RFC 3749 (rfc3749) - Page 2 of 8
Transport Layer Security Protocol Compression Methods
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 3749 TLS Compression Methods May 2004 1. Introduction The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol (RFC 2246, [2]) includes features to negotiate selection of a lossless data compression method as part of the TLS Handshake Protocol and to then apply the algorithm associated with the selected method as part of the TLS Record Protocol. TLS defines one standard compression method, CompressionMethod.null, which specifies that data exchanged via the record protocol will not be compressed. While this single compression method helps ensure that TLS implementations are interoperable, the lack of additional standard compression methods has limited the ability of implementers to develop interoperable implementations that include data compression. TLS is used extensively to secure client-server connections on the World Wide Web. While these connections can often be characterized as short-lived and exchanging relatively small amounts of data, TLS is also being used in environments where connections can be long- lived and the amount of data exchanged can extend into thousands or millions of octets. XML [4], for example, is increasingly being used as a data representation method on the Internet, and XML tends to be verbose. Compression within TLS is one way to help reduce the bandwidth and latency requirements associated with exchanging large amounts of data while preserving the security services provided by TLS. This document describes an additional compression method associated with a lossless data compression algorithm for use with TLS. Standardization of the compressed data formats and compression algorithms associated with this compression method is beyond the scope of this document. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [1]. 2. Compression Methods TLS [2] includes the following compression method structure in sections 6.1 and 7.4.1.2 and Appendix sections A.4.1 and A.6: enum { null(0), (255) } CompressionMethod; Hollenbeck Standards Track
