RFC - 3507

Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP)

Original:	ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc3507.txt
Authors:	J. Elson [UCLA], A. Cerpa [UCLA]
Date:	April 2003
Category:	Informational

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Referred by:	1 RFC
Refers to:	7 RFC

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Status

This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.

IESG Note

The Open Pluggable Services (OPES) working group has been chartered to produce a standards track protocol specification for a protocol intended to perform the same of functions as ICAP. However, since ICAP is already in widespread use the IESG believes it is appropriate to document existing usage by publishing the ICAP specification as an informational document. The IESG also notes that ICAP was developed before the publication of RFC 3238 and therefore does not address the architectural and policy issues described in that document.

Abstract

ICAP, the Internet Content Adaption Protocol, is a protocol aimed at providing simple object-based content vectoring for HTTP services. ICAP is, in essence, a lightweight protocol for executing a "remote procedure call" on HTTP messages. It allows ICAP clients to pass HTTP messages to ICAP servers for some sort of transformation or other processing ("adaptation"). The server executes its transformation service on messages and sends back responses to the client, usually with modified messages. Typically, the adapted messages are either HTTP requests or HTTP responses.

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