


HTTPbis Working Group                                   R. Fielding, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                     Adobe
Obsoletes: 2616 (if approved)                                  J. Gettys
Intended status: Standards Track                          Alcatel-Lucent
Expires: October 20, 2011                                       J. Mogul
                                                                      HP
                                                              H. Frystyk
                                                               Microsoft
                                                             L. Masinter
                                                                   Adobe
                                                                P. Leach
                                                               Microsoft
                                                          T. Berners-Lee
                                                                 W3C/MIT
                                                           Y. Lafon, Ed.
                                                                     W3C
                                                      M. Nottingham, Ed.

                                                         J. Reschke, Ed.
                                                              greenbytes
                                                          April 18, 2011


                       HTTP/1.1, part 6: Caching
                     draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-14

Abstract

   The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level
   protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information
   systems.  This document is Part 6 of the seven-part specification
   that defines the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.1" and, taken
   together, obsoletes RFC 2616.  Part 6 defines requirements on HTTP
   caches and the associated header fields that control cache behavior
   or indicate cacheable response messages.

Editorial Note (To be removed by RFC Editor)

   Discussion of this draft should take place on the HTTPBIS working
   group mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at
   <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/>.

   The current issues list is at
   <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/report/3> and related
   documents (including fancy diffs) can be found at
   <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/>.

   The changes in this draft are summarized in Appendix C.15.



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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
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 20, 2011.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 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
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   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
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   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
   modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     1.1.  Purpose  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5



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     1.2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     1.3.  Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     1.4.  Syntax Notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       1.4.1.  Core Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       1.4.2.  ABNF Rules defined in other Parts of the
               Specification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   2.  Cache Operation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.1.  Response Cacheability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       2.1.1.  Storing Partial and Incomplete Responses . . . . . . .  9
     2.2.  Constructing Responses from Caches . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     2.3.  Freshness Model  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       2.3.1.  Calculating Freshness Lifetime . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       2.3.2.  Calculating Age  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       2.3.3.  Serving Stale Responses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     2.4.  Validation Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     2.5.  Request Methods that Invalidate  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     2.6.  Shared Caching of Authenticated Responses  . . . . . . . . 15
     2.7.  Caching Negotiated Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     2.8.  Combining Responses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   3.  Header Field Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     3.1.  Age  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     3.2.  Cache-Control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       3.2.1.  Request Cache-Control Directives . . . . . . . . . . . 19
       3.2.2.  Response Cache-Control Directives  . . . . . . . . . . 21
       3.2.3.  Cache Control Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     3.3.  Expires  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     3.4.  Pragma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
     3.5.  Vary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     3.6.  Warning  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   4.  History Lists  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   5.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     5.1.  Cache Directive Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     5.2.  Header Field Registration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   7.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
   8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
     8.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
     8.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
   Appendix A.  Changes from RFC 2616 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
   Appendix B.  Collected ABNF  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
   Appendix C.  Change Log (to be removed by RFC Editor before
                publication)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
     C.1.  Since RFC 2616 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
     C.2.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-00 . . . . . . . . . . . 34
     C.3.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-01 . . . . . . . . . . . 35
     C.4.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-02 . . . . . . . . . . . 35
     C.5.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-03 . . . . . . . . . . . 35
     C.6.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-04 . . . . . . . . . . . 35



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     C.7.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-05 . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     C.8.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-06 . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     C.9.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-07 . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     C.10. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-08 . . . . . . . . . . . 37
     C.11. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-09 . . . . . . . . . . . 37
     C.12. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-10 . . . . . . . . . . . 38
     C.13. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-11 . . . . . . . . . . . 38
     C.14. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-12 . . . . . . . . . . . 38
     C.15. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-13 . . . . . . . . . . . 38
   Index  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38









































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1.  Introduction

   HTTP is typically used for distributed information systems, where
   performance can be improved by the use of response caches.  This
   document defines aspects of HTTP/1.1 related to caching and reusing
   response messages.

1.1.  Purpose

   An HTTP cache is a local store of response messages and the subsystem
   that controls its message storage, retrieval, and deletion.  A cache
   stores cacheable responses in order to reduce the response time and
   network bandwidth consumption on future, equivalent requests.  Any
   client or server MAY employ a cache, though a cache cannot be used by
   a server that is acting as a tunnel.

   Caching would be useless if it did not significantly improve
   performance.  The goal of caching in HTTP/1.1 is to reuse a prior
   response message to satisfy a current request.  In some cases, a
   stored response can be reused without the need for a network request,
   reducing latency and network round-trips; a "freshness" mechanism is
   used for this purpose (see Section 2.3).  Even when a new request is
   required, it is often possible to reuse all or parts of the payload
   of a prior response to satisfy the request, thereby reducing network
   bandwidth usage; a "validation" mechanism is used for this purpose
   (see Section 2.4).

1.2.  Terminology

   This specification uses a number of terms to refer to the roles
   played by participants in, and objects of, HTTP caching.

   cache

      A conformant implementation of a HTTP cache.  Note that this
      implies an HTTP/1.1 cache; this specification does not define
      conformance for HTTP/1.0 caches.

   shared cache

      A cache that is accessible to more than one user; usually (but not
      always) deployed as part of an intermediary.

   private cache

      A cache that is dedicated to a single user.





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   cacheable

      A response is cacheable if a cache is allowed to store a copy of
      the response message for use in answering subsequent requests.
      Even when a response is cacheable, there might be additional
      constraints on whether a cache can use the stored copy to satisfy
      a particular request.

   explicit expiration time

      The time at which the origin server intends that a representation
      no longer be returned by a cache without further validation.

   heuristic expiration time

      An expiration time assigned by a cache when no explicit expiration
      time is available.

   age

      The age of a response is the time since it was sent by, or
      successfully validated with, the origin server.

   first-hand

      A response is first-hand if the freshness model is not in use;
      i.e., its age is 0.

   freshness lifetime

      The length of time between the generation of a response and its
      expiration time.

   fresh

      A response is fresh if its age has not yet exceeded its freshness
      lifetime.

   stale

      A response is stale if its age has passed its freshness lifetime
      (either explicit or heuristic).

   validator

      A protocol element (e.g., an entity-tag or a Last-Modified time)
      that is used to find out whether a stored response is an
      equivalent copy of a representation.



