Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:56:47 -0700 From: Graeme Tait <graeme@echidna.com> To: Johann Visagie <wjv@cityip.co.za> Cc: Jerry <jerryr@ComCAT.COM>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, echidna@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: need a / after a domain? Message-ID: <362F8DFF.4BC@echidna.com> References: <Pine.GSO.4.02A.9810211000390.7567-100000@uw> <19981022115525.B14541@cityip.co.za>
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Johann Visagie wrote:
>
> On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 at 10:02 SAT, Jerry wrote:
> >
> > I know I saw this question on the list not to long ago but I just can't
> > remember the fix. After the domain name in a browser you must use a / or
> > the site won't open. Where is this configuration changed?
Are you referring to a browser or server problem?
There should not be any such problem for the case mentioned (see below).
> Does that happen with all sites or only specific ones?
>
> The handling of the missing trailing slash is a server issue. The server
> should know that when a user requests a file that turns out to be a
> directory, it should issue an error 301 ("permanently moved") and redirect
> the browser to the index file within that directory.
If say
http://www.qqq.com/dir
is requested, and dir is a directory on the server, the redirect would add a final
"/" to make
http://hostname/dir/
(this is necessary so that relative URL's within the referenced document can be
correctly resolved). What then happens depends on server configuration, but normally
as you say it would be configured to default to an index.html or such file within
dir.
How the server chooses "hostname" for the redirect URL is also a server
configuration (and browser) issue, although the server would normally be configured
to use www.qqq.com, either because this is the sole host supported, or because it
has been configured to use the value of "Host:" header passed by the browser per
HTTP/1.1 (although the browser may only be HTTP/1.0 compliant in other respects).
However the question I believe relates to the case
http://www.xxx.com
with no path specification, and no trailing slash after the hostname.
I believe this is purely a *browser* issue. The browser should in this case request
the path "/", having deduced that the hostname is missing the final "/". No redirect
is involved. The *browser* should correct the URL to
http://www.xxx.com/
--
Graeme Tait - Echidna
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