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| author | Laurent Bercot <ska-skaware@skarnet.org> | 2023-09-21 05:57:24 +0000 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Laurent Bercot <ska@appnovation.com> | 2023-09-21 05:57:24 +0000 |
| commit | 0251ba5cc54cdd24092e442ab7ec364b97d42601 (patch) | |
| tree | 56dfd48ce39c1958c889daf1d1196571bf82981a /doc/future.html | |
| parent | 3d334dca671898241732dbc0ef6838b768308da7 (diff) | |
| download | tipidee-0251ba5cc54cdd24092e442ab7ec364b97d42601.tar.xz | |
More doc, complete?
Signed-off-by: Laurent Bercot <ska@appnovation.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/future.html')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/future.html | 104 |
1 files changed, 104 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/future.html b/doc/future.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a8c3e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/future.html @@ -0,0 +1,104 @@ +<html> + <head> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en" /> + <title>tipidee: the future</title> + <meta name="Description" content="tipidee: the future" /> + <meta name="Keywords" content="tipidee future features roadmap support extensions" /> + <!-- <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//skarnet.org/default.css" /> --> + </head> +<body> + +<p> +<a href="index.html">tipidee</a><br /> +<a href="//skarnet.org/software/">Software</a><br /> +<a href="//skarnet.org/">skarnet.org</a> +</p> + +<h1> tipidee: the future </h1> + +<p> + tipidee is fully functional, and you are encouraged to use it; however, it +is not yet considered <em>complete</em>. There are some optional features +of HTTP that would be nice to have, and that may be implemented at some point +down the line. +</p> + +<h2> Ranges </h2> + +<p> + <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9110#section-14">Ranges</a> +are a useful part of HTTP when you are serving big files and connections may +be interrupted and restarted: supporting the <tt>Range:</tt> header can save +bandwidth, if the client only asks for the parts of the files that it's still +missing. +</p> + +<p> + It hasn't been implemented in tipidee yet because parsing the <tt>Range:</tt> +header is rather complex, and serving parts of files (as opposed to full files +sequentially) also requires some extra coding that wasn't deemed worth it for +an initial release. +</p> + +<h2> HTTP Basic Authentication </h2> + +<p> + HTTP Basic Auth is ubiquitous; and even +<a href="https://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/networking/httpd.c#n120">busybox httpd</a> +implements it. It sounds silly not to have it; it would be good to add to tipidee. +</p> + +<p> + However, how to implement HTTP basic auth in a secure way is not entirely obvious. +Credentials should not be stored under the document root; passwords should not +be stored in plain text; the credentials database should have more restrictive +permissions than the configuration database; and the credentials database +should be easily regenerated. +</p> + +<p> + I'm leaning towards a cdb credentials database, distinct from the configuration +file; but this requires a <em>second</em> offline text file processor, for the +credentials file, and adding support for a <em>second</em> cdb mapping in various +places in <a href="tipideed.html">tipideed</a>. That was more complexity than I +wanted for an initial release; it's not urgent, it can wait. +</p> + +<h2> ETags </h2> + +<p> +<a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9110#field.etag">ETags</a> are +unique identifiers for resources that clients can use to cache data, and only +download resources they do not have. Like ranges, ETags support can save bandwidth. +</p> + +<p> + The problem is that creating ETags is pretty resource-intensive on the server +side. You have to maintain an ETag database, and update it any time a document +changes; alternatively, you have to dynamically hash a whole resource before +deciding if you're serving it or not. Both paths are riddled with traps and +design challenges, and neither is appealing to a server like tipidee aiming at +simplicity and efficiency. ETag support may come one day, but it won't be soon. +</p> + +<h2> FastCGI </h2> + +<p> + If tipidee compares to big Web servers performance-wise, which is the expectation, +it is quite possible that the performance bottleneck becomes the CGI protocol +itself, i.e. the need to spawn an additional process for a dynamic request. +In this case, it would be useful to support other methods of communicating with +dynamic backends. +</p> + +<p> + A module system, or embedding language-specific support into +<a href="tipideed.html">tipideed</a>, is out of the question, because it goes against +the design principles of tipidee; however, FastCGI support sounds like a possible +path to more performance. +</p> + +</body> +</html> |