[syslinux] Opinion wanted: metadata in HTTP requests (updated)
John Rouillard
rouilj at renesys.com
Tue Apr 26 06:57:29 PDT 2011
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 10:50:25PM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Okay, I have narrowed it down to two options:
>
> 1. Using HTTP cookies, in every request. To avoid collision with other
> cookie uses, the cookie names would be prefixed with _Syslinux_ or
> some similar prefix although this adds overhead.
>
> 2. Using a GET query string, if and only if the http URL is of a
> special form, probably:
>
> http://example.com/something??
>
> ... i.e. ending in a double ?? which should not normally happen in a
> URL.
>
> I would like to know if people have specific preferences between
> these alternatives.
Is there a difference in the amount of data that can be sent via these
mechanisms? Using POST is the usual workaround when the get string is
too large and code "414 Request-URI Too Long" is returned.
>From rfc 2109 the browser should support:
* at least 300 cookies
* at least 4096 bytes per cookie (as measured by the size of the
characters that comprise the cookie non-terminal in the syntax
description of the Set-Cookie header)
* at least 20 cookies per unique host or domain name
so the server should be able to handle at least that.
So I think the cookie mechanism may be a better choice depending on
how much data you expect to send.
--
-- rouilj
John Rouillard System Administrator
Renesys Corporation 603-244-9084 (cell) 603-643-9300 x 111
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