Re: [alto] Fwd: HTTP Review (draft-ietf-alto-new-transport)

[Martin Thomson <[e-mail]>]

ALTO is very much a protocol that is defined in terms of core HTTP semantics (see RFC 9205, Section 4.1).  It refers to RFC 7230 (the then-current version) rather than RFC 7231 as perhaps it should have, but I couldn't see any place where the use of HTTP semantics were version-specific.

That makes this document a little surprising.  Most protocols that use HTTP benefit from HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 by doing exactly nothing in specifications.  You just update software.  This document is a fair bit more than nothing.

The new concept of transport queues is added, but I couldn't work out what they do.  Maybe there is something related to server push.  I found this part to be poorly rationalized and the explanation concentrates on mechanisms to the detriment of explaining what the functions provided are intended to do.  I can guess based on RFC 8895 what they might do, but I think that this document should probably do some more explaining about that.

Even with some guessing, I couldn't easily see how the non-push version is supposed to work.  How does the client know which URI to GET?  It looks like there is some magical URI construction going on based on examples, but that isn't written down.

It looks like Section 8 is over-specifying, with details of stream dependencies and so forth.

I *think* there is a new resource type here, but that isn't registered in the IANA section.  That shouldn't be called "-h2"; a better name would describe what the resources are for.  There is also a new media type apparently, but I couldn't see where that is defined.



On Mon, Jul 11, 2022, at 13:37, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I've been asked to forward this request for early review; does anyone 
> want to take a look?
>
> Feedback to [e-mail].
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>> *From: *<[e-mail]>
>> *Subject: **HTTP Review (draft-ietf-alto-new-transport)*
>> *Date: *6 July 2022 at 12:56:56 am AEST
>> *To: *Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]>
>> *Cc: *Qin Wu <[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
>> 
>> The ALTO WG is currently working on the specification available at:https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-alto-new-transport/. The current version focuses on H2 with the intent to cover at least common H2/H3 functionalities.
>>  
>> The WG is seeking for early reviews so that issues/advice are taken into account early in the process.
>>  
>> We are particularly interested in comments about the handling of H3, especially with regards to the guidelines in RFC9250 about HTTP versioning.
>>  
>> Of course, comments related to other considerations in the draft are more than welcome.
>>  
>> Thank you.
>
> --
> Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/