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1.3.  Requirements

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

   An implementation is not compliant if it fails to satisfy one or more
   of the "MUST" or "REQUIRED" level requirements for the protocols it
   implements.  An implementation that satisfies all the "MUST" or
   "REQUIRED" level and all the "SHOULD" level requirements for its
   protocols is said to be "unconditionally compliant"; one that
   satisfies all the "MUST" level requirements but not all the "SHOULD"
   level requirements for its protocols is said to be "conditionally
   compliant".

1.4.  Syntax Notation

   This specification uses the ABNF syntax defined in Section 1.2 of
   [Part1] (which extends the syntax defined in [RFC5234] with a list
   rule).  Appendix B shows the collected ABNF, with the list rule
   expanded.

   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), LF (line feed), OCTET (any 8-bit
   sequence of data), SP (space), VCHAR (any visible USASCII character),
   and WSP (whitespace).

1.4.1.  Core Rules

   The core rules below are defined in Section 1.2.2 of [Part1]:

     quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
     token         = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
     OWS           = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

1.4.2.  ABNF Rules defined in other Parts of the Specification

   The ABNF rules below are defined in other parts:

     field-name    = <field-name, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2>
     HTTP-date     = <HTTP-date, defined in [Part1], Section 6.1>
     port          = <port, defined in [Part1], Section 2.6>
     pseudonym     = <pseudonym, defined in [Part1], Section 9.9>
     uri-host      = <uri-host, defined in [Part1], Section 2.6>





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2.  Cache Operation

2.1.  Response Cacheability

   A cache MUST NOT store a response to any request, unless:

   o  The request method is understood by the cache and defined as being
      cacheable, and

   o  the response status code is understood by the cache, and

   o  the "no-store" cache directive (see Section 3.2) does not appear
      in request or response header fields, and

   o  the "private" cache response directive (see Section 3.2.2 does not
      appear in the response, if the cache is shared, and

   o  the "Authorization" header field (see Section 4.1 of [Part7]) does
      not appear in the request, if the cache is shared, unless the
      response explicitly allows it (see Section 2.6), and

   o  the response either:

      *  contains an Expires header field (see Section 3.3), or

      *  contains a max-age response cache directive (see
         Section 3.2.2), or

      *  contains a s-maxage response cache directive and the cache is
         shared, or

      *  contains a Cache Control Extension (see Section 3.2.3) that
         allows it to be cached, or

      *  has a status code that can be served with heuristic freshness
         (see Section 2.3.1.1).

   In this context, a cache has "understood" a request method or a
   response status code if it recognises it and implements any cache-
   specific behaviour.  In particular, 206 Partial Content responses
   cannot be cached by an implementation that does not handle partial
   content (see Section 2.1.1).

   Note that in normal operation, most 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.




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2.1.1.  Storing Partial and Incomplete Responses

   A cache that receives an incomplete response (for example, with fewer
   bytes of data than specified in a Content-Length header field) can
   store the response, but MUST treat it as a partial response [Part5].
   Partial responses can be combined as described in Section 4 of
   [Part5]; the result might be a full response or might still be
   partial.  A cache MUST NOT return a partial response to a client
   without explicitly marking it as such using the 206 (Partial Content)
   status code.

   A cache that does not support the Range and Content-Range header
   fields MUST NOT store incomplete or partial responses.

2.2.  Constructing Responses from Caches

   For a presented request, a cache MUST NOT return a stored response,
   unless:

   o  The presented effective request URI (Section 4.3 of [Part1]) 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 2.7), and

   o  the presented request and stored response are free from directives
      that would prevent its use (see Section 3.2 and Section 3.4), and

   o  the stored response is either:

      *  fresh (see Section 2.3), or

      *  allowed to be served stale (see Section 2.3.3), or

      *  successfully validated (see Section 2.4).

   When a stored response is used to satisfy a request without
   validation, a cache MUST include a single Age header field
   (Section 3.1) in the response with a value equal to the stored
   response's current_age; see Section 2.3.2.

   A cache MUST write through requests with methods that are unsafe
   (Section 7.1.1 of [Part2]) to the origin server; i.e., a cache must
   not generate a reply to such a request before having forwarded the
   request and having received a corresponding response.



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   Also, note that unsafe requests might invalidate already stored
   responses; see Section 2.5.

   A cache MUST use the most recent response (as determined by the Date
   header field) when more than one suitable response is stored.  It can
   also forward a 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 on every use.  A cache,
   especially a shared cache, SHOULD use a mechanism, such as NTP
   [RFC1305], to synchronize its clock with a reliable external
   standard.

2.3.  Freshness Model

   When a response is "fresh" in the cache, it can be used to satisfy
   subsequent requests without contacting the origin server, thereby
   improving efficiency.

   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 3.3) or the max-age response
   cache directive (Section 3.2.2).  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 the cached response before reusing it for
   subsequent requests (see Section 2.3.3).

   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.

   The calculation to determine if a response is fresh is:

      response_is_fresh = (freshness_lifetime > current_age)

   The freshness_lifetime is defined in Section 2.3.1; the current_age
   is defined in Section 2.3.2.




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   Additionally, clients might need to influence freshness calculation.
   They can do this using several request cache directives, with the
   effect of either increasing or loosening constraints on freshness.
   See Section 3.2.1.

   [[ISSUE-no-req-for-directives: there are not requirements directly
   applying to cache-request-directives and freshness.]]

   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 4 for an explanation of the difference between
   caches and history mechanisms.

2.3.1.  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 cache directive
      (Section 3.2.2) is present, use its value, or

   o  If the max-age response cache directive (Section 3.2.2) is
      present, use its value, or

   o  If the Expires response header field (Section 3.3) 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 2.3.1.1.

   Note that this calculation is not vulnerable to clock skew, since all
   of the information comes from the origin server.

2.3.1.1.  Calculating Heuristic Freshness

   If no explicit expiration time is present in a stored response that
   has a status code whose definition allows heuristic freshness to be
   used (including the following in Section 8 of [Part2]: 200, 203, 206,
   300, 301 and 410), a cache MAY calculate a heuristic expiration time.
   A cache MUST NOT use heuristics to determine freshness for responses
   with status codes that do not explicitly allow it.

