Re: Hello from Mozilla

On 07/15/2009 01:59 AM, Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jul 2009, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>> Can you remind me why you need the handshake to look like valid HTTP
>> again? I think that's the crux here.
>
> Because in some cases, people will want to share the same port for their
> HTTP server as for their WebSocket server. For example, if they want to do
> TLS-WebSocket-over-port-443, in the case where that host also has an HTTPS
> server on port 443.

Can such a dual-purpose port-sharing server implement both HTTP and
WebSocket stacks and use the right stack depending on the first byte[s]
of the incoming message? If port sharing is the primary motivation here,
then dual protocol stack support seems like the right solution.

This can be even implemented as a dumb TCP-level "switch" application
that connects to either an HTTP server or a WebSocket server behind it.
No "binary" HTTP messages, no risk of HTTP intermediaries screwing up
with the not-really-HTTP-but-looking-like-one traffic. Just two
completely different protocols sharing the same port.

HTH,

Alex.
Received on Wed Jul 15 2009 - 15:53:44 MDT