Does HTTP use UDP

Question

This might be a silly question    Does HTTP ever use the User Datagram Protocol     For example       If one is streaming MP3 or video  using HTTP   does it internally use UDP for transport

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This is an old question  but it deserves an updated answer    In all likelihood  HTTP 3 will be using the QUIC protocol  which is described as      multiplexed transport over UDP   So  from a certain point of view  you could say that HTTP 3 will be using UDP

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Typically  no   Streaming is seldom used over HTTP itself  and HTTP is seldom run over UDP  See  however  RTP   For something as your example  in the comment   you re not showing a protocol for the resource  If that protocol were to be HTTP  then I wouldn t call the access  streaming   even if it in some sense of the word is since it s sending a  possibly large  resource serially over a network  Typically  the resource will be saved to local disk before being played back  so the network transfer is not what s usually meant by  streaming    As commenters have pointed out  though  it s certainly possible to really stream over HTTP  and that s done by some

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Yes  HTTP  as an application protocol  can be transferred over UDP transport protocol  Here are some of the services that use UDP and an underlying protocol for transferring HTTP data and streaming it to the end-user    XMPP s Jingle Raw UDP Transport Method A number for services that use UDT --- UDP-based Data Transfer Protocol  which is the a superset of UDP protocol  The Transport Layer Security  TLS  protocol encapsulating HTTP as well as the above mentioned XMPP and other application protocols does have an implementation that uses UDP in its transport layer  this implementation is called Datagram Transport Layer Security  DTLS   Push notifications in GNUTella are HTTP requests sent over UDP transport    This article contains further details on streaming over UDP and its reliable superset  the RUDP  Reliable UDP  RUDP   The Next Big Streaming Protocol

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Maybe just a bit of trivia  but UPnP will use HTTP formatted messages over UDP for device discovery

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Of course  it doesn t necessarily have to be transmitted over TCP  I implemented HTTP on top of UDP  for use in the Satellite TV Broadcasting industry

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Typically  no   Streaming is seldom used over HTTP itself  and HTTP is seldom run over UDP  See  however  RTP   For something as your example  in the comment   you re not showing a protocol for the resource  If that protocol were to be HTTP  then I wouldn t call the access  streaming   even if it in some sense of the word is since it s sending a  possibly large  resource serially over a network  Typically  the resource will be saved to local disk before being played back  so the network transfer is not what s usually meant by  streaming    As commenters have pointed out  though  it s certainly possible to really stream over HTTP  and that s done by some

User · Answer

Typically  no   Streaming is seldom used over HTTP itself  and HTTP is seldom run over UDP  See  however  RTP   For something as your example  in the comment   you re not showing a protocol for the resource  If that protocol were to be HTTP  then I wouldn t call the access  streaming   even if it in some sense of the word is since it s sending a  possibly large  resource serially over a network  Typically  the resource will be saved to local disk before being played back  so the network transfer is not what s usually meant by  streaming    As commenters have pointed out  though  it s certainly possible to really stream over HTTP  and that s done by some

User · Answer

Maybe some change on this topic with QUIC     QUIC  Quick UDP Internet Connections  pronounced quick  is an experimental transport layer network protocol developed by Google and implemented in 2013  QUIC supports a set of multiplexed connections between two endpoints over User Datagram Protocol  UDP   and was designed to provide security protection equivalent to TLS SSL  along with reduced connection and transport latency  and bandwidth estimation in each direction to avoid congestion  QUIC s main goal is to optimize connection-oriented web applications currently using TCP

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Try run HTTP over UDP with node-httpp   https   github com InstantWebP2P node-httpp

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If you are streaming an mp3 or video that may not necessarily be over HTTP  in fact I d be suprised if it was  It would probably be another protocol over TCP but I see no reason why you cannot stream over UDP   If you do you have to take into account that there is no certainty that your data will arrive at the other end  but I can take it that you know about UDP   To answer you question  No  HTTP does NOT use UDP  For what you talk about though  mp3 video streaming COULD happen over UDP and in my opinion should never happen over HTTP

User · Answer

Yes  HTTP  as an application protocol  can be transferred over UDP transport protocol  Here are some of the services that use UDP and an underlying protocol for transferring HTTP data and streaming it to the end-user    XMPP s Jingle Raw UDP Transport Method A number for services that use UDT --- UDP-based Data Transfer Protocol  which is the a superset of UDP protocol  The Transport Layer Security  TLS  protocol encapsulating HTTP as well as the above mentioned XMPP and other application protocols does have an implementation that uses UDP in its transport layer  this implementation is called Datagram Transport Layer Security  DTLS   Push notifications in GNUTella are HTTP requests sent over UDP transport    This article contains further details on streaming over UDP and its reliable superset  the RUDP  Reliable UDP  RUDP   The Next Big Streaming Protocol

User · Answer

Of course  it doesn t necessarily have to be transmitted over TCP  I implemented HTTP on top of UDP  for use in the Satellite TV Broadcasting industry

