Re: Proxy Servers
Lou Montulli (montulli@stat1.cc.ukans.edu)
Wed, 16 Feb 1994 20:26:15 --100
> > Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 03:11:37 --100
> > From: altis@ibeam.jf.intel.com (Kevin Altis)
>
> > At 2:11 AM 2/16/94 +0000, Markus Stumpf wrote:
> > >looks like lots of people are hacking on proxy clients/servers these days.
> > >Could we please agree on some standards ... on the server and on the
> client
> > >side?
>
> I am sorry that I have been late in replying to this stuff to
> clear up some misunderstandings. The fact is that the "proxy",
> or gateway operation, has been in the WWW code for a very long time.
> It was commented out when the client developed a rule file
> for one release, because I stupidly imagined that the rule file
> would do the job when it won't for a HTTP-HTTP gateway.
> But it was put back in again, and then removed recently when
> the code was reorganised, and I forgot to put it back in.
> In fact, to get wais: urls into more common usage, the
> code had the address of the cern gateway for wais built in as
> a default at one stage.
>
Tim I have to disagree. The code that was in the WWWlibrary
DID NOT send the entire URL unmodified, it sent only the
host and path part and it has worked that way for as long
as I can remember. The code to do that _IS_ in version 2.14
of the library and it works with existing wais gateway
servers (like the one at NCSA). The reason we picked a
different environment variable was so that we didn't break
whatever other people might have been doing with
gateways using the old form. (with just host and path)
The use of a new environment variable is justified.
:lou