be
cached while requiring only a shared cache to revalidate when stale.
5.2.2.9. max-age
Argument syntax:
delta-seconds (see Section 1.3)
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The "max-age" response directive indicates that the response is to be
considered stale after its age is greater than the specified number
of seconds.
This directive uses the token form of the argument syntax: e.g.,
'max-age=5' not 'max-age="5"'. A sender MUST NOT generate the
quoted-string form.
5.2.2.10. s-maxage
Argument syntax:
delta-seconds (see Section 1.3)
The "s-maxage" response directive indicates that, for a shared cache,
the maximum age specified by this directive overrides the maximum age
specified by either the max-age directive or the Expires header
field.
The s-maxage directive incorporates the proxy-revalidate
(Section 5.2.2.8) response directive's semantics for a shared cache.
A shared cache MUST NOT reuse a stale response with s-maxage to
satisfy another request until it has been successfully validated by
the origin, as defined by Section 4.3. This directive also permits a
shared cache to reuse a response to a request containing an
Authorization header field, subject to the above requirements on
maximum age and revalidation (Section 3.3).
This directive uses the token form of the argument syntax: e.g.,
's-maxage=10' not 's-maxage="10"'. A sender MUST NOT generate the
quoted-string form.
5.2.3. Cache Control Extensions
The Cache-Control header field can be extended through the use of one
or more cache-extension tokens, each with an optional value. A cache
MUST ignore unrecognized cache directives.
Informational extensions (those that do not require a change in cache
behavior) can be added without changing the semantics of other
directives.
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Behavioral extensions are designed to work by acting as modifiers to
the existing base of cache directives. Both the new directive and
the old directive are supplied, such that applications that do not
understand the new directive will default to the behavior specified
by the old directive, and those that understand the new directive
will recognize it as modifying the requirements associated with the
old directive. In this way, extensions to the existing cache-control
directives can be made without breaking deployed caches.
For example, consider a hypothetical new response directive called
"community" that acts as a modifier to the private directive: in
addition to private caches, any cache that is shared only by members
of the named community is allowed to cache the response. An origin
server wishing to allow the UCI community to use an otherwise private
response in their shared cache(s) could do so by including
Cache-Control: private, community="UCI"
A cache that recognizes such a community cache-extension could
broaden its behavior in accordance with that extension. A cache that
does not recognize the community cache-extension would ignore it and
adhere to the private directive.
New extension directives ought to consider defining:
o What it means for a directive to be specified multiple times,
o When the directive does not take an argument, what it means when
an argument is present,
o When the directive requires an argument, what it means when it is
missing,
o Whether the directive is specific to requests, responses, or able
to be used in either.
5.2.4. Cache Directive Registry
The "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Cache Directive Registry"
defines the namespace for the cache directives. It has been created
and is now maintained at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-
cache-directives>.
A registration MUST include the following fields:
o Cache Directive Name
o Pointer to specification text
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Values to be added to this namespace require IETF Review (see
[RFC8126], Section 4.8).
5.3. Expires
The "Expires" header field gives the date/time after which the
response is considered stale. See Section 4.2 for further discussion
of the freshness model.
The presence of an Expires field does not imply that the original
resource will change or cease to exist at, before, or after that
time.
The Expires value is an HTTP-date timestamp, as defined in
Section 5.7.7 of [Semantics].
Expires = HTTP-date
For example
Expires: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 16:00:00 GMT
A cache recipient MUST interpret invalid date formats, especially the
value "0", as representing a time in the past (i.e., "already
expired").
If a response includes a Cache-Control field with the max-age
directive (Section 5.2.2.9), a recipient MUST ignore the Expires
field. Likewise, if a response includes the s-maxage directive
(Section 5.2.2.10), a shared cache recipient MUST ignore the Expires
field. In both these cases, the value in Expires is only intended
for recipients that have not yet implemented the Cache-Control field.
An origin server without a clock MUST NOT generate an Expires field
unless its value represents a fixed time in the past (always expired)
or its value has been associated with the resource by a system or
user with a reliable clock.
