Writing a download server. Part II: headers: Last-Modified, ETag and If-None-Match

June 24, 2015 | 8 Minute Read

Caching on the client side is one of the foundations of World Wide Web. Server should inform client about validity of resources and client should cache them as eagerly as possible. Without caching the web as we see it would be insanely slow. Just hit Ctrl + F5 on any website and compare it with ordinary F5 - the latter is much faster as it uses already cached resources. Caching is also important for downloading. If we already fetched several megabytes of data and they haven't changed, pushing them through network is quite wasteful.

Use `ETag` and `If-None-Match` headers

HTTP ETag header can be used to avoid repeatable downloads of resources client already has. Along with first response server returns an ETag header, which is typically a hash value of the contents of a file. Client can keep ETag and send it (in If-None-Match request header) when requesting the same resource later. If it wasn't changed in the meantime, server can simply return 304 Not Modified response. Let's start with an integration test for ETag support:

def 'should send file if ETag not present'() {
    expect:
        mockMvc
                .perform(
                    get('/download/' + FileExamples.TXT_FILE_UUID))
                .andExpect(
                    status().isOk())
    }

def 'should send file if ETag present but not matching'() {
    expect:
        mockMvc
                .perform(
                    get('/download/' + FileExamples.TXT_FILE_UUID)
                            .header(IF_NONE_MATCH, '"WHATEVER"'))
                .andExpect(
                    status().isOk())
}

def 'should not send file if ETag matches content'() {
    given:
        String etag = FileExamples.TXT_FILE.getEtag()
    expect:
        mockMvc
                .perform(
                    get('/download/' + FileExamples.TXT_FILE_UUID)
                            .header(IF_NONE_MATCH, etag))
                .andExpect(
                    status().isNotModified())
                .andExpect(
                    header().string(ETAG, etag))
}

Interestingly there is a built-in ShallowEtagHeaderFilter in Spring framework. Installing it makes all the tests pass, including the last one:

@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration(classes = [MainApplication])
@ActiveProfiles("test")
class DownloadControllerSpec extends Specification {

    private MockMvc mockMvc

    @Autowired
    public void setWebApplicationContext(WebApplicationContext wac) {
        mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(wac)
                .addFilter(new Sha512ShallowEtagHeaderFilter(), "/download/*")
                .build()
    }

    //tests...

}

I actually plug in my own Sha512ShallowEtagHeaderFilter that uses SHA-512 instead of default MD5. Also the default implementation for some reason prepends 0 in front of hash:

public class ShallowEtagHeaderFilter {
    protected String generateETagHeaderValue(byte[] bytes) {
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder("\"0");
        DigestUtils.appendMd5DigestAsHex(bytes, builder);
        builder.append('"');
        return builder.toString();
    }

    //...
}

vs.:

public class Sha512ShallowEtagHeaderFilter extends ShallowEtagHeaderFilter {

    @Override
    protected String generateETagHeaderValue(byte[] bytes) {
        final HashCode hash = Hashing.sha512().hashBytes(bytes);
        return "\"" + hash + "\"";
    }
}

Unfortunately we cannot use built-in filters in our case as they must first fully read response body in order to compute ETag. This basically turns off body streaming introduced in previous article - whole response is stored in memory. We must implement ETag functionality ourselves. Technically If-None-Match can include multiple ETag values. However neither Google Chrome nor ShallowEtagHeaderFilter support it, so we will skip that as well. In order to control response headers we now return ResponseEntity<Resource>:

