> Delivery-Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 10:36:23 -0700
> Return-Path: owner-wrec@CS.UTK.EDU
> From: Duane Wessels <wessels@ircache.net>
> To: wrec@CS.UTK.EDU
> cc: webmaster@ISI.EDU
> Subject: oh the irony
> Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:45:45 -0600
> List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:wrec-request@cs.utk.edu?Subject=unsubscribe>
>
> Apologies in advance for a message not about WPAD. I found this mildly
> entertaining.
>
> I went to fetch the new HTTP/1.1 RFC (2616) using one of my favorite
> Web clients called 'wget'. It kept doing this:
>
> 5050K -> .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........
> 5100K -> ..
>
> 18:11:40 (19.95K/s) - Connection closed at byte 5224761. Retrying.
>
> --18:11:40-- http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc/files/rfc2616.ps
> (try: 4) => `rfc2616.ps'
> Connecting to kitty:3128... connected!
> HTTP proxy request sent, fetching headers... 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 done.
> Length: 5,529,857 [application/postscript]
>
> 0K -> .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........
>
> This repeated a number of times.
>
> As you can can probably guess, the request goes through a Squid cache.
> I initially suspected some Squid bug or setting that limits large
> downloads.
>
> However, just a little investigation showed that the reply header's
> content-length (5,529,857) does not match the actual content length
> (5,224,761). Its short by about 305,096 bytes. Of course 'wget'
> believed the transfer got cut off and so it kept trying to get the
> whole thing.
>
> So, 305,096 is very close to the number of LINES in the file. The ISI
> HTTP server (GN/2.14) must be stripping CR characters from each line,
> but using the on-disk file size for the content-length.
>
> I just had to laugh when I realized this was happening on the document
> that defines what Content-length means in an HTTP response.
>
> I suspect that many (most?) caching products will not cache this rather
> large file (and others) from the ISI server because the content length
> is wrong.
>
> Can we get the GN server listed in John's Known Problems draft?
> Or, can we get it fixed at ISI??
Both, I suspect.
This should definitely be added to the known-problems draft.
Joe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 18 2004 - 11:21:26 MST