HTTP
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) M. Thomson
Internet-Draft
Request for Comments: 9292 Mozilla
Intended status:
Category: Standards Track C. A. Wood
Expires: 7 January 2023
ISSN: 2070-1721 Cloudflare
6 July
August 2022
Binary Representation of HTTP Messages
draft-ietf-httpbis-binary-message-06
Abstract
This document defines a binary format for representing HTTP messages.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Status information for this document may be found at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis-binary-message/.
Discussion of this document takes place on the HTTP Working Group
mailing list (mailto: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 for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/labels/binary-messages.
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 an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list It represents the consensus of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for a maximum publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of six months RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents obtained at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 7 January 2023.
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9292.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2022 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info)
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the
Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described
in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Known Length Known-Length Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. Indeterminate Length Indeterminate-Length Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3. Framing Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4. Request Control Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.5. Response Control Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.5.1. Informational Status Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.6. Header and Trailer Field Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.7. Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.8. Padding and Truncation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4. Invalid Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.1. Request Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2. Response Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6. Notable Differences with HTTP Protocol Messages . . . . . . . 15
7. "message/bhttp" Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1. Introduction
This document defines a simple format for representing an HTTP
message ([HTTP]), [HTTP], either request or response. This allows for the
encoding of HTTP messages that can be conveyed outside an HTTP
protocol. This enables the transformation of entire messages,
including the application of authenticated encryption.
The design of this format is informed by the framing structure of
HTTP/2 ([HTTP/2]) [HTTP/2] and HTTP/3 ([HTTP/3]). [HTTP/3]. Rules for constructing messages
rely on the rules defined in HTTP/2, but the format itself is
distinct; see Section 6.
This format defines message/bhttp, "message/bhttp", a binary alternative to the
message/http
"message/http" content type defined in [HTTP/1.1]. A binary format
permits more efficient encoding and processing of messages. A binary
format also reduces exposure to security problems related to
processing of HTTP messages.
Two modes for encoding are described:
* a known-length encoding includes length prefixes for all major
message components; components, and
* an indeterminate-length encoding enables efficient generation of
messages where lengths are not known when encoding starts.
This format is designed to convey the semantics of valid HTTP
messages as simply and efficiently as possible. It is not designed
to capture all of the details of the encoding of messages from
specific HTTP versions ([HTTP/1.1], [HTTP/2], [HTTP/3]). [HTTP/1.1] [HTTP/2] [HTTP/3]. As such, this
format is unlikely to be suitable for applications that depend on an
exact recording of the encoding of messages.
2. Conventions and Definitions
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.
This document uses terminology from HTTP ([HTTP]) [HTTP] and notation from
QUIC (Section 1.3 of [QUIC]).
3. Format
Section 6 of [HTTP] defines the general structure of HTTP messages
and composes those messages into distinct parts. This format
describes how those parts are composed into a sequence of bytes. At
a high level, binary messages are comprised of:
1. Framing indicator. This format uses a single integer to describe
framing, which describes whether the message is a request or
response and how subsequent sections are formatted; see
Section 3.3.
2. For a response, zero or more informational responses. Each
informational response consists of an informational status code
and header section.
3. Control data. For a request, this contains the request method
and target. For a response, this contains the status code.
4. Header section. This contains zero or more header fields.
5. Content. This is a sequence of zero or more bytes.
6. Trailer section. This contains zero or more trailer fields.
7. Optional padding. Any amount of zero-valued bytes.
All lengths and numeric values are encoded using the variable-length
integer encoding from Section 16 of [QUIC]. Integer values do not
need to be encoded on the minimum number of bytes necessary.
3.1. Known Length Known-Length Messages
A request or response that has a known length at the time of
construction uses the format shown in Figure 1.
Request with
Known-Length Request {
Framing Indicator (i) = 0,
Request Control Data (..),
Known-Length Field Section (..),
Known-Length Content (..),
Known-Length Field Section (..),
Padding (..),
}
Response with
Known-Length Response {
Framing Indicator (i) = 1,
Known-Length Informational Response (..) ...,
Final Response Control Data (..),
Known-Length Field Section (..),
Known-Length Content (..),
Known-Length Field Section (..),
Padding (..),
}
Known-Length Field Section {
Length (i),
Field Line (..) ...,
}
Known-Length Content {
Content Length (i),
Content (..),
}
Known-Length Informational Response {
Informational Response Control Data (..),
Known-Length Field Section (..),
}
Figure 1: Known-Length Message
A known-length request consists of a framing indicator (Section 3.3),
request control data (Section 3.4), a header section with a length
prefix, binary content with a length prefix, a trailer section with a
length prefix, and padding.
