Re: HEAD logging

[Rob Hartill <ha...@ooo.lanl.gov>]

Hi Jim,
 
>   Here's how it goes:
> 
> issue a HEAD request for http://hapeville.cc.gatech.edu:8000/
> where there is no directory index present and no transaction gets
> logged though I get returned status 200 with no content length.

Hmm, looks like a bug. I just tired it with NCSA 1.3 and it
does the same there.

I'll feed this into the Apache group mailing list for
discussion. This is a minor glitch, so It'll probably take
a while for someone to make the effort to track it down...

> issue a HEAD request for http://hapeville.cc.gatech.edu:8000/
> where there is a directory index present.  the transaction gets
> logged though the logged size of the file is 0 where the returned
> size is the file's actual length.

The log file records the Content-length (when it can) of the
response - no content (which is what HEAD returns) means
the repsonse should be recorded as size 0.

> issue a HEAD request for http://hapeville.cc.gatech.edu:8000/index.html
> where there index.html is the directory index.  the transaction gets 
> logged though the logged size of the file is 0 where the returned
> size is the file's actual length.
> 
> So, it seems like a minor inconsistency in response and logged values.
> I understand the rational why no file length is logged, but is that 
> desireable?

it's certainly consistent with sending no content.

> Also, is there a compelling reason to log the requested path verses 
> the realpath of the document?

I think the Common Log Format was supposed to log what users
request. Any replacement to CLF will have to address these kinds
of issues, i.e. do you record what was request, or what was served, or
both... that remains to be seen.


--
Rob Hartill                           
http://nqcd.lanl.gov/~hartill/