   When a heuristic is used to calculate freshness lifetime, a cache
   SHOULD attach a Warning header field with a 113 warn-code to the
   response if its current_age is more than 24 hours and such a warning
   is not already present.




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   Also, if the response has a Last-Modified header field (Section 2.1
   of [Part4]), a cache SHOULD NOT use a heuristic expiration value that
   is more than some fraction of the interval since that time.  A
   typical setting of this fraction might be 10%.

      Note: RFC 2616 ([RFC2616], Section 13.9) required that caches do
      not calculate heuristic freshness for URIs with query components
      (i.e., those containing '?').  In practice, this has not been
      widely implemented.  Therefore, servers are encouraged to send
      explicit directives (e.g., Cache-Control: no-cache) if they wish
      to preclude caching.

2.3.2.  Calculating Age

   HTTP/1.1 uses the Age header field to convey the estimated age of the
   response message when obtained from a cache.  The Age field value is
   the cache's estimate of the amount of time since the response was
   generated or validated by the origin server.  In essence, the Age
   value is 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
   amount of time it has been in transit along network paths.

   The following data is used for the age calculation:

   age_value

      The term "age_value" denotes the value of the Age header field
      (Section 3.1), in a form appropriate for arithmetic operation; or
      0, if not available.

   date_value

      HTTP/1.1 requires origin servers to send a Date header field, if
      possible, with every response, giving the time at which the
      response was generated.  The term "date_value" denotes the value
      of the Date header field, in a form appropriate for arithmetic
      operations.  See Section 9.3 of [Part1] 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
      performing the calculation".  A cache SHOULD use NTP ([RFC1305])
      or some similar protocol to synchronize its clocks to a globally
      accurate time standard.





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   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.  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);

   The current_age of a stored response can then be calculated by adding
   the amount of 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;

2.3.3.  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 2.3.

   A cache MUST NOT return 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



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   applicable "s-maxage" or "proxy-revalidate" cache-response-directive;
   see Section 3.2.2).

   A cache SHOULD NOT return stale responses unless it is disconnected
   (i.e., it cannot contact the origin server or otherwise find a
   forward path) or doing so is explicitly allowed (e.g., by the max-
   stale request directive; see Section 3.2.1).

   A cache SHOULD append a Warning header field with the 110 warn-code
   (see Section 3.6) to stale responses.  Likewise, a cache SHOULD add
   the 112 warn-code to stale responses if the cache is disconnected.

   If a cache receives a first-hand response (either an entire response,
   or a 304 (Not Modified) response) that it would normally forward to
   the requesting client, and the received response is no longer fresh,
   the cache SHOULD forward it to the requesting client without adding a
   new Warning (but without removing any existing Warning header
   fields).  A cache SHOULD NOT attempt to validate a response simply
   because that response became stale in transit.

2.4.  Validation Model

   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 2.7), it can use the conditional
   request mechanism [Part4] in the forwarded request to give the origin
   server an opportunity to both select a valid stored response to be
   used, and to update it.  This process is known as "validating" or
   "revalidating" the stored response.

   When sending such a conditional request, a cache SHOULD add an If-
   Modified-Since header field whose value is that of the Last-Modified
   header field from the selected (see Section 2.7) stored response, if
   available.

   Additionally, a cache SHOULD add an If-None-Match header field whose
   value is that of the ETag header field(s) from all responses stored
   for the requested URI, if present.  However, if any of the stored
   responses contains only partial content, the cache SHOULD NOT include
   its entity-tag in the If-None-Match header field unless the request
   is for a range that would be fully satisfied by that stored response.

   A 304 (Not Modified) response status code indicates that the stored
   response can be updated and reused; see Section 2.8.

   A full response (i.e., one with a response body) indicates that none
   of the stored responses nominated in the conditional request is
   suitable.  Instead, a cache SHOULD use the full response to satisfy



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   the request and MAY replace the stored response.

   If a cache receives a 5xx response while attempting to validate a
   response, it MAY either forward this response to the requesting
   client, or act as if the server failed to respond.  In the latter
   case, it MAY return a previously stored response (see Section 2.3.3).

2.5.  Request Methods that Invalidate

   Because unsafe request methods (Section 7.1.1 of [Part2]) have the
   potential for changing state on the origin server, intervening caches
   can use them to keep their contents up-to-date.

   A cache MUST invalidate the effective Request URI (Section 4.3 of
   [Part1]) as well as the URI(s) in the Location and Content-Location
   header fields (if present) when the following request methods are
   received:

   o  PUT

   o  DELETE

   o  POST

   However, a cache MUST NOT invalidate a URI from a Location or
   Content-Location header field if the host part of that URI differs
   from the host part in the effective request URI (Section 4.3 of
   [Part1]).  This helps prevent denial of service attacks.

   A cache that passes through requests with methods it does not
   understand SHOULD invalidate the effective request URI (Section 4.3
   of [Part1]).

   Here, "invalidate" means that the cache will either remove all stored
   responses related to the effective request URI, or will mark these as
   "invalid" and in need of a mandatory validation before they can be
   returned in response to a subsequent request.

   Note that this does not guarantee that all appropriate responses are
   invalidated.  For example, the request that caused the change at the
   origin server might not have gone through the cache where a response
   is stored.

2.6.  Shared Caching of Authenticated Responses

   A shared cache MUST NOT use a cached response to a request with an
   Authorization header field (Section 4.1 of [Part7]) to satisfy any
   subsequent request unless a cache directive that allows such



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   responses to be stored is present in the response.

   In this specification, the following Cache-Control response
   directives (Section 3.2.2) have such an effect: must-revalidate,
   public, s-maxage.

   Note that cached responses that contain the "must-revalidate" and/or
   "s-maxage" response directives are not allowed to be served stale
   (Section 2.3.3) by shared caches.  In particular, a response with
   either "max-age=0, must-revalidate" or "s-maxage=0" cannot be used to
   satisfy a subsequent request without revalidating it on the origin
   server.

2.7.  Caching Negotiated Responses

   When a cache receives a request that can be satisfied by a stored
   response that has a Vary header field (Section 3.5), it MUST NOT use
   that response unless all of 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 the following:

   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 3.2 of [Part1])

   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., re-ordering field values when order is not
      significant; case-normalization, where values are defined to be
      case-insensitive)

   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 of "*" always fails to match, and
   subsequent requests to that resource can only be properly interpreted
   by the origin server.

