How to work with HTTP requests and responses

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How a web server processes static web pages Chapter 18 How to work with HTTP

Slide 2 The components of a servlet/jsp application The architecture for a

presentation (servlets) and service layer (business rules implementation) Slide

Is a popular web server for Java web applications.

Provides more features than Tomcat. Requires more system resources than Tomcat.

1 How a web server processes static web pages Chapter 18 How to work with HTTP requests and responses How a web server processes dynamic web pages Slide 1 Slide 2 The components of a servlet/jsp application The architecture for a servlet/jsp application Slide 3 Note: we split the green layer into presentation (servlets) and service layer (business rules implementation) Slide 4 Two popular web servers (application servers) Tomcat Is a servlet/jsp engine that includes a web server. Is free, open-source, and runs on all modern operating systems. Is a popular web server for Java web applications. GlassFish Is a complete Java EE application server. Is free, open-source, and runs on all modern operating systems. Provides more features than Tomcat. Requires more system resources than Tomcat. Other popular web servers WildFly (formerly JBoss) Jetty Oracle WebLogic IBM WebSphere CS636: We ll use tomcat (3rd Ed.), C1 Slide 5 (3rd Ed.), C1 Slide 6 1

2 An HTTP request GET HTTP/1.1 referer: connection: keep-alive user-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) Chrome/ host: accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 accept-encoding: gzip, deflate accept-language: en-us,en;q=0.5 cookie: firstcookie=joel More common command syntax: no server name in GET: GET / /index.html HTTP/1.1 The server name is given in the host header, required in HTTP 1.1. The form with the server name in GET is also valid and is needed with proxy servers. An HTTP response HTTP/ OK date: Sat, 17 Mar :32:54 GMT server: Apache/2.2.3 (Unix) PHP/5.2.4 content-type: text/html content-length: 201 last-modified: Fri, 16 Aug :52:09 GMT <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>murach's Java Servlets and JSP</title> </head> <body> <h1>join our list</h1> </body> </html> Slide 7 Slide 8 An introduction to HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the primary protocol that s used to transfer data between a browser and a server. The first line of an HTTP request is known as the request line. This line specifies the request method, the URL of the request, and the version of HTTP. After the first line of a request, the browser sends request headers that give information about the browser and its request. The first line of an HTTP response is known as the status line. This line specifies the HTTP version, a status code, and a brief description associated with the status code. After the first line of a response, the server sends response headers that give information about the response. Then, it sends the response entity, or response body. The body of a response is typically HTML, but it can also be other types of data. An introduction to MIME types The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) types provide standards for the various types of data transferred across the Internet. MIME types can be included in the accept header of a request or the content-type header of a response. Slide 9 Slide 10 Common HTTP request headers accept accept-charset accept-encoding accept-language authorization connection Specifies preferred order of MIME types the browser can accept. Specifies the character sets the browser can accept. Specifies the types of compression encoding the browser can accept. Specifies the standard language codes for the languages the browser prefers. Identifies authorization level for the browser. Indicates type of connection being used by the browser. Common HTTP request headers (continued) cookie host pragma referer user-agent Specifies any cookies previously sent by the current server. Specifies host and port of the machine that is originally addressed sent in the request. URL (was wrong) Value of no-cache indicates to browsers, proxy servers, and gateways that this document should not be cached. Indicates URL of the referring web page. Indicates type of browser. Slide 11 Slide 12 2

3 Internet media types AKA MIME types Originally called MIME types, a name still in use (MIME = Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) Used to specify type of desired response for HTTP request (accept header) and type of response (content-type header) Syntax: type/subtype Most common: text/html for web pages International register at (IANA = Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) Common MIME types Type/Subtype text/plain text/html text/css text/xml text/csv text/tab-separated-values image/gif image/jpeg image/png image/tiff image/x-xbitmap Plain text document HTML document HTML cascading style sheet XML document CSV (comma-separated values) document TSV (tab-separated values) document GIF image JPEG image PNG image TIFF image Windows bitmap image Slide 13 Slide 14 Common MIME types (continued) Type/Subtype application/atom-xml Atom feed application/rss-xml RSS feed application/pdf PDF file application/postscript PostScript file application/zip ZIP file application/gzip GZIP file application/octet-stream Binary data application/msword Microsoft Word document application/vnd.ms-excel Microsoft Excel spreadsheet Common MIME types (continued) Type/Subtype audio/x-midi MIDI sound file audio/mpeg MP3 sound file audio/vnd.wav WAV sound file video/mpeg MPEG video file video/x-flv Adobe Flash file Slide 15 Slide 16 Status code summary Number Type Informational Request was received and is being processed Success Request was successful Redirection Further action must be taken to fulfill the request Client errors Client has made a request that contains an error Server errors Server has encountered an error. Status codes Number 200 OK Default status when the response is normal. 301 Moved Permanently Requested resource has been permanently moved. 302 Found Requested resource resides temporarily under a new URL. 400 Bad Request Request could not be understood by the server due to bad syntax. 401 Unauthorized Request requires authentication. Response must include a wwwauthenticate header. 403 Forbidden Access to requested resource has been denied. 302 is used in REDIRECTs (will cover later) Slide 17 Slide 18 3

