HTTP header compression

• US 8,601,164 B2
• Filed: 12/02/2009
• Issued: 12/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Garmin Limited
• Original Assignee: Garmin Switzerland GmbH (Garmin Limited)
• Inventors: Grimsley, Nicholas S., Hill, Kyle J., Marshall, Robert L., Pfeifer, Sean A.
• Primary Examiner(s): LIN, WEN TAI
• Application Number:
  US12/629,737
• Publication Number:
  US 20110131412A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,462 Days
• Field of Search: 708/203, 713/152, 713/160, 709/230, 709/236, 709/237
• US Class Current: 709/247
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/30 Compression, e.g. Merkle-Damgard construction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/80 Wireless network architectures or network communication protocols for wireless network security H04W12/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/107 wherein the security policies are location-dependent, e.g. entities privileges depend on current location or allowing specific operations only from locally connected terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0891 Revocation or update of secret information, e.g. encryption key update or rekeying

Abstract

Techniques for HTTP header compression are described herein. In an implementation, an electronic device may be configured to enable compression/decompression of HTTP messages, including compression/decompression of information in the headers of the messages. A HTTP message is generated that contains at least a header and a body. The HTTP message is reformatted to place at least some of the header information into the body. Then, the body of the reformatted message having the header information is compressed to form a compressed HTTP message. Decompression may be applied by a recipient of the compressed HTTP message to reconstruct the original HTTP message.

Claims

1. A mobile client device, comprising:

a processor;

memory; and

one or more modules stored in the memory and executable via the processor to;

generate a hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP) request to obtain resources from a resource provider, the HTTP request having a header and a body;

selectively reformat the HTTP request to place only a portion of information from the header in the body of the HTTP request, the selective reformatting occurring within a single communication layer; and

apply compression to the HTTP request to compress the body including information from the header that is placed in the body;

wherein the HTTP request is entirely reformatted in the mobile client device before it is communicated to the resource provider without adding any new header information except for an identifier indicating whether the HTTP request has been reformatted and/or compressed.

2. A mobile client device as recited in claim 1, further comprising a positioning module configured to enable the mobile client device to determine a geographic position using one or more position sources.

3. A mobile client device as recited in claim 1, wherein the compression is applied to the HTTP request using gzip techniques.

4. A mobile client device as recited in claim 1, wherein to selectively reformat the HTTP request comprises rewriting one or more key value pairs of the header in an abbreviated form.

5. A mobile client device as recited in claim 1, wherein the identifier is detectable by a recipient to determine that the HTTP request is reformatted and/or compressed.

6. A mobile client device as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more modules are further executable to communicate the reformatted and compressed HTTP request over a network to the resource provider.

7. A mobile client device as recited in claim 6, wherein the one or more modules are further executable to:

receive a HTTP response from the resource provider responsive to communication of the HTTP request;

detect reformatting of the HTTP response to place header information into a body of the HTTP response; and

responsive to detection of the reformatting, reconstruct the HTTP response to move the header information from the body of the HTTP response to a header of the HTTP response.

8. A mobile client device as recited in claim 7, wherein the one or more modules are further executable to:

detect compression of the HTTP response; and

responsive to detection of the compression, decompress the HTTP response to obtain a decompressed version of the HTTP response.

9. A method comprising:

using one or more components of a computing device to perform operations including;

generating a hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP) message for communication to a recipient, the HTTP message having a header and a body;

reformatting the HTTP message to place one or more key value pairs from the header in the body of the HTTP message, the reformatting including rewriting the one or more key value pairs using custom replacement values to encode the key value pairs within a single communication layer; and

communicating the reformatted HTTP message over a network to cause interaction with the recipient;

wherein the HTTP request is entirely reformatted in the computing device before it is communicated to the recipient without adding any new header information except for an identifier indicating whether the HTTP request has been reformatted and/or compressed.

10. A method as recited in claim 9, further comprising applying compression to the HTTP message to compress the body of the HTTP message including the key value pairs placed into the body.