Historically, HTTP required the Expires field value to be no more
than a year in the future. While longer freshness lifetimes are no
longer prohibited, extremely large values have been demonstrated to
cause problems (e.g., clock overflows due to use of 32-bit integers
for time values), and many caches will evict a response far sooner
than that.
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5.4. Pragma
The "Pragma" header field was defined for HTTP/1.0 caches, so that
clients could specify a "no-cache" request (as Cache-Control was not
defined until HTTP/1.1).
However, support for Cache-Control is now widespread. As a result,
this specification deprecates Pragma.
| *Note:* Because the meaning of "Pragma: no-cache" in responses
| was never specified, it does not provide a reliable replacement
| for "Cache-Control: no-cache" in them.
5.5. Warning
The "Warning" header field was used to carry additional information
about the status or transformation of a message that might not be
reflected in the status code. This specification obsoletes it, as it
is not widely generated or surfaced to users. The information it
carried can be gleaned from examining other header fields, such as
Age.
6. Relationship to Applications
Applications using HTTP often specify additional forms of caching.
For example, Web browsers often have history mechanisms such as
"Back" buttons that can be used to redisplay a representation
retrieved earlier in a session.
Likewise, some Web browsers implement caching of images and other
assets within a page view; they may or may not honor HTTP caching
semantics.
The requirements in this specification do not necessarily apply to
how applications use data after it is retrieved from a HTTP cache.
That is, a history mechanism can display a previous representation
even if it has expired, and an application can use cached data in
other ways beyond its freshness lifetime.
This does not prohibit the application from taking HTTP caching into
account; for example, a history mechanism might tell the user that a
view is stale, or it might honor cache directives (e.g., Cache-
Control: no-store).
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7. Security Considerations
This section is meant to inform developers, information providers,
and users of known security concerns specific to HTTP caching. More
general security considerations are addressed in HTTP messaging
[Messaging] and semantics [Semantics].
Caches expose additional potential vulnerabilities, since the
contents of the cache represent an attractive target for malicious
exploitation. Because cache contents persist after an HTTP request
is complete, an attack on the cache can reveal information long after
a user believes that the information has been removed from the
network. Therefore, cache contents need to be protected as sensitive
information.
7.1. Cache Poisoning
Various attacks might be amplified by being stored in a shared cache.
Such "cache poisoning" attacks use the cache to distribute a
malicious payload to many clients, and are especially effective when
an attacker can use implementation flaws, elevated privileges, or
other techniques to insert such a response into a cache.
One common attack vector for cache poisoning is to exploit
differences in message parsing on proxies and in user agents; see
Section 6.3 of [Messaging] for the relevant requirements regarding
HTTP/1.1.
7.2. Timing Attacks
Because one of the primary uses of a cache is to optimise
performance, its use can "leak" information about what resources have
been previously requested.
For example, if a user visits a site and their browser caches some of
its responses, and then navigates to a second site, that site can
attempt to load responses it knows exists on the first site. If they
load quickly, it can be assumed that the user has visited that site,
or even a specific page on it.
Such "timing attacks" can be mitigated by adding more information to
the cache key, such as the identity of the referring site (to prevent
the attack described above). This is sometimes called "double
keying."
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7.3. Caching of Sensitive Information
Implementation and deployment flaws (as well as misunderstanding of
cache operation) might lead to caching of sensitive information
(e.g., authentication credentials) that is thought to be private,
exposing it to unauthorized parties.
Note that the Set-Cookie response header field [RFC6265] does not
inhibit caching; a cacheable response with a Set-Cookie header field
can be (and often is) used to satisfy subsequent requests to caches.
Servers who wish to control caching of these responses are encouraged
to emit appropriate Cache-Control response header fields.
8. IANA Considerations
The change controller for the following registrations is: "IETF
(iesg@ietf.org) - Internet Engineering Task Force".
