Re: [hybi] Intermediaries and idle connections (was Re: Technical feedback.)

[Maciej Stachowiak <[e-mail]>]

On Jan 30, 2010, at 4:00 PM, Justin Erenkrantz wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Greg Wilkins <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> this. Do they respect the fixed list of hop-by-hop headers? Do they treat headers listed in the Connection header field as hop-by-hop?
>> 
>> I think a hop-by-hop header is exactly what is needed, so that any non transparent
>> proxy would have to explicitly copy the timeout value from input to output.
> 
> While I grok the rationale for hop-by-hop headers, I'd really like to
> come to some way to cleanly separate content meta-data from protocol
> meta-data.  IMO, it makes stuff like caching and intermediaries way
> too hard to implement.

Surely HTTP headers in the handshake are an appropriate place for protocol metadata?

> 
> Spitballing an idea: if we have some way to multiplex over a single
> connection (channels, etc.), then we can have a "protocol"
> meta-channel or similar for exchanging hop-by-hop capabilities.  --

This doesn't help you with detecting unaware intermediaries, or with letting intermediaries participate if you are going over SSL.

Regards,
Maciej