This appendix contains a brief overview of some terminology and other information related to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It has been taken from RFC 1945, by Tim Berners-Lee, May 1996.
The process by which a client sends username and password information to the server, in an attempt to become authorized to view a restricted resource.
An application program that establishes connections for the purpose of sending requests.
The media type of the body of the response, as given in the Content-type: header. Examples include text/html, text/plain, image/gif, etc.
Indicates what the server should do with a resource. Case sensitive. Valid methods include: GET, HEAD, POST
An HTTP request message sent by a client to a server
A network data object or service which can be identified by a URI.
An HTTP response message sent by a server to a client
An application program that accepts connections in order to service requests by sending back responses.
A 3-digit integer indicating the result of the server's attempt to understand and satisfy the request. A table of status codes and their meanings appears below.
URIs are formatted strings which identify - via name, location, or any other characteristic - a network resource.
A web address. May be expressed absolutely (eg http://www.example.com/services/index.html) or in relation to a base URI (eg ../index.html) See also URI.
The client which initiates a request. These are often browsers, editors, spiders (web-traversing robots) or other end-user tools.