HTTP PUT for new file creation and directory creation - http

How would a HTTP Server differentiate whether the request in PUT is for a folder creation or a file creation in a directory.
For HTTP GET what I understood is, if the URL has a trailing /, then HTTP Server looks out for a folder with that name and, if does not exist can look out for a file.
How does this work for PUT for a new file and folder creation?

HTTP (the protocol) doesn't have any concept of files or folders. URIs are opaque, except when a relative URI reference is resolved against a base URI.
If you want your server to provide file/folder services, you may want to look into WebDAV (RFC 4918).

Related

Sending actual destination path from nginx module to backend

For uploading a file to a server I am using nginx upload module. What I understood from the docs is that it saves the uploaded file to a temporary directory and only provides information about the file to backend(python bottle server in my case) via POST and information that should be passed to backend can be specified by upload_set_form_field directive.
How can I send the actual destination path to backend ,Since nginx will store in some temporary path and not to the path where the uploading was meant to?
Found out the solution. Should set upload_pass_form_field directive value in nginx config to regex pattern matching destination path field name.

Initial HTTP request: index or routing?

When we send an HTTP request to a web server as to load a web page e.g. http://wwww.nothing_is_here.com, what exactly the server does as to serve our request? Till now, I thought the server was looking to find a file named index (index.html, index.php) which should have HTML content and send it back to our browser. Now, I know this is not always the case. For example, in ASP .NET where we apply routing, home/index path is added to the URL by default as for our app to be routed. That's I cannot understand is how exactly the server acts upon a similar situation. Why it does not return an error message in case there is no index file, how it knows it has to apply routing rules? How can we instruct the server what to do in either case?
What the server does when it receives a request for the root (which is what it will receive in your example), is up to the server configuration. It is not within the control of the client making the request.
The server will be configured to have a default document (file name) in such cases, which is often index.html, but equally could be any file set by the administrator of the server.
The server will often be configured to recognise different hosts (e.g. if it's serving multiple sites on the same interface:port. These different sites will often have different configuration about what the default file name(s) is/are (if any). In some cases the server is configured to display a directory listing of a server-configured site root folder.

Why does a directory exist and not exist on a web server simultaneously?

While I'm sure the title could be improved for clarity, my meaning is thus:
When fetching a URL for a file download at http://example.com/dir1/dir2/file.zip, the response code is 200, yet attempting to access http://example.com/dir1, or http://example.com/dir1/dir2, elicits a 404 response code.
Why is this?
URLs don't necessarily correspond to actual directories on the server. Ultimately the path component of a URL is just a name; the server can translate that name to whatever it wants on the back end.
In this case it seems likely that /dir1/dir2/ is a directory on the server, but even so that doesn't mean anything. The server knows about a resource named /dir1/dir2/file.zip, but doesn't know anything about a resource named /dir1.

What are these two methods by which a web server handles a HTTP request?

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string
A web server can handle a Hypertext Transfer Protocol request either
by reading a file from its file system based on the URL path or by
handling the request using logic that is specific to the type of
resource. In cases where special logic is invoked, the query string
will be available to that logic for use in its processing, along with
the path component of the URL.
What does the quote mean by the two methods by which a web server can handle a HTTP request
"by reading a file from its file system based on the URL path"
"by handling the request using logic that is specific to the type of resource"?
Can you give specific examples to explain the two methods?
Is the query string used in both method?
Thanks.
by reading a file from its file system based on the URL path
^ The web site uses a generic mapping mechanism to convert a URL path to a local filesystem path, and then returns the file located at that path. This is common with static files like .css.
by handling the request using logic that is specific to the type of resource"
^ The web site turns control over to a web application, which contains code written by a developer. The code reads the query string and decides what to do. The logic for deciding what to do is completely customizable, and there does not need to be a static file in the local filesystem that matches the URL.

POST method WEBDAV not run

I had a server install WEBDAV and I try to do any WEBDAV method
all method like copy, delete, get, lock, mkcol, propfind, propatch run good.
I can create file and store data in server with PUT method. But I don't know how to do it in POST.
when I post anydata to exist file server return data of old file.
And I check in server this file not change any thing
when I try to post new file it return "The requested URL - URL of
file - was not found on this server."
when I try to post new file with out full path, I just send to
folder where I want to store file. I hope server create file with
auto gen Name of file and return name for me. But server return the
resource content in folder ( some thing like index.html )
I want to know how to implement POST method, it can create or repair file on WEBDAV server. any one can help me ?
In general, WebDAV servers do not support POST (more precisely: the WEBDAV specification doesn't mandate any specific behavior for POST, so servers vary in what they do).

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