List of HTTP header fields
HTTP |
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Request methods |
Header fields |
Response status codes |
Security access control methods |
Security vulnerabilities |
HTTP Headers form the core of an HTTP request, and are very important in an HTTP response. They define various characteristics of the data that is requested or the data that has been provided.
This is an incomplete list of some of the HTTP headers defined in RFC 2616 and RFC 2109 for HTTP/1.1
![]() | This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. |
Requests
Header | Description | Example |
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Accept | Content-Types that are acceptable | Accept: text/plain
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Accept-Charset | Character sets that are acceptable | Accept-Charset: iso-8859-5
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Accept-Encoding | Acceptable encodings | Accept-Encoding: compress, gzip
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Accept-Language | Acceptable languages for response | Accept-Language: da [1]
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Accept-Ranges | Allows the server to indicate its acceptance of range requests for a resource | Accept-Ranges: bytes
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Authorization | Authentication credentials for HTTP authentication | Authorization: Basic QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==
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Cache-Control | Used to specify directives that MUST be obeyed by all caching mechanisms along the request/response chain | Cache-Control: no-cache
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Connection | What type of connection the user-agent would prefer | Connection: close
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Cookie | an HTTP cookie previously sent by the server with Set-Cookie (below) | Cookie: $Version=1; UserId=JohnDoe
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Date | The date and time that the message was sent | Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 08:12:31 GMT
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Host | The domain name of the server (for virtual hosting), mandatory since HTTP/1.1 | Host: en.wikipedia.org
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If-Modified-Since | Allows a 304 Not Modified to be returned if content is unchanged | If-Modified-Since: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 19:43:31 GMT
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If-None-Match | Allows a 304 Not Modified to be returned if content is unchanged, see HTTP ETag | If-None-Match: "737060cd8c284d8af7ad3082f209582d"
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Referer | A common misspelling of referrer, this is the address of the previous web page from which a link to the currently requested page was followed. | Referer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
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User-Agent | The user agent string of the user agent | User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; X11; UTF-8)
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Responses
Header | Description | Example |
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Accept-Ranges | What partial content range types this server supports | Accept-Ranges: bytes
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Age | The age the object has been in a proxy cache in seconds | Age: 12
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Allow | Valid actions for a specified resource. To be used for a 405 Method not allowed | Allow: GET, HEAD
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Cache-Control | Tells all caching mechanisms from server to client whether they may cache this object | Cache-Control: no-cache
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Content-Encoding | The type of encoding used on the data | Content-Encoding: gzip
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Content-Language | The language the content is in | Content-Language: da
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Content-Length | The length of the response body in 8-bit bytes | Content-Length: 348
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Content-Location | An alternate location for the returned data | Content-Location: /index.htm
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Content-Disposition | An opportunity to raise a "File Download" dialogue box for a known MIME type | Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=fname.ext
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Content-MD5 | An MD5 sum of the content of the response | Content-MD5: 3167b9c13ad2b6d36946493fc47976c8
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Content-Range | Where in a full body message this partial message belongs | Content-Range: bytes 21010-47021/47022
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Content-Type | The mime type of this content | Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
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Date | The date and time that the message was sent | Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 08:12:31 GMT
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ETag | An identifier for a specific version of a resource, often a Message Digest, see ETag | ETag: 737060cd8c284d8af7ad3082f209582d
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Expires | Gives the date/time after which the response is considered stale | Expires: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 16:00:00 GMT
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Last-Modified | The last modified date for the requested object, in RFC 2822 format | Last-Modified: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 12:45:26 GMT
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Location | Used in redirection | Location: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/People.html
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Server | A name for the server | Server: Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) (Red-Hat/Linux)
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Set-Cookie | an HTTP cookie | Set-Cookie: UserID=JohnDoe; Max-Age=3600; Version=1
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Effects of selected HTTP headers
Avoiding Caching
If the server responds with Cache-Control: no-cache
then a web browser or other caching system must not use the response to satisfy subsequent responses without first checking with the originating server. This header is part of HTTP/1.1, and is ignored by some caches and browsers. To make sure that an object is not cached, it is therefore sensible to also set the Expires
HTTP 1.0 header to a value earlier than the response date (e.g. -1). This is interpreted as an instruction not to cache by HTTP/1.0 caches and browsers.
The fact that a resource is not to be cached is no guarantee that it will not be written to disk. In particular, the HTTP/1.1 definition draws a distinction between history stores and caches. If you use navigation buttons to go back to a previous page a browser may still show you a page that has been stored on disk in the history store, even if it has been instructed not to cache that page. This is correct behaviour according to the specification. Many user agents (including both Firefox and IE) will show different behaviour with regards to loading something from history store and loading something from its cache depending on whether the protocol is http or https.
In the rare event that you specifically do not want a resource to be stored to disk anywhere - perhaps the resource is highly sensitive and you don't want it to appear in backups or to be written to insecure permanent storage - you can use the header Cache-Control: no-store
. This does not guarantee that the resource will not be written, but instructs the browser to make a best effort not to write it, or in the worst case, that it does not remain on disk.
The Pragma: no-cache
header is an HTTP/1.0 header intended for use in requests. It is a means for the browser to tell the server and any intermediate caches that it wants a fresh version of the resource, not for the server to tell the browser not to cache the resource. Some user agents do pay attention to this header in responses (e.g. some versions of IE, but only when using https), but the HTTP/1.1 rfc specifically warns against relying on this behaviour.