A known-length response contains the same fields, with the exception
that request control data is replaced by zero or more informational
responses (Section 3.5.1) followed by response control data
(Section 3.5).
For a known-length encoding, the length prefix on field sections and
content is a variable-length encoding of an integer. This integer is
the number of bytes in the field section or content, not including
the length field itself.
Fields in the header and trailer sections consist of a length-
prefixed name and length-prefixed value; see Section 3.6.
The format allows for the message to be truncated before any of the
length prefixes that precede the field sections or content; see
Section 3.8.
The variable-length integer encoding means that there is a limit of
2^62-1 bytes for each field section and the message content.
3.2. Indeterminate Length Indeterminate-Length Messages
A request or response that is constructed without encoding a known
length for each section uses the format shown in Figure 2:
Indeterminate-Length Request {
Framing Indicator (i) = 2,
Request Control Data (..),
Indeterminate-Length Field Section (..),
Indeterminate-Length Content (..),
Indeterminate-Length Field Section (..),
Padding (..),
}
Indeterminate-Length Response {
Framing Indicator (i) = 3,
Indeterminate-Length Informational Response (..) ...,
Final Response Control Data (..),
Indeterminate-Length Field Section (..),
Indeterminate-Length Content (..),
Indeterminate-Length Field Section (..),
Padding (..),
}
Indeterminate-Length Content {
Indeterminate-Length Content Chunk (..) ...,
Content Terminator (i) = 0,
}
Indeterminate-Length Content Chunk {
Chunk Length (i) = 1..,
Chunk (..),
}
Indeterminate-Length Field Section {
Field Line (..) ...,
Content Terminator (i) = 0,
}
Indeterminate-Length Informational Response {
Informational Response Control Data (..),
Indeterminate-Length Field Section (..),
}
Figure 2: Indeterminate-Length Message
An indeterminate-length request consists of a framing indicator
(Section 3.3), request control data (Section 3.4), a header section
that is terminated by a zero value, any number of non-zero-length
chunks of binary content, a zero value, a trailer section that is
terminated by a zero value, and padding.
An indeterminate-length response contains the same fields, with the
exception that request control data is replaced by zero or more
informational responses (Section 3.5.1) and response control data
(Section 3.5).
The indeterminate-length encoding only uses length prefixes for
content blocks. Multiple length-prefixed portions of content can be
included, each prefixed by a non-zero Chunk Length integer describing
the number of bytes in the block. The Chunk Length is encoded as a
variable-length integer.
Each Field Line in an Indeterminate-Length Field Section starts with
a Name Length field. An Indeterminate-Length Field Section ends with
a Content Terminator field. The zero value of the Content Terminator
distinguishes it from the Name Length field, which cannot contain a
value of 0.
Indeterminate-length messages can be truncated in a similar way as similar to
that for known-length messages; see Section 3.8.
Indeterminate-length messages use the same encoding for field lines Field Line as
known-length messages; see Section 3.6.
3.3. Framing Indicator
The start of each binary message is a framing indicator that is a
single integer that describes the structure of the subsequent
sections. The framing indicator can take just four values:
* A value of 0 describes a request of known length.
* A value of 1 describes a response of known length.
* A value of 2 describes a request of indeterminate length.
* A value of 3 describes a response of indeterminate length.
Other values cause the message to be invalid; see Section 4.
3.4. Request Control Data
The control data for a request message contains the method and
request target. That information is encoded as an ordered sequence
of fields: Method, Scheme, Authority, Path. Each of these fields is
prefixed with a length.
The values of these fields follow the rules in HTTP/2 (Section 8.3.1
of [HTTP/2]) that apply to the :method, :scheme, :authority, ":method", ":scheme", ":authority",
and
:path ":path" pseudo-header fields fields, respectively. However, where the
:authority
":authority" pseudo-header field might be omitted in HTTP/2, a zero-
length value is encoded instead.
The format of request control data is shown in Figure 3.