User · Answer

I think some of the answers are missing an important point  The choice between UDP and TCP should not be based on the type of data  e g   audio or video  or whether the application starts to play it before the transfer is completed   streaming    but whether it is real time  Real time data is  by definition  delay-sensitive  so it is often best sent over RTP UDP  Real Time Protocol over UDP    Delay is not an issue with stored data from a file  even if it s audio and or video  so it is probably best sent over TCP so any packet losses can be corrected  The sender can read ahead and keep the network pipe full and the receiver can also use lots of playout buffering so it won t be interrupted by the occasional TCP retransmission or momentary network slowdown  The limiting case is where the entire recording is transferred before playback begins  This eliminates any risk of a playback stall  but is often impractical   The problem with TCP for real-time data isn t retransmissions so much as excessive buffering as TCP tries to use the pipe as efficiently as possible without regard to latency  UDP preserves application packet boundaries and has no internal storage  so it does not introduce any latency

User · Answer

Maybe just a bit of trivia  but UPnP will use HTTP formatted messages over UDP for device discovery

User · Answer

From RFC 2616      HTTP communication usually takes place   over TCP IP connections  The   default port is TCP 80  but other   ports can be used  This does not   preclude HTTP from being implemented   on top of any other protocol on the   Internet  or on other networks  HTTP   only presumes a reliable transport    any protocol that provides such   guarantees can be used  the mapping   of the HTTP 1 1 request and response   structures onto the transport data   units of the protocol in question is   outside the scope of this   specification    So although it doesn t explicitly say so  UDP is not used because it is not a  reliable transport    EDIT - more recently  the QUIC protocol  which is more strictly a pseudo-transport or a session layer protocol  does use UDP for carrying HTTP 2 0 traffic and much of Google s traffic already uses this protocol   It s currently progressing towards standardisation as HTTP 3

User · Answer

Try run HTTP over UDP with node-httpp   https   github com InstantWebP2P node-httpp

User · Answer

From RFC 2616      HTTP communication usually takes place   over TCP IP connections  The   default port is TCP 80  but other   ports can be used  This does not   preclude HTTP from being implemented   on top of any other protocol on the   Internet  or on other networks  HTTP   only presumes a reliable transport    any protocol that provides such   guarantees can be used  the mapping   of the HTTP 1 1 request and response   structures onto the transport data   units of the protocol in question is   outside the scope of this   specification    So although it doesn t explicitly say so  UDP is not used because it is not a  reliable transport    EDIT - more recently  the QUIC protocol  which is more strictly a pseudo-transport or a session layer protocol  does use UDP for carrying HTTP 2 0 traffic and much of Google s traffic already uses this protocol   It s currently progressing towards standardisation as HTTP 3

User · Answer

In theory yes it is possible to use UDP for http but that might be problematic  Say for instance in your example a mp3 or a video is being streamed there will be problem of ordering and some bits might go missing as UDP is not connection oriented there is no retransmit mechanism

User · Answer

From RFC 2616      HTTP communication usually takes place   over TCP IP connections  The   default port is TCP 80  but other   ports can be used  This does not   preclude HTTP from being implemented   on top of any other protocol on the   Internet  or on other networks  HTTP   only presumes a reliable transport    any protocol that provides such   guarantees can be used  the mapping   of the HTTP 1 1 request and response   structures onto the transport data   units of the protocol in question is   outside the scope of this   specification    So although it doesn t explicitly say so  UDP is not used because it is not a  reliable transport    EDIT - more recently  the QUIC protocol  which is more strictly a pseudo-transport or a session layer protocol  does use UDP for carrying HTTP 2 0 traffic and much of Google s traffic already uses this protocol   It s currently progressing towards standardisation as HTTP 3

User · Answer

Typically  no   Streaming is seldom used over HTTP itself  and HTTP is seldom run over UDP  See  however  RTP   For something as your example  in the comment   you re not showing a protocol for the resource  If that protocol were to be HTTP  then I wouldn t call the access  streaming   even if it in some sense of the word is since it s sending a  possibly large  resource serially over a network  Typically  the resource will be saved to local disk before being played back  so the network transfer is not what s usually meant by  streaming    As commenters have pointed out  though  it s certainly possible to really stream over HTTP  and that s done by some

User · Answer

UDP is the best protocol for streaming  because it doesn t make demands for missing packages like TCP  And if it doesn t make demands  the flow is far more faster and without any buffering    Even the stream delay is lesser than TCP  That is because TCP  as a far more secure protocol  makes demands for missing packages  overwriting the existing ones   So TCP is a protocol too advanced to be used for streaming

User · Answer

This is an old question  but it deserves an updated answer    In all likelihood  HTTP 3 will be using the QUIC protocol  which is described as      multiplexed transport over UDP   So  from a certain point of view  you could say that HTTP 3 will be using UDP

User · Answer

Maybe some change on this topic with QUIC     QUIC  Quick UDP Internet Connections  pronounced quick  is an experimental transport layer network protocol developed by Google and implemented in 2013  QUIC supports a set of multiplexed connections between two endpoints over User Datagram Protocol  UDP   and was designed to provide security protection equivalent to TLS SSL  along with reduced connection and transport latency  and bandwidth estimation in each direction to avoid congestion  QUIC s main goal is to optimize connection-oriented web applications currently using TCP