@RequestMapping(method = GET, value = "/{uuid}")
public ResponseEntity<Resource> download(
        @PathVariable UUID uuid,
        @RequestHeader(IF_NONE_MATCH) Optional<String> requestEtagOpt) {
    return storage
            .findFile(uuid)
            .map(pointer -> prepareResponse(pointer, requestEtagOpt))
            .orElseGet(() -> new ResponseEntity<>(NOT_FOUND));
}

private ResponseEntity<Resource> prepareResponse(FilePointer filePointer, Optional<String> requestEtagOpt) {
    return requestEtagOpt
            .filter(filePointer::matchesEtag)
            .map(this::notModified)
            .orElseGet(() -> serveDownload(filePointer));
}

private ResponseEntity<Resource> notModified(String etag) {
    log.trace("Cached on client side {}, returning 304", etag);
    return ResponseEntity
            .status(NOT_MODIFIED)
            .eTag(etag)
            .body(null);
}

private ResponseEntity<Resource> serveDownload(FilePointer filePointer) {
    log.debug("Serving '{}'", filePointer);
    final InputStream inputStream = filePointer.open();
    final InputStreamResource resource = new InputStreamResource(inputStream);
    return ResponseEntity
            .status(OK)
            .eTag(filePointer.getEtag())
            .body(resource);
}

The process is controlled by optional requestEtagOpt. If it's present and matches whatever was sent by the client, we return 304. Otherwise 200 OK as usual. New methods in FilePointer introduced in this example look as follows:

import com.google.common.hash.HashCode;
import com.google.common.hash.Hashing;
import com.google.common.io.Files;

public class FileSystemPointer implements FilePointer {

    private final File target;
    private final HashCode tag;

    public FileSystemPointer(File target) {
        try {
            this.target = target;
            this.tag = Files.hash(target, Hashing.sha512());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(e);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public InputStream open() {
        try {
            return new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(target));
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(e);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public String getEtag() {
        return "\"" + tag + "\"";
    }

    @Override
    public boolean matchesEtag(String requestEtag) {
        return getEtag().equals(requestEtag);
    }
}

Here you see FileSystemPointer implementation that reads files straight from file system. The crucial part is to cache tag instead of recalculating it on every request. The implementation above behaves as expected, for example web browsers won't download the resource again.

3. Use `Last-Modified` header

Similar to ETag and If-None-Match headers there are Last-Modified and If-Modified-Since. I guess they are pretty self-explanatory: first server returns Last-Modified response header indicating when a given resource was last modified (duh!). Client caches this timestamp and passes it along with subsequent request to the same resource in If-Modified-Since request header. If the resource wasn't changed in the meantime, server will respond with 304, saving bandwidth. This is a fallback mechanism and it's a good practice to implement both ETags and Last-Modified. Let's start with integration tests:

def 'should not return file if wasn\'t modified recently'() {
    given:
        Instant lastModified = FileExamples.TXT_FILE.getLastModified()
        String dateHeader = toDateHeader(lastModified)
    expect:
        mockMvc
                .perform(
                get('/download/' + FileExamples.TXT_FILE_UUID)
                        .header(IF_MODIFIED_SINCE, dateHeader))
                .andExpect(
                        status().isNotModified())
}

def 'should not return file if server has older version than the client'() {
    given:
        Instant lastModifiedLaterThanServer = FileExamples.TXT_FILE.getLastModified().plusSeconds(60)
        String dateHeader = toDateHeader(lastModifiedLaterThanServer)
    expect:
        mockMvc
                .perform(
                get('/download/' + FileExamples.TXT_FILE_UUID)
                        .header(IF_MODIFIED_SINCE, dateHeader))
                .andExpect(
                        status().isNotModified())
}

def 'should return file if was modified after last retrieval'() {
    given:
        Instant lastModifiedRecently = FileExamples.TXT_FILE.getLastModified().minusSeconds(60)
        String dateHeader = toDateHeader(lastModifiedRecently)
    expect:
        mockMvc
                .perform(
                get('/download/' + FileExamples.TXT_FILE_UUID)
                        .header(IF_MODIFIED_SINCE, dateHeader))
                .andExpect(
                        status().isOk())
}

private static String toDateHeader(Instant lastModified) {
    ZonedDateTime dateTime = ZonedDateTime.ofInstant(lastModified, ZoneOffset.UTC)
    DateTimeFormatter.RFC_1123_DATE_TIME.format(dateTime)
}

