Interesting People mailing list archives
Site Finder Confuses SOAP Implementations
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 19:39:36 -0400
Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:09:12 -0400 From: noah_mendelsohn () us ibm com Subject: Site Finder Confuses SOAP Implementations To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> (This is my first attempt to submit to IP...if this is not the appropriate way to go about it, please accept my apologies. Thank you.) Dave, As many of your readers are probably aware, SOAP [1,2] is an XML-based protocol for connecting applications over the Web. Implementors of SOAP engines maintain a mailing list called "soapbuilders", on which they discuss implementations and debug interoperability problems. According to soabuilders postings over the past couple of days [3,4], the Verisign Site Finder service is causing trouble for at least some SOAP implementations. This is not surprising, I suppose, since Site Finder makes the erroneous assumption that users of HTTP are invariably human beings sitting at a Web browser. In fact, HTTP is the preferred protocol for most document-based interactions on the Web, including application-to-application or machine-to-machine, and SOAP layers on HTTP. In general, SOAP implementations would want redirects only in the particular case that a web service had truly moved from one DNS address to another. I suspect that most current users of SOAP don't employ such redirects, and that early SOAP implementations probably don't support them gracefully. In any case, it's very unlikely that a SOAP implementation accessing a web service using a mis-spelled URL would benefit from a redirect to a site such as Site Finder. I have no direct involvement with the implementations discussed in the soapbuilders postings, and have not observed the Site Finder/SOAP problem first hand, but I thought IP readers might be interested. Thank you. Noah [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part1/ [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part2/ [2] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbuilders/message/9475 [3] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbuilders/message/9476 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Noah Mendelsohn Voice: 1-617-693-4036 IBM Corporation Fax: 1-617-693-8676 One Rogers Street Cambridge, MA 02142 ------------------------------------------------------------------
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- Site Finder Confuses SOAP Implementations Dave Farber (Sep 29)