   The stored response with matching selecting header fields is known as
   the selected response.




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   If no selected response is available, the cache MAY forward the
   presented request to the origin server in a conditional request; see
   Section 2.4.

2.8.  Combining Responses

   When a cache receives a 304 (Not Modified) response or a 206 (Partial
   Content) response (in this section, the "new" response"), it needs to
   create an updated response by combining the stored response with the
   new one, so that the updated response can be used to satisfy the
   request, and potentially update the cached response.

   If the new response contains an ETag, it identifies the stored
   response to use.  [[TODO-mention-CL: might need language about
   Content-Location here]][[TODO-select-for-combine: Shouldn't this be
   the selected response?]]

   When the new response's status code is 206 (partial content), a cache
   MUST NOT combine it with the old response if either response does not
   have a validator, and MUST NOT combine it with the old response when
   those validators do not match with the strong comparison function
   (see Section 2.2.2 of [Part4]).

   The stored response header fields are used as those of the updated
   response, except that

   o  a cache MUST delete any stored Warning header fields with warn-
      code 1xx (see Section 3.6).

   o  a cache MUST retain any stored Warning header fields with warn-
      code 2xx.

   o  a cache MUST use other header fields provided in the new response
      to replace all instances of the corresponding header fields from
      the stored response.

   A cache MUST use the updated response header fields to replace those
   of the stored response (unless the stored response is removed).  In
   the case of a 206 response, a cache MAY store the combined
   representation.

3.  Header Field Definitions

   This section defines the syntax and semantics of HTTP/1.1 header
   fields related to caching.






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3.1.  Age

   The "Age" header field conveys the sender's estimate of the amount of
   time since the response was generated or successfully validated at
   the origin server.  Age values are calculated as specified in
   Section 2.3.2.

     Age = delta-seconds

   Age field-values are non-negative integers, representing time in
   seconds.

     delta-seconds  = 1*DIGIT

   If a cache receives a value larger than the largest positive integer
   it can represent, or if any of its age calculations overflows, it
   MUST transmit an Age header field with a field-value of 2147483648
   (2^31).  Recipients parsing the Age header field-value SHOULD use an
   arithmetic type of at least 31 bits of range.

   The presence of an Age header field in a response implies that a
   response is not first-hand.  However, the converse is not true, since
   HTTP/1.0 caches might not implement the Age header field.

3.2.  Cache-Control

   The "Cache-Control" header field is used to specify 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 to be given in the response.

   A cache MUST obey the requirements of the Cache-Control directives
   defined in this section.  See Section 3.2.3 for information about how
   Cache-Control directives defined elsewhere are handled.

      Note: HTTP/1.0 caches might not implement Cache-Control and might
      only implement Pragma: no-cache (see Section 3.4).

   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 be
   applicable to all recipients along the request/response chain.  It is
   not possible to target a directive to a specific cache.








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     Cache-Control   = 1#cache-directive

     cache-directive = cache-request-directive
        / cache-response-directive

     cache-extension = token [ "=" ( token / quoted-string ) ]

3.2.1.  Request Cache-Control Directives

     cache-request-directive =
          "no-cache"
        / "no-store"
        / "max-age" "=" delta-seconds
        / "max-stale" [ "=" delta-seconds ]
        / "min-fresh" "=" delta-seconds
        / "no-transform"
        / "only-if-cached"
        / cache-extension

   no-cache

      The no-cache request directive indicates that a cache MUST NOT use
      a stored response to satisfy the request without successful
      validation on the origin server.

   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.

      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.

   max-age

      The max-age request directive indicates that the client is willing
      to accept a response whose age is no greater than the specified



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      time in seconds.  Unless the max-stale request directive is also
      present, the client is not willing to accept a stale response.

   max-stale

      The max-stale request directive indicates that the client is
      willing to accept a response that has exceeded its expiration
      time.  If max-stale is assigned a value, then the client is
      willing to accept a response that has exceeded its expiration time
      by no more than the specified number of seconds.  If no value is
      assigned to max-stale, then the client is willing to accept a
      stale response of any age.

   min-fresh

      The min-fresh request directive indicates that the client is
      willing to accept 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.

   no-transform

      The no-transform request directive indicates that an intermediary
      (whether or not it implements a cache) MUST NOT change the
      Content-Encoding, Content-Range or Content-Type request header
      fields, nor the request representation.

   only-if-cached

      The only-if-cached request directive indicates that the client
      only wishes to return a stored response.  If it receives this
      directive, a cache SHOULD either respond using a stored response
      that is consistent with the other constraints of the request, or
      respond with a 504 (Gateway Timeout) status code.  If a group of
      caches is being operated as a unified system with good internal
      connectivity, a member cache MAY forward such a request within
      that group of caches.













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3.2.2.  Response Cache-Control Directives

     cache-response-directive =
          "public"
        / "private" [ "=" DQUOTE 1#field-name DQUOTE ]
        / "no-cache" [ "=" DQUOTE 1#field-name DQUOTE ]
        / "no-store"
        / "no-transform"
        / "must-revalidate"
        / "proxy-revalidate"
        / "max-age" "=" delta-seconds
        / "s-maxage" "=" delta-seconds
        / cache-extension

   public

      The public response directive indicates that a response whose
      associated request contains an 'Authentication' header MAY be
      stored (see Section 2.6).

   private

      The private response directive indicates that the response message
      is intended for a single user and MUST NOT be stored by a shared
      cache.  A private cache MAY store the response.

      If the private response directive specifies one or more field-
      names, this requirement is limited to the field-values associated
      with the listed response header fields.  That is, a shared cache
      MUST NOT store the specified field-names(s), whereas it MAY store
      the remainder of the response message.

      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, private response directives with field-
      names are often handled by implementations as if an unqualified
      private directive was received; i.e., the special handling for the
      qualified form is not widely implemented.

   no-cache

      The no-cache response directive indicates that the response MUST
      NOT be used to satisfy a subsequent request without successful
      validation on the origin server.  This allows an origin server to
      prevent a cache from using it to satisfy a request without
      contacting it, even by caches that have been configured to return
      stale responses.




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      If the no-cache response directive specifies one or more field-
      names, this requirement is limited to the field-values associated
      with the listed response header fields.  That is, a cache MUST NOT
      send the specified field-name(s) in the response to a subsequent
      request without successful validation on the origin server.  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.