8.1. Field Registration
Please update the "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Field Name
Registry" at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-fields> with the
field names listed in the two tables of Section 5.
8.2. Cache Directive Registration
Please update the "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Cache Directive
Registry" at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-cache-directives>
with the registration procedure of Section 5.2.4 and the cache
directive names summarized in the table of Section 5.2.
8.3. Warn Code Registry
Please add a note to the "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Warn
Codes" registry at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-warn-codes>
to the effect that Warning is obsoleted.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[Messaging]
Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP/1.1 Messaging", Work in Progress, Internet-
Draft, draft-ietf-httpbis-messaging-12, October 2, 2020,
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-messaging-
12>.
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[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.
[RFC7405] Kyzivat, P., "Case-Sensitive String Support in ABNF",
RFC 7405, DOI 10.17487/RFC7405, December 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7405>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[Semantics]
Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP Semantics", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-httpbis-semantics-12, October 2, 2020,
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-semantics-
12>.
[USASCII] American National Standards Institute, "Coded Character
Set -- 7-bit American Standard Code for Information
Interchange", ANSI X3.4, 1986.
9.2. Informative References
[RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2616, June 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2616>.
[RFC5861] Nottingham, M., "HTTP Cache-Control Extensions for Stale
Content", RFC 5861, DOI 10.17487/RFC5861, April 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5861>.
[RFC5905] Mills, D., Martin, J., Ed., Burbank, J., and W. Kasch,
"Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms
Specification", RFC 5905, DOI 10.17487/RFC5905, June 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5905>.
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[RFC6265] Barth, A., "HTTP State Management Mechanism", RFC 6265,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6265, April 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6265>.
[RFC7234] Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. F. Reschke,
Ed., "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP): Caching",
RFC 7234, DOI 10.17487/RFC7234, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7234>.
[RFC8126] Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8126>.
Appendix A. Collected ABNF
In the collected ABNF below, list rules are expanded as per
Section 5.7.1.1 of [Semantics].
Age = delta-seconds
Cache-Control = [ cache-directive *( OWS "," OWS cache-directive ) ]
Expires = HTTP-date
HTTP-date = <HTTP-date, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.7>
OWS = <OWS, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.3>
cache-directive = token [ "=" ( token / quoted-string ) ]
delta-seconds = 1*DIGIT
field-name = <field-name, see [Semantics], Section 5.4.3>
quoted-string = <quoted-string, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.4>
token = <token, see [Semantics], Section 5.7.2>
Appendix B. Changes from RFC 7234
Handling invalid and multiple Age header field values has been
clarified. (Section 5.1)
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Some cache directives defined by this specification now have stronger
prohibitions against generating the quoted form of their values,
since this has been found to create interoperability problems.
Consumers of extension cache directives are no longer required to
accept both token and quoted-string forms, but they still need to
parse them properly for unknown extensions. (Section 5.2)
The "public" and "private" cache directives were clarified, so that
they do not make responses reusable under any condition.
(Section 5.2.2)
The "must-understand" cache directive was introduced; caches are no
longer required to understand the semantics of new response status
codes unless it is present. (Section 5.2.2.2)
The Warning response header was obsoleted. Much of the information
supported by Warning could be gleaned by examining the response, and
the remaining warn-codes - although potentially useful - were
entirely advisory. In practice, Warning was not added by caches or
intermediaries. (Section 5.5)
Appendix C. Change Log
This section is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
C.1. Between RFC7234 and draft 00
The changes were purely editorial:
o Change boilerplate and abstract to indicate the "draft" status,
and update references to ancestor specifications.
o Remove version "1.1" from document title, indicating that this
specification applies to all HTTP versions.
o Adjust historical notes.
o Update links to sibling specifications.
o Replace sections listing changes from RFC 2616 by new empty
sections referring to RFC 723x.
o Remove acknowledgements specific to RFC 723x.
o Move "Acknowledgements" to the very end and make them unnumbered.
