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Networking Fundamentals · Foundational

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

The Application-layer request-response protocol for the web, using TCP port 80 by default.

Definition

Clients send requests with methods such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE, and servers return status codes such as 200 OK, 301 Moved Permanently, 403 Forbidden, 404 Not Found and 500 Internal Server Error. HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 run over TCP, while HTTP/3 runs over QUIC on UDP. Plain HTTP is unencrypted.

Example

curl -I http://example.com returns the HTTP response headers from port 80.

Exam tip

HTTP = TCP 80, unencrypted; HTTPS = TCP 443.

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