User · Answer

The answer  Yes  Reason  See the OSI model   Explaination   HTTP is an application layer protocol  which could be encapsulated with a protocol that uses UDP  providing arguably faster reliable communication than TCP  The server daemon and client would obviously need to support this new protocol  Quake 2 protocol proves that UDP can be used over TCP to provide a basis for a structured communication system insuring flow control  e g  chunk ids

User · Answer

From RFC 2616      HTTP communication usually takes place   over TCP IP connections  The   default port is TCP 80  but other   ports can be used  This does not   preclude HTTP from being implemented   on top of any other protocol on the   Internet  or on other networks  HTTP   only presumes a reliable transport    any protocol that provides such   guarantees can be used  the mapping   of the HTTP 1 1 request and response   structures onto the transport data   units of the protocol in question is   outside the scope of this   specification    So although it doesn t explicitly say so  UDP is not used because it is not a  reliable transport    EDIT - more recently  the QUIC protocol  which is more strictly a pseudo-transport or a session layer protocol  does use UDP for carrying HTTP 2 0 traffic and much of Google s traffic already uses this protocol   It s currently progressing towards standardisation as HTTP 3

User · Answer

The answer  Yes  Reason  See the OSI model   Explaination   HTTP is an application layer protocol  which could be encapsulated with a protocol that uses UDP  providing arguably faster reliable communication than TCP  The server daemon and client would obviously need to support this new protocol  Quake 2 protocol proves that UDP can be used over TCP to provide a basis for a structured communication system insuring flow control  e g  chunk ids

User · Answer

http over udp is used by some torrent tracker implementations  and supporteb by all main clients

User · Answer

UDP is the best protocol for streaming  because it doesn t make demands for missing packages like TCP  And if it doesn t make demands  the flow is far more faster and without any buffering    Even the stream delay is lesser than TCP  That is because TCP  as a far more secure protocol  makes demands for missing packages  overwriting the existing ones   So TCP is a protocol too advanced to be used for streaming

User · Answer

Maybe just a bit of trivia  but UPnP will use HTTP formatted messages over UDP for device discovery

User · Answer

If you are streaming an mp3 or video that may not necessarily be over HTTP  in fact I d be suprised if it was  It would probably be another protocol over TCP but I see no reason why you cannot stream over UDP   If you do you have to take into account that there is no certainty that your data will arrive at the other end  but I can take it that you know about UDP   To answer you question  No  HTTP does NOT use UDP  For what you talk about though  mp3 video streaming COULD happen over UDP and in my opinion should never happen over HTTP

User · Answer

I think some of the answers are missing an important point  The choice between UDP and TCP should not be based on the type of data  e g   audio or video  or whether the application starts to play it before the transfer is completed   streaming    but whether it is real time  Real time data is  by definition  delay-sensitive  so it is often best sent over RTP UDP  Real Time Protocol over UDP    Delay is not an issue with stored data from a file  even if it s audio and or video  so it is probably best sent over TCP so any packet losses can be corrected  The sender can read ahead and keep the network pipe full and the receiver can also use lots of playout buffering so it won t be interrupted by the occasional TCP retransmission or momentary network slowdown  The limiting case is where the entire recording is transferred before playback begins  This eliminates any risk of a playback stall  but is often impractical   The problem with TCP for real-time data isn t retransmissions so much as excessive buffering as TCP tries to use the pipe as efficiently as possible without regard to latency  UDP preserves application packet boundaries and has no internal storage  so it does not introduce any latency

User · Answer

If you are streaming an mp3 or video that may not necessarily be over HTTP  in fact I d be suprised if it was  It would probably be another protocol over TCP but I see no reason why you cannot stream over UDP   If you do you have to take into account that there is no certainty that your data will arrive at the other end  but I can take it that you know about UDP   To answer you question  No  HTTP does NOT use UDP  For what you talk about though  mp3 video streaming COULD happen over UDP and in my opinion should never happen over HTTP

User · Answer

In theory yes it is possible to use UDP for http but that might be problematic  Say for instance in your example a mp3 or a video is being streamed there will be problem of ordering and some bits might go missing as UDP is not connection oriented there is no retransmit mechanism

User · Answer

If you are streaming an mp3 or video that may not necessarily be over HTTP  in fact I d be suprised if it was  It would probably be another protocol over TCP but I see no reason why you cannot stream over UDP   If you do you have to take into account that there is no certainty that your data will arrive at the other end  but I can take it that you know about UDP   To answer you question  No  HTTP does NOT use UDP  For what you talk about though  mp3 video streaming COULD happen over UDP and in my opinion should never happen over HTTP

User · Answer

http over udp is used by some torrent tracker implementations  and supporteb by all main clients

User · Answer

Maybe just a bit of trivia  but UPnP will use HTTP formatted messages over UDP for device discovery

[http] Does HTTP use UDP?

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