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Re: Firefox HTTPS-only mode breaks sites that return 404 for HTTPS connections



On 15/04/2021 11:16, piorunz wrote:
> On 15/04/2021 03:15, Celejar wrote:
>
>>> It certainly works fine for me. I use https only mode for many months
>>> now. Can you bring an example of a page which returns good page on
>>> http,
>>> but 404 error on https?
>>
>> http://www.daat.ac.il/
>> https://www.daat.ac.il/
>>
>> Celejar
>
> Their webserver is misconfigured. AFAIR, if they don't support https,
> their server should redirect to http page. Instead, they throw 404 error.

If they don't support https, they shouldn't respond at all. Receiving a
404 comes after successful TLS negotiation. With HTTPS you first
establish a TCP connection to port 443 on the server, then you establish
a TLS tunnel to the server; only once those are complete can you send
the "GET" verb over the tunnel. The server has then, securely, responded
"I don't have a page called /".

While it's common practice for HTTP  and HTTPS sites to be identical,
it's not really built in to the protocol. I could well see a situation
where a webmaster might configure, say, just the /admin part to be
accessible over HTTPS.

That said, common use is changing. It's now expected that 
http://example.com, https://example.com, http://www.example.com and
https://www.example.com all serve identical content (mostly because
humans are terrible at paying attention to the full URL and just see
that all as "example dot com".

>
> Your web browser behaviour is as intended, everything is fine.
> If webadmins of that page don't know their sh*t, are you sure you want
> to use that website? Who knows what else they forgot to implement.
>
> Disclaimer: I never worked in IT, all self taught, but I have webpage
> which I put up myself on Debian computer, with https cert (it's free),
> TLS 2.0/3.0 only, PFS, HSTS preload with long duration, OCSP stapling,
> top spec security. These guys? They can't even redirect to their http
> page.
>
>
> -- 
>
> With kindest regards, piorunz.
>
> ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
> ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
> ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
> ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀
>

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