-->

HTTP/2

dev http2

HTTP/2 is a major update to the HTTP 1.x protocol and I decided to spare some time to have a general idea what it is all about:

Here are my findings:

  • It’s based on SPDY (a protocol developed by Google, currently deprecated)
  • It uses same methods, status codes etc. so it is backwards-compatible and the main focus is on performance
  • The problem it is addressing is HTTP requiring a TCP connection per request.
  • Key differences:
    • It is binary rather than text.
    • It can use one connection for multiple requests
    • Allows servers push responses to browser caches. This way it can automatically start sending assets before the browser parses the HTML and sends a request for each of them (images, JavaScript, CSS etc)
  • The protocol doesn’t have built-in encryption but currently Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Chrome agree that HTTPS is required.
  • There will be a negotiation process between the client and server to select which version to use
  • WireShark has support for it but Fiddler doesn’t.

  • As the speed is the main focus it’s especially important for CDNs to support it. In September 2016, AWS announced that they now support HTTP/2. For existing distributions it needs to enabled explicitly by updating the settings.

    AWS CloudFront HTTP/2 Support

  • On the client side looks like it’s been widely adopted and supported. CanIUse.com also confirms that it’s only allowed over HTTPS on all browsers that support it.

    HTTP/2 Browser Support

What Does It Look Like on the Wire

As it’s binary I was curious, as a developer, to see what the actual bits looked like. Normally it’s easy to inspect HTTP requests/responses because it’s just text.

Apparently the easiest way to do it is WireShark. First, I had to enable session logging by creating a user variable in Windows:

Windows environment variable to capture TLS session keys

and pointing the WireShark to use that log (Edit -> Preferences -> Protocols -> SSL)

This is a very neat trick and it can be used to analyse all encrypted traffic so it serves a broader purpose. After restarting the browser and WireShark I was able to see the captured session keys and by starting a new capture with WireShark I could see the decrypted HTTP/2 traffic.

WireShark HTTP/2 capture

It’s hard to make sense of everything in the packets but I guess it’s a good start to be able to inspect the wire format of the new protocol.

Resources