Request Control Data {
Method Length (i),
Method (..),
Scheme Length (i),
Scheme (..),
Authority Length (i),
Authority (..),
Path Length (i),
Path (..),
}
Figure 3: Format of Request Control Data
3.5. Response Control Data
The control data for a response message consists of the status code.
The status code (Section 15 of [HTTP]) is encoded as a variable variable-
length integer, not a length-prefixed decimal string.
The format of final response control data is shown in Figure 4.
Final Response Control Data {
Status Code (i) = 200..599,
}
Figure 4: Format of Final Response Control Data
3.5.1. Informational Status Codes
Responses that include informational status codes (see Section 15.2
of [HTTP]) are encoded by repeating the response control data and
associated header section until a final response control data status code is
encoded. encoded; that
is, a Status Code field with a value from 200 to 599 (inclusive).
The status code distinguishes between informational and final
responses.
The format of the informational response control data is shown in
Figure 5.
Informational Response Control Data {
Status Code (i) = 100..199,
}
Figure 5: Format of Informational Response Control Data
A response message can include any number of informational responses
that precede a final status code. These convey an informational
status code and a header block.
If the response control data includes an informational status code
(that is, a value between 100 and 199 inclusive), the control data is
followed by a header section (encoded with known- known length or indeterminate-
indeterminate length according to the framing indicator) and another
block of control data. This pattern repeats until the control data
contains a final status code (200 to 599 inclusive).
3.6. Header and Trailer Field Lines
Header and trailer sections consist of zero or more field lines; see
Section 5 of [HTTP]. The format of a field section depends on
whether the message is known- of known length or indeterminate-length. indeterminate length.
Each field line Field Line encoding includes a name and a value. Both the name
and value are length-prefixed sequences of bytes. The Name field name length is at
least
a minimum of one byte. The format of a field line Field Line is shown in
Figure 6.
Field Line {
Name Length (i) = 1..,
Name (..),
Value Length (i),
Value (..),
}
Figure 6: Format of a Field Line
For field names, byte values that are not permitted in an HTTP field
name cause the message to be invalid; see Section 5.1 of [HTTP] for a
definition of what is valid and Section 4 for regarding the handling of
invalid messages. A recipient MUST treat a message that contains
field values that would cause an HTTP/2 message to be malformed
according to Section 8.2.1 of [HTTP/2] as invalid; see Section 4.
The same field name can be repeated in multiple over more than one field lines; line;
see Section 5.2 of [HTTP] for the semantics of repeated field names
and rules for combining values.
Messages are invalid (Section 4) if they contain fields named
:method, :scheme, :authority, :path,
":method", ":scheme", ":authority", ":path", or :status. ":status". Other
pseudo-fields that are defined by protocol extensions MAY be
included; pseudo-
fields pseudo-fields cannot be included in trailers (see
Section 8.1 of [HTTP/2]). A Field lines Line containing pseudo-fields MUST
precede other field lines. Field Line values. A message that contains a pseudo-field pseudo-
field after any other field is invalid; see Section 4.
Fields that relate to connections (Section 7.6.1 of [HTTP]) cannot be
used to produce the effect on a connection in this context. These
fields SHOULD be removed when constructing a binary message.
However, they do not cause a message to be invalid (Section 4);
permitting these fields allows a binary message to capture messages
that are exchanged in a protocol context.
Like HTTP/2 or HTTP/3, this format has an exception for the
combination of multiple instances of the Cookie field. Instances of
fields with the ASCII-encoded value of cookie "cookie" are combined using a
semicolon octet (0x3b) rather than a comma; see Section 8.2.3 of
[HTTP/2].
3.7. Content
The content of messages is a sequence of bytes of any length. Though
a known-length message has a limit, this limit is large enough that
it is unlikely to be a practical limitation. There is no limit to
the size of content in an indeterminate length indeterminate-length message.
3.8. Padding and Truncation
Messages can be padded with any number of zero-valued bytes. Non-
zero padding bytes cause a message to be invalid (see Section 4).
Unlike other parts of a message, a processor MAY decide not to
validate the value of padding bytes.
Truncation can be used to reduce the size of messages that have no
data in trailing field sections or content. If the trailers of a
message is are empty, it they MAY be omitted by the encoder in place of
adding a length field equal to zero. An encoder MAY omit empty
content in the same way if the trailers are also empty. A message
that is truncated at any other point is invalid; see Section 4.