      Note: Most HTTP/1.0 caches will not recognize or obey this
      directive.  Also, no-cache response directives with field-names
      are often handled by implementations as if an unqualified no-cache
      directive was received; i.e., the special handling for the
      qualified form is not widely implemented.

   no-store

      The no-store response directive indicates that a cache MUST NOT
      store any part of either the immediate request or response.  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.

   must-revalidate

      The must-revalidate response directive indicates that once it has
      become stale, a cache MUST NOT use the response to satisfy
      subsequent requests without successful validation on the origin
      server.

      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 cannot reach the origin server for any reason, it MUST
      generate a 504 (Gateway Timeout) response.

      A server SHOULD send the must-revalidate directive if and only if
      failure to validate a request on the representation could result
      in incorrect operation, such as a silently unexecuted financial
      transaction.




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   proxy-revalidate

      The proxy-revalidate response directive has the same meaning as
      the must-revalidate response directive, except that it does not
      apply to private caches.

   max-age

      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.

   s-maxage

      The s-maxage response directive indicates that, in shared caches,
      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 also implies the semantics
      of the proxy-revalidate response directive.

   no-transform

      The no-transform response directive indicates that an intermediary
      (regardless of whether it implements a cache) MUST NOT change the
      Content-Encoding, Content-Range or Content-Type response header
      fields, nor the response representation.

3.2.3.  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.
   Informational extensions (those that do not require a change in cache
   behavior) can be added without changing the semantics of other
   directives.  Behavioral extensions are designed to work by acting as
   modifiers to the existing base of cache directives.  Both the new
   directive and the standard directive are supplied, such that
   applications that do not understand the new directive will default to
   the behavior specified by the standard directive, and those that
   understand the new directive will recognize it as modifying the
   requirements associated with the standard directive.  In this way,
   extensions to the cache-control directives can be made without
   requiring changes to the base protocol.

   This extension mechanism depends on an HTTP cache obeying all of the
   cache-control directives defined for its native HTTP-version, obeying
   certain extensions, and ignoring all directives that it does not
   understand.




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   For example, consider a hypothetical new response directive called
   "community" that acts as a modifier to the private directive.  We
   define this new directive to mean that, in addition to any private
   cache, any cache that is shared only by members of the community
   named within its value may 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 seeing this header field will act correctly even if the cache
   does not understand the community cache-extension, since it will also
   see and understand the private directive and thus default to the safe
   behavior.

   A cache MUST be ignore unrecognized cache directives; it is assumed
   that any cache directive likely to be unrecognized by an HTTP/1.1
   cache will be combined with standard directives (or the response's
   default cacheability) such that the cache behavior will remain
   minimally correct even if the cache does not understand the
   extension(s).

   The HTTP Cache Directive Registry defines the name space for the
   cache directives.

   A registration MUST include the following fields:

   o  Cache Directive Name

   o  Pointer to specification text

   Values to be added to this name space are subject to IETF review
   ([RFC5226], Section 4.1).

   The registry itself is maintained at
   <http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-cache-directives>.

3.3.  Expires

   The "Expires" header field gives the date/time after which the
   response is considered stale.  See Section 2.3 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 field-value is an absolute date and time as defined by HTTP-date



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   in Section 6.1 of [Part1]; a sender MUST use the rfc1123-date format.

     Expires = HTTP-date

   For example

     Expires: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 16:00:00 GMT

      Note: If a response includes a Cache-Control field with the max-
      age directive (see Section 3.2.2), that directive overrides the
      Expires field.  Likewise, the s-maxage directive overrides Expires
      in shared caches.

   A server SHOULD NOT send Expires dates more than one year in the
   future.

   A cache MUST treat other invalid date formats, especially including
   the value "0", as in the past (i.e., "already expired").

3.4.  Pragma

   The "Pragma" header field is used to include implementation-specific
   directives that might apply to any recipient along the request/
   response chain.  All pragma directives specify optional behavior from
   the viewpoint of the protocol; however, some systems MAY require that
   behavior be consistent with the directives.

     Pragma           = 1#pragma-directive
     pragma-directive = "no-cache" / extension-pragma
     extension-pragma = token [ "=" ( token / quoted-string ) ]

   When the no-cache directive is present in a request message, a cache
   SHOULD forward the request toward the origin server even if it has a
   stored copy of what is being requested.  This pragma directive has
   the same semantics as the no-cache response directive (see
   Section 3.2.2) and is defined here for backward compatibility with
   HTTP/1.0.  A client SHOULD include both header fields when a no-cache
   request is sent to a server not known to be HTTP/1.1 compliant.  A
   cache SHOULD treat "Pragma: no-cache" as if the client had sent
   "Cache-Control: no-cache".

      Note: Because the meaning of "Pragma: no-cache" as a header field
      is not actually specified, it does not provide a reliable
      replacement for "Cache-Control: no-cache" in a response.

   This mechanism is deprecated; no new Pragma directives will be
   defined in HTTP.




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3.5.  Vary

   The "Vary" header field conveys the set of header fields that were
   used to select the representation.

   Caches use this information, in part, to determine whether a stored
   response can be used to satisfy a given request; see Section 2.7.
   determines, while the response is fresh, whether a cache is permitted
   to use the response to reply to a subsequent request without
   validation; see Section 2.7.

   In uncacheable or stale responses, the Vary field value advises the
   user agent about the criteria that were used to select the
   representation.

     Vary = "*" / 1#field-name

   The set of header fields named by the Vary field value is known as
   the selecting header fields.

   A server SHOULD include a Vary header field with any cacheable
   response that is subject to server-driven negotiation.  Doing so
   allows a cache to properly interpret future requests on that resource
   and informs the user agent about the presence of negotiation on that
   resource.  A server MAY include a Vary header field with a non-
   cacheable response that is subject to server-driven negotiation,
   since this might provide the user agent with useful information about
   the dimensions over which the response varies at the time of the
   response.

   A Vary field value of "*" signals that unspecified parameters not
   limited to the header fields (e.g., the network address of the
   client), play a role in the selection of the response representation;
   therefore, a cache cannot determine whether this response is
   appropriate.  A proxy MUST NOT generate the "*" value.