And the implementation:

@RequestMapping(method = GET, value = "/{uuid}")
public ResponseEntity<Resource> download(
        @PathVariable UUID uuid,
        @RequestHeader(IF_NONE_MATCH) Optional<String> requestEtagOpt,
        @RequestHeader(IF_MODIFIED_SINCE) Optional<Date> ifModifiedSinceOpt
        ) {
    return storage
            .findFile(uuid)
            .map(pointer -> prepareResponse(
                    pointer,
                    requestEtagOpt,
                    ifModifiedSinceOpt.map(Date::toInstant)))
            .orElseGet(() -> new ResponseEntity<>(NOT_FOUND));
}

private ResponseEntity<Resource> prepareResponse(FilePointer filePointer, Optional<String> requestEtagOpt, Optional<Instant> ifModifiedSinceOpt) {
    if (requestEtagOpt.isPresent()) {
        final String requestEtag = requestEtagOpt.get();
        if (filePointer.matchesEtag(requestEtag)) {
            return notModified(filePointer);
        }
    }
    if (ifModifiedSinceOpt.isPresent()) {
        final Instant isModifiedSince = ifModifiedSinceOpt.get();
        if (filePointer.modifiedAfter(isModifiedSince)) {
            return notModified(filePointer);
        }
    }
    return serveDownload(filePointer);
}

private ResponseEntity<Resource> serveDownload(FilePointer filePointer) {
    log.debug("Serving '{}'", filePointer);
    final InputStream inputStream = filePointer.open();
    final InputStreamResource resource = new InputStreamResource(inputStream);
    return response(filePointer, OK, resource);
}

private ResponseEntity<Resource> notModified(FilePointer filePointer) {
    log.trace("Cached on client side {}, returning 304", filePointer);
    return response(filePointer, NOT_MODIFIED, null);
}

private ResponseEntity<Resource> response(FilePointer filePointer, HttpStatus status, Resource body) {
    return ResponseEntity
            .status(status)
            .eTag(filePointer.getEtag())
            .lastModified(filePointer.getLastModified().toEpochMilli()).body(body);
}

Sadly using Optional idiomatically no longer looks good so I stick to isPresent(). We check both If-Modified-Since and If-None-Match. If neither match, we serve file as usual. Just to give you a taste of how these headers work, let's execute few end-to-end tests. First request:

> GET /download/4a8883b6-ead6-4b9e-8979-85f9846cab4b HTTP/1.1
> ...
> 
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< ETag: "8b97c678a7f1d2e0af...921228d8e"
< Last-Modified: Sun, 17 May 2015 15:45:26 GMT
< ...

Subsequent request with ETag (shortened):

> GET /download/4a8883b6-ead6-4b9e-8979-85f9846cab4b HTTP/1.1
> If-None-Match: "8b97c678a7f1d2e0af...921228d8e"
> ...
> 
< HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
< ETag: "8b97c678a7f1d2e0af...921228d8e"
< Last-Modified: Sun, 17 May 2015 15:45:26 GMT
< ...

And in case our client supports Last-Modified only:

> GET /download/4a8883b6-ead6-4b9e-8979-85f9846cab4b HTTP/1.1
> If-Modified-Since: Tue, 19 May 2015 06:59:55 GMT
> ...
> 
< HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
< ETag: "8b97c678a7f1d2e0af9cda473b36c21f1b68e35b93fec2eb5c38d182c7e8f43a069885ec56e127c2588f9495011fd8ce032825b6d3136df7adbaa1f921228d8e"
< Last-Modified: Sun, 17 May 2015 15:45:26 GMT

There are many built-in tools such as filter that can handle caching for you. However if you need to be sure your files are streamed rather then pre-buffered on the server side, extra care needs to be taken.