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Best Practice N°184- LevelLevel 3- Section server
Description
The server sends information allowing content to be cached.
Objectives
The objectives of this best practice have not been drafted yet
Possible technical solutions:
Configure the web server so that it operates caching of static elements and - at an application level - the possible caching of dynamic elements.
In practice, and in accordance with the HTTP specificationsthe server will return the ETag , Date and Last-Modified fields, which correspond respectively to the resource identifier, the date of most recent processing of the request and the most recent modification of the resource. All dates are expressed in GMT. These items of information can be completed with the Content-Length and Expires fields if the exact size in bytes and the exact expiry date are known.
In order to inform proxies and end user clients on the behavior to adopt concerning cached content authors should use HTTP directives Cache-Control and Pragma in accordance with required refresh delays and the private nature of publication.
Possible caching can be finalized by submitting a message 304 Not Modified (without the requested resource in the body of the message.) when the server receives a If-Modified-Since header which contains a date that precedes the modification dtae of the resource.
Control methods:
Use a tool that will verify the possible caching of files:
Put these Best Practices to use.
