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Message-Id: <9B5CAD6F-AB54-4B5F-B68A-D91E8D61589E@movik.net>
From: Manik Taneja <mtaneja@movik.net>
To: dev@httpd.apache.org
In-Reply-To: 
 <34fc7c3380d65d3c10704a197abb9054.squirrel@danpoirier.homeunix.org>
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Subject: Re: HTTP Protocol: How frequently should browser repeat requests
 after  304 responses?
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:16:51 +0530
References: 
 <34fc7c3380d65d3c10704a197abb9054.squirrel@danpoirier.homeunix.org>

this behavior seems highly browser dependent.  There may be a few  
possibilities as to why the browser doesn't send an IMS request.

a. the browser cache is cleared
b. the browser has a limited size cache and so this object gets  
ejected due to lack of space. you could try increasing the size of the  
browser cache and see if that helps.
c. the browser prolly follows some algorithm where by it decides to  
send an IMS only once, unlikely, but I am just guessing.
d. the browser is IE and is buggy :).

best,
M


On 18-Sep-08, at 1:30 AM, Dan Poirier wrote:

> I've looked at mod_expires doc and RFC 2616, but can't really
> tell what the right behavior is supposed to be in this case.
>
> Using mod_expire to set the expiration time to something like
> "access plus 1 hour", we see a browser request a file, get back
> a 200 with the expiration, and not request it again for an hour,
> as expected.  The next time, it uses an if-modified-since and
> gets back a 304, also good.  But from then on, it keeps coming
> back to the server every time and getting back 304's.
>
> The 304 responses won't have any cache control information, of
> course, per RFC 2616 10.3.5.
>
> Two questions:
> 1) Is the browser behaving properly, or should it wait another hour
> after each 304 before making another request?
>
> 2) If the browser behavior is right, is there a way to configure
> Apache to tell the browser to only check once an hour instead of
> every time?
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- 
> Dan Poirier <poirier@pobox.com>
>