apache 304 error message

[steven chang_1]

helo:

my apache server got some imformation in access log
here is the log statement

61.224.1.131 - - [21/Jan/2003:09:25:01 +0800] "GET /zh_TW/index.htm HTTP/1.1" 304 0

after I check the RFC document for 304 error code, but I don???t fully understand, it seems that it???s the problem with my customer???s proxy server
here is the 304 imformation in RFC document:

10.3.5 304 Not Modified
If the client has performed a conditional GET request and access is allowed, but the document has not been modified, the server SHOULD respond with this status code. The 304 response MUST NOT contain a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.
The response MUST include the following header fields:
- Date, unless its omission is required by section 14.18.1
If a clockless origin server obeys these rules, and proxies and clients add their own Date to any response received without one (as already specified by [RFC 2068], section 14.19), caches will operate correctly.
- ETag and/or Content-Location, if the header would have been sent
in a 200 response to the same request
- Expires, Cache-Control, and/or Vary, if the field-value might
differ from that sent in any previous response for the same
variant
If the conditional GET used a strong cache validator (see section 13.3.3), the response SHOULD NOT include other entity-headers. Otherwise (i.e., the conditional GET used a weak validator), the response MUST NOT include other entity-headers; this prevents inconsistencies between cached entity-bodies and updated headers.
If a 304 response indicates an entity not currently cached, then the cache MUST disregard the response and repeat the request without the conditional.
If a cache uses a received 304 response to update a cache entry, the cache MUST update the entry to reflect any new field values given in the response.

Hope you could give me some response, thank you !!

steven chang

[U.SivaKumar_2 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Please understand that it is not a error code But the HTTP 1.0 server status code.

All Internet Browsers have caching ability . If you visit a web site first time using say Internet Explorer the page is cached in your local hard disk.

Then if you access the same page next time then browser sends the timestamp of pages (last-modifed date,time ) in its cache to the web server.

If the webpage in the webserver is not newer than the local machine's cached pages the webserver returns 304 code ( NOT A ERROR CODE )instead of web page.

So the browser seeing this will now fetch the content from its cache in the local harddisk thereby reducing network traffic and delay.

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[steven chang_1]

helo U.SivaKumar :

Thank you for your imformation.

steven chang