14.5 Accept-Ranges The Accept-Ranges response-header field allows the server to indicate its acceptance of range requests for a resource: Accept-Ranges = "Accept-Ranges" ":" acceptable-ranges acceptable-ranges = 1#range-unit | "none" Origin servers that accept byte-range requests MAY send Accept-Ranges: bytes but are not required to do so. Clients MAY generate byte-range requests without having received this header for the resource involved. Servers that do not accept any kind of range request for a resource MAY send Accept-Ranges: none to advise the client not to attempt a range request. 14.6 Age The Age response-header field conveys the sender's estimate of the amount of time since the response (or its revalidation) was generated at the origin server. A cached response is "fresh" if its age does not exceed its freshness lifetime. Age values are calculated as specified in section 13.2.3. Age = "Age" ":" age-value age-value = delta-seconds Age values are non-negative decimal integers, representing time in seconds. Fielding, et. al. Standards Track [Page 99] RFC 2068 HTTP/1.1 January 1997 If a cache receives a value larger than the largest positive integer it can represent, or if any of its age calculations overflows, it MUST transmit an Age header with a value of 2147483648 (2^31). HTTP/1.1 caches MUST send an Age header in every response. Caches SHOULD use an arithmetic type of at least 31 bits of range. 14.7 Allow The Allow entity-header field lists the set of methods supported by the resource identified by the Request-URI. The purpose of this field is strictly to inform the recipient of valid methods associated with the resource. An Allow header field MUST be present in a 405 (Method Not Allowed) response. Allow = "Allow" ":" 1#method Example of use: Allow: GET, HEAD, PUT This field cannot prevent a client from trying other methods. However, the indications given by the Allow header field value SHOULD be followed. The actual set of allowed methods is defined by the origin server at the time of each request. The Allow header field MAY be provided with a PUT request to recommend the methods to be supported by the new or modified resource. The server is not required to support these methods and SHOULD include an Allow header in the response giving the actual supported methods. A proxy MUST NOT modify the Allow header field even if it does not understand all the methods specified, since the user agent MAY have other means of communicating with the origin server. The Allow header field does not indicate what methods are implemented at the server level. Servers MAY use the Public response-header field (section 14.35) to describe what methods are implemented on the server as a whole. 14.8 Authorization A user agent that wishes to authenticate itself with a server-- usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 401 response--MAY do so by including an Authorization request-header field with the request. The Authorization field value consists of credentials containing the authentication information of the user agent for the realm of the resource being requested. Fielding, et. al. Standards Track [Page 100] RFC 2068 HTTP/1.1 January 1997 Authorization = "Authorization" ":" credentials HTTP access authentication is described in section 11. If a request is authenticated and a realm specified, the same credentials SHOULD be valid for all other requests within this realm. When a shared cache (see section 13.7) receives a request containing an Authorization field, it MUST NOT return the corresponding response as a reply to any other request, unless one of the following specific exceptions holds: 1. If the response includes the "proxy-revalidate" Cache-Control directive, the cache MAY use that response in replying to a subsequent request, but a proxy cache MUST first revalidate it with the origin server, using the request-headers from the new request to allow the origin server to authenticate the new request. 2. If the response includes the "must-revalidate" Cache-Control directive, the cache MAY use that response in replying to a subsequent request, but all caches MUST first revalidate it with the origin server, using the request-headers from the new request to allow the origin server to authenticate the new request. 3. If the response includes the "public" Cache-Control directive, it may be returned in reply to any subsequent request.