Decoders MUST treat missing truncated fields as equivalent to having
been sent with the length field sent set to zero.
Padding is compatible with truncation of empty parts of the messages.
Zero-valued bytes will be interpreted as a zero-length part, which is
semantically equivalent to the part being absent.
4. Invalid Messages
This document describes a number of ways that a message can be
invalid. Invalid messages MUST NOT be processed further except to
log an error and produce an error response.
The format is designed to allow incremental processing.
Implementations need to be aware of the possibility that an error
might be detected after performing incremental processing.
5. Examples
This section includes example requests and responses encoded in both
known-length and indefinite-length indeterminate-length forms.
5.1. Request Example
The example HTTP/1.1 message in Figure 7 shows the content in the
message/http
"message/http" format.
Valid HTTP/1.1 messages require lines terminated with CRLF (the two
bytes 0x0a 0x0d and 0x0d). 0x0a). For simplicity and consistency, the content of
these examples is limited to text, which also uses CRLF for line
endings.
GET /hello.txt HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: curl/7.16.3 libcurl/7.16.3 OpenSSL/0.9.7l zlib/1.2.3
Host: www.example.com
Accept-Language: en, mi
Figure 7: Sample HTTP Request
This can be expressed as a binary message (type message/bhttp) "message/bhttp")
using a known-length encoding as shown in hexadecimal in Figure 8.
Figure 8 includes text alongside to show that most of the content is
not modified.
00034745 54056874 74707300 0a2f6865 ..GET.https../he
6c6c6f2e 74787440 6c0a7573 65722d61 llo.txt@l.user-a
67656e74 34637572 6c2f372e 31362e33 gent4curl/7.16.3
206c6962 6375726c 2f372e31 362e3320 libcurl/7.16.3
4f70656e 53534c2f 302e392e 376c207a OpenSSL/0.9.7l z
6c69622f 312e322e 3304686f 73740f77 lib/1.2.3.host.w
77772e65 78616d70 6c652e63 6f6d0f61 ww.example.com.a
63636570 742d6c61 6e677561 67650665 ccept-language.e
6e2c206d 690000 n, mi..
Figure 8: Known-Length Binary Encoding of Request
This example shows that the Host header field is not replicated in
the :authority ":authority" field, as is required for ensuring that the request
is reproduced accurately; see Section 8.3.1 of [HTTP/2].
The same message can be truncated with no effect on interpretation.
In this case, the last two bytes - -- corresponding to content and a
trailer section - -- can each be removed without altering the semantics
of the message.
The same message, encoded using an indefinite-length encoding indeterminate-length encoding, is
shown in Figure 9. As the content of this message is empty, the
difference in formats is negligible.
02034745 54056874 74707300 0a2f6865 ..GET.https../he
6c6c6f2e 7478740a 75736572 2d616765 llo.txt.user-age
6e743463 75726c2f 372e3136 2e33206c nt4curl/7.16.3 l
69626375 726c2f37 2e31362e 33204f70 ibcurl/7.16.3 Op
656e5353 4c2f302e 392e376c 207a6c69 enSSL/0.9.7l zli
622f312e 322e3304 686f7374 0f777777 b/1.2.3.host.www
2e657861 6d706c65 2e636f6d 0f616363 .example.com.acc
6570742d 6c616e67 75616765 06656e2c ept-language.en,
206d6900 00000000 00000000 00000000 mi.............
Figure 9: Indefinite-Length Indeterminate-Length Binary Encoding of Request
This indefinite-length indeterminate-length encoding contains 10 bytes of padding. As
two additional bytes can be truncated in the same way as the known-length known-
length example, anything up to 12 bytes can be removed from this
message without affecting its meaning.
5.2. Response Example
Response messages can contain interim (1xx) status codes codes, as the
message in Figure 10 shows. Figure 10 includes examples of
informational status codes 102 and 103, as defined in [RFC2518] (now
obsolete but defines status code 102) and [RFC8297]. [RFC8297], respectively.
HTTP/1.1 102 Processing
Running: "sleep 15"
HTTP/1.1 103 Early Hints
Link: </style.css>; rel=preload; as=style
Link: </script.js>; rel=preload; as=script
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:28:53 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:15:56 GMT
ETag: "34aa387-d-1568eb00"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 51
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Type: text/plain
Hello World! My content includes a trailing CRLF.