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C.2. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-00
The changes are purely editorial:
o Moved all extensibility tips, registration procedures, and
registry tables from the IANA considerations to normative
sections, reducing the IANA considerations to just instructions
that will be removed prior to publication as an RFC.
C.3. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-01
o Cite RFC 8126 instead of RFC 5226 (<https://github.com/httpwg/
http-core/issues/75>)
o In Section 5.4, misleading statement about the relation between
Pragma and Cache-Control (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/92>, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid4674>)
C.4. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-02
o In Section 3, explain that only final responses are cacheable
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/29>)
o In Section 5.2.2, clarify what responses various directives apply
to (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/52>)
o In Section 4.3.1, clarify the source of validators in conditional
requests (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/110>)
o Revise Section 6 to apply to more than just History Lists
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/126>)
o In Section 5.5, deprecated "Warning" header field
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/139>)
o In Section 3.3, remove a spurious note
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/141>)
C.5. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-03
o In Section 2, define what a disconnected cache is
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/5>)
o In Section 4, clarify language around how to select a response
when more than one matches (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/23>)
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o in Section 4.2.4, mention stale-while-revalidate and stale-if-
error (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/122>)
o Remove requirements around cache request directives
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/129>)
o Deprecate Pragma (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/140>)
o In Section 3.3 and Section 5.2.2, note effect of some directives
on authenticated requests (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/161>)
C.6. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-04
o In Section 5.2, remove the registrations for stale-if-error and
stale-while-revalidate which happened in RFC 7234
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/207>)
C.7. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-05
o In Section 3.2, clarify how weakly framed content is considered
for purposes of completeness (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-
core/issues/25>)
o Throughout, describe Vary and cache key operations more clearly
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/28>)
o In Section 3, remove concept of "cacheable methods" in favor of
prose (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/54>,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid5300>)
o Refactored Section 7, and added a section on timing attacks
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/233>)
o Changed "cacheable by default" to "heuristically cacheable"
throughout (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/242>)
C.8. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-06
o In Section 3 and Section 5.2.2.2, change response cacheability to
only require understanding the response status code if the must-
understand cache directive is present (<https://github.com/httpwg/
http-core/issues/120>)
o Change requirements for handling different forms of cache
directives in Section 5.2 (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/128>)
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o Fix typo in Section 5.2.2.10 (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-
core/issues/264>)
o In Section 5.2.2.6 and Section 5.2.2.7, clarify "private" and
"public" so that they do not override all other cache directives
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/268>)
o In Section 3, distinguish between private with and without
qualifying headers (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/270>)
o In Section 4.1, clarify that any "*" as a member of Vary will
disable caching (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/286>)
o In Section 1.1, reference RFC 8174 as well
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/303>)
C.9. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-07
o Throughout, replace "effective request URI", "request-target" and
similar with "target URI" (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/259>)
o In Section 5.2.2.6 and Section 5.2.2.7, make it clear that these
directives do not ignore other requirements for caching
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/320>)
o In Section 3.2, move definition of "complete" into semantics
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/334>)
C.10. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-08
o Appendix A now uses the sender variant of the "#" list expansion
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/192>)
C.11. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-09
o In Section 5.1, discuss handling of invalid and multiple Age
header field values (<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/
issues/193>)
o Switch to xml2rfc v3 mode for draft generation
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/394>)
C.12. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-10
o In Section 5.2 (Cache-Control), adjust ABNF to allow empty lists
(<https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/210>)
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C.13. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-11
o None.
Acknowledgments
See Appendix "Acknowledgments" of [Semantics].
Authors' Addresses
Roy T. Fielding (editor)
Adobe
345 Park Ave
San Jose, CA 95110
United States of America
Email: fielding@gbiv.com
URI: https://roy.gbiv.com/
Mark Nottingham (editor)
Fastly
Prahran VIC
Australia
Email: mnot@mnot.net
URI: https://www.mnot.net/
Julian Reschke (editor)
greenbytes GmbH
Hafenweg 16
48155 Münster
Germany
Email: julian.reschke@greenbytes.de
URI: https://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/
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