   The field-names given are not limited to the set of standard header
   fields defined by this specification.  Field names are case-
   insensitive.

3.6.  Warning

   The "Warning" header field is used to carry additional information
   about the status or transformation of a message that might not be
   reflected in the message.  This information is typically used to warn
   about possible incorrectness introduced by caching operations or
   transformations applied to the payload of the message.




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   Warnings can be used for other purposes, both cache-related and
   otherwise.  The use of a warning, rather than an error status code,
   distinguishes these responses from true failures.

   Warning header fields can in general be applied to any message,
   however some warn-codes are specific to caches and can only be
   applied to response messages.

     Warning       = 1#warning-value

     warning-value = warn-code SP warn-agent SP warn-text
                                           [SP warn-date]

     warn-code  = 3DIGIT
     warn-agent = ( uri-host [ ":" port ] ) / pseudonym
                     ; the name or pseudonym of the server adding
                     ; the Warning header field, for use in debugging
     warn-text  = quoted-string
     warn-date  = DQUOTE HTTP-date DQUOTE

   Multiple warnings can be attached to a response (either by the origin
   server or by a cache), including multiple warnings with the same code
   number, only differing in warn-text.

   When this occurs, the user agent SHOULD inform the user of as many of
   them as possible, in the order that they appear in the response.

   Systems that generate multiple Warning header fields SHOULD order
   them with this user agent behavior in mind.  New Warning header
   fields SHOULD be added after any existing Warning headers fields.

   Warnings are assigned three digit warn-codes.  The first digit
   indicates whether the Warning is required to be deleted from a stored
   response after validation:

   o  1xx Warnings describe the freshness or validation status of the
      response, and so MUST be deleted by a cache after validation.
      They can only be generated by a cache when validating a cached
      entry, and MUST NOT be generated in any other situation.

   o  2xx Warnings describe some aspect of the representation that is
      not rectified by a validation (for example, a lossy compression of
      the representation) and MUST NOT be deleted by a cache after
      validation, unless a full response is returned, in which case they
      MUST be.

   If an implementation sends a message with one or more Warning header
   fields to a receiver whose version is HTTP/1.0 or lower, then the



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   sender MUST include in each warning-value a warn-date that matches
   the Date header field in the message.

   If a system receives a message with a warning-value that includes a
   warn-date, and that warn-date is different from the Date value in the
   response, then that warning-value MUST be deleted from the message
   before storing, forwarding, or using it. (preventing the consequences
   of naive caching of Warning header fields.)  If all of the warning-
   values are deleted for this reason, the Warning header field MUST be
   deleted as well.

   The following warn-codes are defined by this specification, each with
   a recommended warn-text in English, and a description of its meaning.

   110 Response is stale

      A cache SHOULD include this whenever the returned response is
      stale.

   111 Revalidation failed

      A cache SHOULD include this when returning a stale response
      because an attempt to validate the response failed, due to an
      inability to reach the server.

   112 Disconnected operation

      A cache SHOULD b include this if it is intentionally disconnected
      from the rest of the network for a period of time.

   113 Heuristic expiration

      A cache SHOULD include this if it heuristically chose a freshness
      lifetime greater than 24 hours and the response's age is greater
      than 24 hours.

   199 Miscellaneous warning

      The warning text can include arbitrary information to be presented
      to a human user, or logged.  A system receiving this warning MUST
      NOT take any automated action, besides presenting the warning to
      the user.

   214 Transformation applied

      MUST be added by a proxy if it applies any transformation to the
      representation, such as changing the content-coding, media-type,
      or modifying the representation data, unless this Warning code



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      already appears in the response.

   299 Miscellaneous persistent warning

      The warning text can include arbitrary information to be presented
      to a human user, or logged.  A system receiving this warning MUST
      NOT take any automated action.

4.  History Lists

   User agents often have history mechanisms, such as "Back" buttons and
   history lists, that can be used to redisplay a representation
   retrieved earlier in a session.

   The freshness model (Section 2.3) does not necessarily apply to
   history mechanisms.  I.e., a history mechanism can display a previous
   representation even if it has expired.

   This does not prohibit the history mechanism from telling the user
   that a view might be stale, or from honoring cache directives (e.g.,
   Cache-Control: no-store).

5.  IANA Considerations

5.1.  Cache Directive Registry

   The registration procedure for HTTP Cache Directives is defined by
   Section 3.2.3 of this document.

   The HTTP Cache Directive Registry shall be created at
   <http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-cache-directives> and be
   populated with the registrations below:



















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   +------------------------+------------------------------+
   | Cache Directive        | Reference                    |
   +------------------------+------------------------------+
   | max-age                | Section 3.2.1, Section 3.2.2 |
   | max-stale              | Section 3.2.1                |
   | min-fresh              | Section 3.2.1                |
   | must-revalidate        | Section 3.2.2                |
   | no-cache               | Section 3.2.1, Section 3.2.2 |
   | no-store               | Section 3.2.1, Section 3.2.2 |
   | no-transform           | Section 3.2.1, Section 3.2.2 |
   | only-if-cached         | Section 3.2.1                |
   | private                | Section 3.2.2                |
   | proxy-revalidate       | Section 3.2.2                |
   | public                 | Section 3.2.2                |
   | s-maxage               | Section 3.2.2                |
   | stale-if-error         | [RFC5861], Section 4         |
   | stale-while-revalidate | [RFC5861], Section 3         |
   +------------------------+------------------------------+

5.2.  Header Field Registration

   The Message Header Field Registry located at <http://www.iana.org/
   assignments/message-headers/message-header-index.html> shall be
   updated with the permanent registrations below (see [RFC3864]):

   +-------------------+----------+----------+-------------+
   | Header Field Name | Protocol | Status   | Reference   |
   +-------------------+----------+----------+-------------+
   | Age               | http     | standard | Section 3.1 |
   | Cache-Control     | http     | standard | Section 3.2 |
   | Expires           | http     | standard | Section 3.3 |
   | Pragma            | http     | standard | Section 3.4 |
   | Vary              | http     | standard | Section 3.5 |
   | Warning           | http     | standard | Section 3.6 |
   +-------------------+----------+----------+-------------+

   The change controller is: "IETF (iesg@ietf.org) - Internet
   Engineering Task Force".

6.  Security Considerations

   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.