Figure 10: Sample HTTP Response
As this is a longer example, only the indefinite-length indeterminate-length encoding
is shown in Figure 11. Note here that the specific text used in the
reason phrase is not retained by this encoding.
03406607 72756e6e 696e670a 22736c65 .@f.running."sle
65702031 35220040 67046c69 6e6b233c ep 15".@g.link#<
2f737479 6c652e63 73733e3b 2072656c /style.css>; rel
3d707265 6c6f6164 3b206173 3d737479 =preload; as=sty
6c65046c 696e6b24 3c2f7363 72697074 le.link$</script
2e6a733e 3b207265 6c3d7072 656c6f61 .js>; rel=preloa
643b2061 733d7363 72697074 0040c804 d; as=script.@..
64617465 1d4d6f6e 2c203237 204a756c date.Mon, 27 Jul
20323030 39203132 3a32383a 35332047 2009 12:28:53 G
4d540673 65727665 72064170 61636865 MT.server.Apache
0d6c6173 742d6d6f 64696669 65641d57 .last-modified.W
65642c20 3232204a 756c2032 30303920 ed, 22 Jul 2009
31393a31 353a3536 20474d54 04657461 19:15:56 GMT.eta
67142233 34616133 38372d64 2d313536 g."34aa387-d-156
38656230 30220d61 63636570 742d7261 8eb00".accept-ra
6e676573 05627974 65730e63 6f6e7465 nges.bytes.conte
6e742d6c 656e6774 68023531 04766172 nt-length.51.var
790f4163 63657074 2d456e63 6f64696e y.Accept-Encodin
670c636f 6e74656e 742d7479 70650a74 g.content-type.t
6578742f 706c6169 6e003348 656c6c6f ext/plain.3Hello
20576f72 6c642120 4d792063 6f6e7465 World! My conte
6e742069 6e636c75 64657320 61207472 nt includes a tr
61696c69 6e672043 524c462e 0d0a0000 ailing CRLF.....
Figure 11: Binary Response Response, including Informational Responses
A response that uses the chunked encoding (see Section 7.1 of
[HTTP/1.1]) as shown for in Figure 12 can be encoded using indefinite- indeterminate-
length encoding, which minimizes buffering needed to translate into
the binary format. However, chunk boundaries do not need to be
retained, and any chunk extensions cannot be conveyed using the
binary format; see Section 6.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
4
This
6
conte
13;chunk-extension=foo
nt contains CRLF.
0
Trailer: text
Figure 12: Chunked Encoding Example
Figure 13 shows this message using the known-length coding. encoding. Note
that the transfer-encoding Transfer-Encoding header field is removed.
0140c800 1d546869 7320636f 6e74656e .@...This conten
7420636f 6e746169 6e732043 524c462e t contains CRLF.
0d0a0d07 74726169 6c657204 74657874 ....trailer.text
Figure 13: Known-Length Encoding of Response
6. Notable Differences with HTTP Protocol Messages
This format is designed to carry HTTP semantics just like HTTP/1.1,
HTTP/2, HTTP/1.1
[HTTP/1.1], HTTP/2 [HTTP/2], or HTTP/3 ([HTTP/1.1], [HTTP/2], [HTTP/3]). [HTTP/3]. However, there are
some notable differences between this format and the format used in
an interactive protocol version.
In particular, as a standalone representation, this format lacks the
following features of the formats used in those protocols:
* chunk extensions (Section 7.1.1 of [HTTP/1.1]) and transfer
encoding (Section 6.1 of [HTTP/1.1]) from HTTP/1.1
* generic framing and extensibility capabilities
* field blocks other than a single header and trailer field block
* carrying reason phrases in responses (Section 4 of [HTTP/1.1])
* header compression ([HPACK], [QPACK]) [HPACK] [QPACK]
* response framing of responses that depends on the corresponding request (such
as HEAD) or the value of the status code (such as 204 or 304);
these responses use the same framing as all other messages
Some of these features are also absent in HTTP/2 and HTTP/3.
Unlike HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, this format uses a fixed format for control
data rather than using pseudo-fields.
Note that while some messages - -- CONNECT or upgrade requests in
particular - -- can be represented using this format, doing so serves
no
purpose purpose, as these requests are used to affect protocol behavior,
which this format cannot do without additional mechanisms.
