RFC 2616 (rfc2616) - Page 1 of 176

Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1

Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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Network Working Group                                      R. Fielding
Request for Comments: 2616                                   UC Irvine
Obsoletes: 2068                                              J. Gettys
Category: Standards Track                                   Compaq/W3C
                                                              J. Mogul
                                                                Compaq
                                                            H. Frystyk
                                                               W3C/MIT
                                                           L. Masinter
                                                                 Xerox
                                                              P. Leach
                                                             Microsoft
                                                        T. Berners-Lee
                                                               W3C/MIT
                                                             June 1999


                Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level
   protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information
   systems. It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for
   many tasks beyond its use for hypertext, such as name servers and
   distributed object management systems, through extension of its
   request methods, error codes and headers [47]. A feature of HTTP is
   the typing and negotiation of data representation, allowing systems
   to be built independently of the data being transferred.

   HTTP has been in use by the World-Wide Web global information
   initiative since 1990. This specification defines the protocol
   referred to as "HTTP/1.1", and is an update to RFC 2068 [33].






Fielding, et al.            Standards Track
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