Re: Upgrade, hmmm...

[Nick Harper <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:51 PM Eric J Bowman <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Please refer me to previous discussions about why h2 and h2c, but no h1,
> h1c, or h3.
>
> I'm coding a webserver from scratch, with the goal of serving an
> index.html file and its ancillaries, over any of HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3,
> FTP, WAKA (if Roy ever publishes it), or "ERIC" because I have my own
> ideas. Encrypted or not (I realize "not" isn't an option with HTTP/3). So
> the main loop is protocol-negotiation hell worse than any conneg/langneg
> I've ever coded.
>
> If I'm hosting multiple websites on my service, I might want to default to
> h2, at this time. But if one of those client websites is a law firm, they
> don't care about serving legal definitions over "h1c" to incarcerated
> clients, who aren't allowed to use encryption unless it's attorney-client
> privileged communication. So, how does a gateway at the prison wall connect
> using h2 but request "Downgrade: h1c"? Or maybe there could be a "Protocol"
> header with a weighted list (lol).
>
> (Taking a presentation I watched on YouTube by PHK, to heart -- some
> sovereign states disallow encryption, and heck, America's own FBI wants to
> kill it. But I agree it's important to be able to downgrade to cleartext.)
>
> Or, why can't an h2c connection request Upgrade: h3? Coding my webserver
> to shift those gears, turns out to be trivial, all things considered at
> this point. So, why are only h2/h2c standardized as Upgrade tokens?
>

The Upgrade header is used to suggest switching protocols on the *same*
connection. Given that an h2 (or h2c) connection runs on TCP and HTTP/3
runs on UDP, there's no way to upgrade the existing connection to HTTP/3.

>
> -Eric
>
>
>