7. "message/bhttp" Media Type
The message/bhttp "message/bhttp" media type can be used to enclose a single HTTP
request or response message, provided that it obeys the MIME
restrictions for all "message" types regarding line length and
encodings.
Type name: message
Subtype name: bhttp
Required parameters: N/A
Optional parameters: N/A
Encoding considerations: only Only "8bit" or "binary" is permitted permitted.
Security considerations: see See Section 8 8.
Interoperability considerations: N/A
Published specification: this specification RFC 9292
Applications that use this media type: Applications looking seeking to
convey HTTP request semantics that are independent of a specific protocol.
Fragment identifier considerations: N/A
Additional information: Magic number(s): N/A Deprecated alias names for this type: N/A
Magic number(s): N/A
File extension(s): N/A
Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
Person and & email address to contact for further information: see Aut
hors' See the
Authors' Addresses section section.
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: N/A
Author: see See the Authors' Addresses section section.
Change controller: IESG
8. Security Considerations
Many of the considerations that apply to HTTP message handling apply
to this format; see Section 17 of [HTTP] and Section 11 of [HTTP/1.1]
for common issues in handling HTTP messages.
Strict parsing of the format with no tolerance for errors can help
avoid a number of attacks. However, implementations still need to be
aware of the possibility of resource exhaustion attacks that might
arise from receiving large messages, particularly those with large
numbers of fields.
Implementations need to ensure that they aren't subject to resource
exhaustion attack attacks from a maliciously crafted message. messages. Overall, the
format is designed to allow for minimal state when processing
messages. However, producing a combined field value (Section 5.2 of
[HTTP]) for fields might require the commitment of resources. In
particular, combining might be necessary for the Cookie field when
translating this format for use in other contexts, such as use in an
API or translation to HTTP/1.1 [HTTP/1.1], where the recipient of the
field might not expect multiple values.
9. IANA Considerations
IANA is requested has added the media type "message/bhttp" to add the "Media Types"
registry at
https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types with the registration
information in <https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types>. See
Section 7 for the media type "message/bhttp". registration information.
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[HTTP] Fielding, R. T., R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP Semantics", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
httpbis-semantics-19, 12 September 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-
semantics-19>. STD 97, RFC 9110,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9110, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9110>.
[HTTP/2] Thomson, M. M., Ed. and C. Benfield, Ed., "HTTP/2", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-httpbis-http2bis-07, 24 January RFC 9113,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9113, June 2022, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-
httpbis-http2bis-07>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9113>.
[QUIC] Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9000>.
[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/rfc/rfc2119>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[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/rfc/rfc8174>. <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
10.2. Informative References
[HPACK] Peon, R. and H. Ruellan, "HPACK: Header Compression for
HTTP/2", RFC 7541, DOI 10.17487/RFC7541, May 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7541>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7541>.
[HTTP/1.1] Fielding, R. T., R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP/1.1", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
httpbis-messaging-19, 12 September 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-
messaging-19>. STD 99, RFC 9112, DOI 10.17487/RFC9112,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9112>.
[HTTP/3] Bishop, M., Ed., "HTTP/3", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-quic-http-34, 2 February 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-quic-
http-34>. RFC 9114, DOI 10.17487/RFC9114,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9114>.
[QPACK] Krasic, C. '., C., Bishop, M., and A. Frindell, Ed., "QPACK:
Field Compression for HTTP/3", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-quic-qpack-21, 2 February 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-quic-
qpack-21>. RFC 9204,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9204, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9204>.
[RFC2518] Goland, Y., Whitehead, E., Faizi, A., Carter, S., and D.
Jensen, "HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring --
WEBDAV", RFC 2518, DOI 10.17487/RFC2518, February 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2518>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2518>.
[RFC8297] Oku, K., "An HTTP Status Code for Indicating Hints",
RFC 8297, DOI 10.17487/RFC8297, December 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8297>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8297>.
Acknowledgments
Julian Reschke, David Schinazi, Lucas Pardue Pardue, and Tommy Pauly
provided excellent feedback on both the design and its documentation.
Authors' Addresses
Martin Thomson
Mozilla
Email: mt@lowentropy.net
Christopher A. Wood
Cloudflare
Email: caw@heapingbits.net