Network Working GroupJ. Reschke
Internet-Draftgreenbytes
Intended status: ExperimentalDecember 19, 2011
Expires: June 21, 2012

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Status Code 308 (Permanent Redirect)

Abstract

This document specifies the additional HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Status Codes 308 (Permanent Redirect).

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on June 21, 2012.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

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Editorial Note (To be removed by RFC Editor before publication)

Distribution of this document is unlimited. Although this is not a work item of the HTTPbis Working Group, comments should be sent to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) mailing list at ietf-http-wg@w3.org, which may be joined by sending a message with subject "subscribe" to ietf-http-wg-request@w3.org.

Discussions of the HTTPbis Working Group are archived at <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/>.

XML versions and latest edits for this document are available from <http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/#draft-reschke-http-status-code-308>.


1. Introduction

HTTP defines a set of status codes for the purpose of redirecting a request to a different URI. The history of these status codes is summarized in Section 7.3 of [draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics], which also classifies the existing status codes into four categories.

The first of these categories contains the status codes 301 (Moved Permanently), 302 (Found), and 307 (Temporary Redirect), which can be classified as below:

PermanentTemporary
Allows changing the request method from POST to GET301302
Does not allow changing the request method from POST to GET-307

Section 7.3.8 of [draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics] states that HTTP does not define a permanent variant of status code 307; this specification adds this status code (Section 3).

2. Notational Conventions

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].

3. 308 Permanent Redirect

The target resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the effective request URI (Section 4.3 of [draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging]) to one or more of the new references returned by the server, where possible.

The permanent URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the representation of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s), since most user agents do not understand the 308 status code yet. Therefore, the note SHOULD contain the information necessary for a user to repeat the original request on the new URI.

If the 308 status code is received in response to a request method that is known to be "safe", as defined in Section 6.1.1 of [draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics], then the request MAY be automatically redirected by the user agent without confirmation. Otherwise, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.

4. Deployment Considerations

Section 4 of [draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics] requires recipients to treat unknown 3xx status codes the same way as status code 300 Multiple Choices ([draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics], Section 7.3.1). Thus, servers will not be able to rely on automatic redirection happening similar to status codes 301, 302, or 307.

Therefore, initial use of status code 308 will be restricted to cases where the server has sufficient confidence in the clients understanding the new code, or a fallback to the semantics of status code 300 is not problematic.

5. Security Considerations

All security considerations that apply to HTTP redirects apply to the 308 status code as well (see Section 11 of [draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics]).

6. IANA Considerations

The registration below shall be added to the HTTP Status Code Registry (defined in Section 4.2 of [draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics] and located at <http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-status-codes>):

ValueDescriptionReference
308Permanent RedirectSection 3

7. Acknowledgements

The definition for the new status code 308 re-uses text from the HTTP/1.1 definitions of status codes 301 and 307.

8. Normative References

[draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging]
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”, Internet-Draft draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-17 (work in progress), October 2011.
[draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics]
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”, Internet-Draft draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-17 (work in progress), October 2011.
[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels”, BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

Author's Address

Julian F. Reschke
greenbytes GmbH
Hafenweg 16
Muenster, NW 48155
Germany
Email: julian.reschke@greenbytes.de
URI: http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/