4 Status codes (continued) Number 404 Not Found Server could not find requested URL. 405 Method Not Allowed Method specified in request line is not allowed for requested URL. 414 Request-URI Too Long Typically caused by trying to pass too much data in a GET request. Usually resolved by converting the GET request to a POST request. 500 Internal Server Error Server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request. Common HTTP response headers cache-control content-disposition content-length content-type Controls when and how a browser caches a page. Can be used to specify the response includes an attached binary file. Specifies the length of the body of the response in bytes. This allows the browser to know when it s done reading the entire response and is necessary for the browser to use a persistent, keep-alive connection. Specifies the MIME type of the response document. Use the maintype/subtype format to specify the MIME type. Slide 19 Slide 20 Common HTTP response headers (continued) content-encoding expires last-modified location pragma refresh www-authenticate Specifies the type of encoding the response uses. Encoding a document with compression such as GZIP can enhance performance. Specifies the time the page should no longer be cached. Specifies the time when the document was last modified. Works with status codes in the 300s to specify the new location of the document. Turns off caching for older browsers when it is set to a value of no-cache. Specifies the number of seconds before the browser should ask for an updated page. Works with the 401 (Unauthorized) status code to specify the authentication type and realm. Slide 21 Values for the cache-control header public private no-cache no-store must-revalidate proxy-revalidate max-age=x s-max-age=x Can be cached in a public, shared cache. Can only be cached in a private, single-user cache. Should never be cached. Should never be cached or stored in a temporary location on the disk. Must be revalidated with the original server each time it is requested. Must be revalidated on the proxy server, not on the original server. Must be revalidated after x seconds for private caches. Must be revalidated after x seconds for shared caches. CS636: Don t worry about cache control: we ll live with default behavior Slide 22 Example of HTTP request/response cycles Old home page of cs636, at URL index.html: <img src = rule10.gif > This is a relative URL, so rule10.gif is at /cs636/f13/rule10.gif in the server s filesystem. What are the HTTP request-response cycles needed to display this index.html page? Request-response cycles: first cycle Browser accesses URL using 2 steps: 1. Connects using TCP to host on Port: 80 (default port for HTTP) 2. Uses HTTP Command: GET /cs636/f13/index.html HTTP/1.1 over that TCP connection, followed by header lines, then blank line to end. Gets response: Status line: HTTP/ OK. Response headers blank line after headers <Contents of index.html> Slide 23 Slide 24 4

5 Request-response cycles: second cycle Browser accesses URL: using 2 steps: 1. Connects using TCP to host on Port: 80 (default port for HTTP) 2. Uses HTTP Command: GET /cs636/f13/rule10.gif HTTP/1.1 over that TCP connection, followed by header lines, then blank line to end. Gets response: Status line: HTTP/ OK. Response headers blank line after headers <Contents of rule10.gif> Note that browser had to reconstitute the full URL from the relative URL it found in the HTML. The server doesn t remember any current directory information (it s stateless ). Communications Diagram User/browser User requests page Browser: parse HTML, issue second GET Browser : Fill in image Server Server: process GET / index.html Server: process GET / rule10.gif Slide 25 Slide 26 Communications Diagram: simple form handling User/browser User requests form page Server Server: process GET / form.html User: fill in form: Browser: put user input into params in POST request User: see response Server: process POST / /doit.jsp Get user input from params, do request, compose response Slide 27 5

Generating the Server Response: HTTP Response Headers

Generating the Server Response: HTTP Response Headers 1 Agenda Format of the HTTP response Setting response headers Understanding what response headers are good for Building Excel spread sheets Generating