11. A method as recited in claim 9, wherein the identifier is detectable by the recipient to cause the recipient to perform one or more reconstruction operations to restore the key value pairs to the header.

12. A method as recited in claim 9, further comprising using the one or more components of the computing device to perform operations including:

receiving an incoming HTTP message;

detecting at least one of compression of the incoming HTTP message or inclusion of header information in a body of the incoming HTTP message;

when compression is detected, performing decompression operations to obtain a decompressed version of the incoming HTTP message; and

when inclusion of header information is detected, performing reconstruction operations to restore the header information into a header of the incoming HTTP message.

13. A method as recited in claim 9, wherein the custom replacement values to encode the key value pairs comprise abbreviated versions of the key value pairs.

14. One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media comprising instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to:

generate a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) message;

reformat the HTTP message to move one or more key value pairs from a header of the HTTP message into a body of the HTTP message, the reformatting occurring within a single data layer;

apply a compression algorithm to the HTTP message to compress the body including the key value pairs moved to the body of the HTTP message; and

communicate the reformatted and compressed HTTP message over a network to a recipient;

wherein the HTTP request is entirely reformatted in the computing device before it is communicated to the recipient without adding any new header information except for one or more identifiers indicating whether the HTTP request has been reformatted and/or compressed.

15. One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media as recited in claim 14, wherein to reformat the HTTP message further comprises applying a custom replacement scheme to the key value pairs moved into the body of HTTP message to express the information using a reduced number of characters.

16. One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media as recited in claim 14, wherein the one or more identifiers are configured;

and to convey information regarding formatting of the HTTP message to the recipient.

17. One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media as recited in claim 14, wherein the information regarding formatting of the HTTP message to the recipient comprises one or more of:

whether the HTTP message is reformatted to include key value pairs in the body;

whether the HTTP message is compressed;

a type of compression used to compress the HTTP message;

or

a custom replacement scheme used to express key value pairs moved to the body.

18. One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media as recited in claim 14, wherein the HTTP message comprises a request from the computing device to receive resources from the recipient.

19. One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media as recited in claim 14, wherein the HTTP message comprises a response from the computing device to a resource request communicated by a client device to the computing device.

20. One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media as recited in claim 14, wherein the instructions, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to:

receive an other HTTP message from a sender;

decompress the other HTTP message responsive to detecting compression of the other HTTP message;

reconstruct a header of the decompressed message responsive to determining that a body of the message includes key value pairs for the header; and

process the decompressed and reconstructed HTTP message to generate a response for communication to the sender of the HTTP message.

21. A server device, comprising:

a processor;

memory; and

one or more modules stored in the memory and executable via the processor to;

receive an HTTP request from a client device requesting one or more resources available from the server device;

examine one or more identifiers inserted into the HTTP request at the client device to determine whether the HTTP request is compressed or reformatted to contain header information for a header of the HTTP request in a body of the HTTP request;

decompress the HTTP request responsive to determining that the HTTP request is compressed;

reconstruct the header of the HTTP request to include the header information responsive to determining that the HTTP request is reformatted, the reconstruction occurring within a single communication layer; and

process the HTTP request to generate a response to service the request from the client device for the one or more resources;

wherein the HTTP request is entirely reformatted in the computing device before it is communicated to the recipient without adding any new header information except for the one or more identifiers indicating whether the HTTP request has been reformatted and/or compressed, and wherein the HTTP request is entirely reconstructed in the server device.

22. A server device as recited in claim 21, wherein one identifier of the one or more identifiers is configured as a parameter having a value indicative of whether the HTTP request is a standard message, a reformatted message, a compressed message, or a reformatted and compressed message.

23. A server device as recited in claim 21, wherein the one or more modules are further executable to determine a response format designated by the one or more identifiers and configure the response to match the designated format.

24. A server device as recited in claim 21, wherein the one or more modules are further executable to:

reformat the generated response to add only a portion of header information of the response in a body of the response;

compress the body of the response including the at least some header information added to the body; and

insert at least one identifier in the response detectable by the client device to determine that the response is reformatted and/or compressed.