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7.  Acknowledgments

   Much of the content and presentation of the caching design is due to
   suggestions and comments from individuals including: Shel Kaphan,
   Paul Leach, Koen Holtman, David Morris, and Larry Masinter.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [Part1]    Fielding, R., Ed., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Ed.,
              and J. Reschke, Ed., "HTTP/1.1, part 1: URIs, Connections,
              and Message Parsing", draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-14
              (work in progress), April 2011.

   [Part2]    Fielding, R., Ed., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Ed.,
              and J. Reschke, Ed., "HTTP/1.1, part 2: Message
              Semantics", draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-14 (work in
              progress), April 2011.

   [Part4]    Fielding, R., Ed., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Ed.,
              and J. Reschke, Ed., "HTTP/1.1, part 4: Conditional
              Requests", draft-ietf-httpbis-p4-conditional-14 (work in
              progress), April 2011.

   [Part5]    Fielding, R., Ed., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Ed.,
              and J. Reschke, Ed., "HTTP/1.1, part 5: Range Requests and
              Partial Responses", draft-ietf-httpbis-p5-range-14 (work
              in progress), April 2011.

   [Part7]    Fielding, R., Ed., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Ed.,
              and J. Reschke, Ed., "HTTP/1.1, part 7: Authentication",
              draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-14 (work in progress),
              April 2011.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
              Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.






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8.2.  Informative References

   [RFC1305]  Mills, D., "Network Time Protocol (Version 3)
              Specification, Implementation", RFC 1305, March 1992.

   [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, June 1999.

   [RFC3864]  Klyne, G., Nottingham, M., and J. Mogul, "Registration
              Procedures for Message Header Fields", BCP 90, RFC 3864,
              September 2004.

   [RFC5226]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              May 2008.

   [RFC5861]  Nottingham, M., "HTTP Cache-Control Extensions for Stale
              Content", RFC 5861, April 2010.

Appendix A.  Changes from RFC 2616

   Make the specified age calculation algorithm less conservative.
   (Section 2.3.2)

   Remove requirement to consider Content-Location in successful
   responses in order to determine the appropriate response to use.
   (Section 2.4)

   Clarify denial of service attack avoidance requirement.
   (Section 2.5)

   Change ABNF productions for header fields to only define the field
   value.  (Section 3)

   Do not mention RFC 2047 encoding and multiple languages in Warning
   header fields anymore, as these aspects never were implemented.
   (Section 3.6)

Appendix B.  Collected ABNF

   Age = delta-seconds

   Cache-Control = *( "," OWS ) cache-directive *( OWS "," [ OWS
    cache-directive ] )

   Expires = HTTP-date




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   HTTP-date = <HTTP-date, defined in [Part1], Section 6.1>

   OWS = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

   Pragma = *( "," OWS ) pragma-directive *( OWS "," [ OWS
    pragma-directive ] )

   Vary = "*" / ( *( "," OWS ) field-name *( OWS "," [ OWS field-name ]
    ) )

   Warning = *( "," OWS ) warning-value *( OWS "," [ OWS warning-value ]
    )

   cache-directive = cache-request-directive / cache-response-directive
   cache-extension = token [ "=" ( token / quoted-string ) ]
   cache-request-directive = "no-cache" / "no-store" / ( "max-age="
    delta-seconds ) / ( "max-stale" [ "=" delta-seconds ] ) / (
    "min-fresh=" delta-seconds ) / "no-transform" / "only-if-cached" /
    cache-extension
   cache-response-directive = "public" / ( "private" [ "=" DQUOTE *( ","
    OWS ) field-name *( OWS "," [ OWS field-name ] ) DQUOTE ] ) / (
    "no-cache" [ "=" DQUOTE *( "," OWS ) field-name *( OWS "," [ OWS
    field-name ] ) DQUOTE ] ) / "no-store" / "no-transform" /
    "must-revalidate" / "proxy-revalidate" / ( "max-age=" delta-seconds
    ) / ( "s-maxage=" delta-seconds ) / cache-extension

   delta-seconds = 1*DIGIT

   extension-pragma = token [ "=" ( token / quoted-string ) ]

   field-name = <field-name, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2>

   port = <port, defined in [Part1], Section 2.6>
   pragma-directive = "no-cache" / extension-pragma
   pseudonym = <pseudonym, defined in [Part1], Section 9.9>

   quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

   token = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

   uri-host = <uri-host, defined in [Part1], Section 2.6>

   warn-agent = ( uri-host [ ":" port ] ) / pseudonym
   warn-code = 3DIGIT
   warn-date = DQUOTE HTTP-date DQUOTE
   warn-text = quoted-string
   warning-value = warn-code SP warn-agent SP warn-text [ SP warn-date
    ]



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   ABNF diagnostics:

   ; Age defined but not used
   ; Cache-Control defined but not used
   ; Expires defined but not used
   ; Pragma defined but not used
   ; Vary defined but not used
   ; Warning defined but not used

Appendix C.  Change Log (to be removed by RFC Editor before publication)

C.1.  Since RFC 2616

   Extracted relevant partitions from [RFC2616].

C.2.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-00

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/9>: "Trailer"
      (<http://purl.org/NET/http-errata#trailer-hop>)

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/12>: "Invalidation
      after Update or Delete"
      (<http://purl.org/NET/http-errata#invalidupd>)

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/35>: "Normative and
      Informative references"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/48>: "Date reference
      typo"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/49>: "Connection
      header text"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/65>: "Informative
      references"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/66>: "ISO-8859-1
      Reference"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/86>: "Normative up-
      to-date references"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/87>: "typo in
      13.2.2"

   Other changes:



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   o  Use names of RFC4234 core rules DQUOTE and HTAB (work in progress
      on <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36>)

C.3.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-01

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/82>: "rel_path not
      used"

   Other changes:

   o  Get rid of duplicate BNF rule names ("host" -> "uri-host") (work
      in progress on <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36>)

   o  Add explicit references to BNF syntax and rules imported from
      other parts of the specification.

C.4.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-02

   Ongoing work on IANA Message Header Field Registration
   (<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/40>):

   o  Reference RFC 3984, and update header field registrations for
      header fields defined in this document.

