RFC 3507 (rfc3507) - Page 1 of 49
Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP)
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group J. Elson
Request for Comments: 3507 A. Cerpa
Category: Informational UCLA
April 2003
Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP)
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
IESG Note
The Open Pluggable Services (OPES) working group has been chartered
to produce a standards track protocol specification for a protocol
intended to perform the same of functions as ICAP. However, since
ICAP is already in widespread use the IESG believes it is appropriate
to document existing usage by publishing the ICAP specification as an
informational document. The IESG also notes that ICAP was developed
before the publication of RFC 3238 and therefore does not address the
architectural and policy issues described in that document.
Abstract
ICAP, the Internet Content Adaption Protocol, is a protocol aimed at
providing simple object-based content vectoring for HTTP services.
ICAP is, in essence, a lightweight protocol for executing a "remote
procedure call" on HTTP messages. It allows ICAP clients to pass
HTTP messages to ICAP servers for some sort of transformation or
other processing ("adaptation"). The server executes its
transformation service on messages and sends back responses to the
client, usually with modified messages. Typically, the adapted
messages are either HTTP requests or HTTP responses.
Elson & Cerpa Informational