Question

Is it possible to show me a sample http session with range requests.
I mean what would be the request and response headers?

Answer 1

The following exchange is between Chrome and a static web server, retrieving an MP4 video.

Initial request – for the video. Note the Accept-Ranges response header to indicate the server has range header support:

GET /BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
        Cache-Control: max-age=0
        Connection: keep-alive
        Accept-Language: en-GB,en-US,en
        Host: localhost:8080
        Range:
        Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml,*/*
        User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.7 ...
        Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
        Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8,*
200 OK
        Content-Type: video/mp4
        Connection: keep-alive
        Last-Modified: Wed,14 Dec 2011 15:50:59 GMT
        ETag: A023EF02BD589BC472A2D6774EAE3C58
        Transfer-Encoding:
        Content-Length: 64657027
        Accept-Ranges: bytes
        Server: Brisket/1.0.1
        Date: Wed,14 Dec 2011 16:11:24 GMT

Range header in previous response detected – subsequent request with open-ended range to confirm support. Response returns a 206 status and Content-Range header to indicate the bytes present in the response body:

GET /BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
        Connection: keep-alive
        Accept-Language: en-GB,en-US,en
        Host: localhost:8080
        Range: bytes=0-
        Accept: */*
        User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.7 ...
        Referer: http://localhost:8080/BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
        Accept-Encoding: identity
        Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8,*
206 Partial Content
        Content-Type: video/mp4
        Connection: keep-alive
        Last-Modified: Wed,14 Dec 2011 15:50:59 GMT
        ETag: A023EF02BD589BC472A2D6774EAE3C58
        Transfer-Encoding:
        Content-Length: 64657027
        Accept-Ranges: bytes
        Server: Brisket/1.0.1
        Date: Wed,14 Dec 2011 16:11:25 GMT
        Content-Range: bytes 0-64657026/64657027

Subsequent range request to capture the end of the file (probably to capture trailing metadata):

GET /BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
        Connection: keep-alive
        Accept-Language: en-GB,en-US,en
        Host: localhost:8080
        Range: bytes=64312833-64657026
        Accept: */*
        If-Range: A023EF02BD589BC472A2D6774EAE3C58
        User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.7 ...
        Referer: http://localhost:8080/BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
        Accept-Encoding: identity
        Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8,*
206 Partial Content
        Content-Type: video/mp4
        Connection: keep-alive
        Last-Modified: Wed,14 Dec 2011 15:50:59 GMT
        ETag: A023EF02BD589BC472A2D6774EAE3C58
        Transfer-Encoding:
        Content-Length: 344194
        Accept-Ranges: bytes
        Server: Brisket/1.0.1
        Date: Wed,14 Dec 2011 16:11:25 GMT
        Content-Range: bytes 64312833-64657026/64657027

User clicks in the video progress bar beyond the downloaded range – a range request is issued to begin playing from the selected position:

GET /BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
        Connection: keep-alive
        Accept-Language: en-GB,en-US,en
        Host: localhost:8080
        Range: bytes=1073152-64313343
        Accept: */*
        If-Range: A023EF02BD589BC472A2D6774EAE3C58
        User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.7 ...
        Referer: http://localhost:8080/BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
        Accept-Encoding: identity
        Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8,*
206 Partial Content
        Content-Type: video/mp4
        Connection: keep-alive
        Last-Modified: Wed,14 Dec 2011 15:50:59 GMT
        ETag: A023EF02BD589BC472A2D6774EAE3C58
        Transfer-Encoding:
        Content-Length: 63240192
        Accept-Ranges: bytes
        Server: Brisket/1.0.1
        Date: Wed,14 Dec 2011 16:11:25 GMT
        Content-Range: bytes 1073152-64313343/64657027