C.5.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-03

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/106>: "Vary header
      classification"

C.6.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-04

   Ongoing work on ABNF conversion
   (<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36>):

   o  Use "/" instead of "|" for alternatives.

   o  Introduce new ABNF rules for "bad" whitespace ("BWS"), optional
      whitespace ("OWS") and required whitespace ("RWS").

   o  Rewrite ABNFs to spell out whitespace rules, factor out header
      field value format definitions.






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C.7.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-05

   This is a total rewrite of this part of the specification.

   Affected issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/54>: "Definition of
      1xx Warn-Codes"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/60>: "Placement of
      13.5.1 and 13.5.2"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/138>: "The role of
      Warning and Semantic Transparency in Caching"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/139>: "Methods and
      Caching"

   In addition: Final work on ABNF conversion
   (<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36>):

   o  Add appendix containing collected and expanded ABNF, reorganize
      ABNF introduction.

C.8.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-06

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/161>: "base for
      numeric protocol elements"

   Affected issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/37>: "Vary and non-
      existant headers"

C.9.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-07

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/54>: "Definition of
      1xx Warn-Codes"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/167>: "Content-
      Location on 304 responses"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/169>: "private and
      no-cache CC directives with headers"



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   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/187>: "RFC2047 and
      warn-text"

C.10.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-08

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/147>: "serving
      negotiated responses from cache: header-specific canonicalization"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/197>: "Effect of CC
      directives on history lists"

   Affected issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/199>: Status codes
      and caching

   Partly resolved issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/60>: "Placement of
      13.5.1 and 13.5.2"

C.11.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-09

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/29>: "Age
      calculation"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/168>: "Clarify
      differences between / requirements for request and response CC
      directives"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/174>: "Caching
      authenticated responses"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/208>: "IANA registry
      for cache-control directives"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/211>: "Heuristic
      caching of URLs with query components"

   Partly resolved issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/196>: "Term for the
      requested resource's URI"




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C.12.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-10

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/109>: "Clarify
      entity / representation / variant terminology"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/220>: "consider
      removing the 'changes from 2068' sections"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/223>: "Allowing
      heuristic caching for new status codes"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/223>: "Allowing
      heuristic caching for new status codes"

   o  Clean up TODOs and prose in "Combining Responses."

C.13.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-11

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/204>: "Text about
      clock requirement for caches belongs in p6"

C.14.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-12

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/224>: "Header
      Classification"

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/268>: "Clarify
      'public'"

C.15.  Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-13

   Closed issues:

   o  <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/276>: "untangle
      ABNFs for header fields"

Index

   A
      age  6
      Age header field  18




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   C
      cache  5
      Cache Directives
         max-age  19, 23
         max-stale  20
         min-fresh  20
         must-revalidate  22
         no-cache  19, 21
         no-store  19, 22
         no-transform  20, 23
         only-if-cached  20
         private  21
         proxy-revalidate  23
         public  21
         s-maxage  23
      Cache-Control header field  18
      cacheable  5

   E
      Expires header field  24
      explicit expiration time  6

   F
      first-hand  6
      fresh  6
      freshness lifetime  6

   G
      Grammar
         Age  18
         Cache-Control  19
         cache-extension  19
         cache-request-directive  19
         cache-response-directive  21
         delta-seconds  18
         Expires  25
         extension-pragma  25
         Pragma  25
         pragma-directive  25
         Vary  26
         warn-agent  27
         warn-code  27
         warn-date  27
         warn-text  27
         Warning  27
         warning-value  27

   H



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      Header Fields
         Age  18
         Cache-Control  18
         Expires  24
         Pragma  25
         Vary  26
         Warning  26
      heuristic expiration time  6

   M
      max-age
         Cache Directive  19, 23
      max-stale
         Cache Directive  20
      min-fresh
         Cache Directive  20
      must-revalidate
         Cache Directive  22

   N
      no-cache
         Cache Directive  19, 21
      no-store
         Cache Directive  19, 22
      no-transform
         Cache Directive  20, 23

   O
      only-if-cached
         Cache Directive  20

   P
      Pragma header field  25
      private
         Cache Directive  21
      private cache  5
      proxy-revalidate
         Cache Directive  23
      public
         Cache Directive  21

   S
      s-maxage
         Cache Directive  23
      shared cache  5
      stale  6

   V



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      validator  6
      Vary header field  26

   W
      Warning header field  26

Authors' Addresses

   Roy T. Fielding (editor)
   Adobe Systems Incorporated
   345 Park Ave
   San Jose, CA  95110
   USA

   EMail: fielding@gbiv.com
   URI:   http://roy.gbiv.com/


   Jim Gettys
   Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs
   21 Oak Knoll Road
   Carlisle, MA  01741
   USA

   EMail: jg@freedesktop.org
   URI:   http://gettys.wordpress.com/


   Jeffrey C. Mogul
   Hewlett-Packard Company
   HP Labs, Large Scale Systems Group
   1501 Page Mill Road, MS 1177
   Palo Alto, CA  94304
   USA

   EMail: JeffMogul@acm.org


   Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
   Microsoft Corporation
   1 Microsoft Way
   Redmond, WA  98052
   USA

   EMail: henrikn@microsoft.com






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   Larry Masinter
   Adobe Systems Incorporated
   345 Park Ave
   San Jose, CA  95110
   USA

   EMail: LMM@acm.org
   URI:   http://larry.masinter.net/


   Paul J. Leach
   Microsoft Corporation
   1 Microsoft Way
   Redmond, WA  98052

   EMail: paulle@microsoft.com


   Tim Berners-Lee
   World Wide Web Consortium
   MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
   The Stata Center, Building 32
   32 Vassar Street
   Cambridge, MA  02139
   USA

   EMail: timbl@w3.org
   URI:   http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/


   Yves Lafon (editor)
   World Wide Web Consortium
   W3C / ERCIM
   2004, rte des Lucioles
   Sophia-Antipolis, AM  06902
   France

   EMail: ylafon@w3.org
   URI:   http://www.raubacapeu.net/people/yves/


   Mark Nottingham (editor)

   EMail: mnot@mnot.net
   URI:   http://www.mnot.net/






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   Julian F. Reschke (editor)
   greenbytes GmbH
   Hafenweg 16
   Muenster, NW  48155
   Germany

   Phone: +49 251 2807760
   Fax:   +49 251 2807761
   EMail: julian.reschke@greenbytes.de
   URI:   http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/









































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