RomWebClient Toolkits Overview

The RomWebClient toolkits, offered in Standard, Advanced and Secure editions, are a range of embedded HTTP 1.0/1.1 client implementations that provide devices the ability to send and retrieve objects from any Web server using the HTTP protocol. The toolkits enable networked devices to download configuration files, retrieve software updates, retrieve "print-by-reference" documents or send status notifications. RomWebClient also enables devices to initiate XML-based request/response protocols such as the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), a vendor-independent initiative supported by many computer manufacturers. The RomWebClient toolkits can send and receive HTTP objects in any format indicated using a MIME type definition. The RomWebClient toolkits include MIME definitions for all standard MIME object types, as well as allowing use of nonstandard MIME types if required. The HTTP objects are sent to and from internal memory buffers or, optionally any available file system.

RomWebClient Product Family

The RomWebClient toolkits can send and receive HTTP objects in any format. The format is indicated using a MIME definition such as 'text/plain' or 'image/gif'. The RomWebClient toolkits include MIME definitions for all the standard MIME object types, as well as allowing use of non-standard MIME types. The HTTP objects are sent to and from internal memory buffers or an optional file system may be used to store the objects.

The RomWebClient embedded HTTP client toolkits are compliant with both HTTP 1.0 (RFC 1945) and HTTP 1.1 (RFC 2616) requests. The RomWebClient toolkit supports the following HTTP methods: GET, POST, HEAD, PUT, OPTIONS and TRACE. The HTTP GET method is used to retrieve an object, the POST method sends an object to the Web server and may retrieve an object with the same request. The PUT method stores an object on the Web server and usually does not receive an object response. The HEAD, and OPTIONS methods usually receive only HTTP headers as responses and are used to determine Web server capabilities. The TRACE method returns an object containing the HTTP request headers and is used for examining network request flows.

Both HTTP direct requests and proxy server requests are supported. HTTP 1.0 and 1.1 persistent connections are supported which allow multiple requests and responses inside a single TCP connection.

Authentication is supported with all the toolkits with support for both the HTTP Basic and Digest methods. The RomWebClient embedded Web client toolkits are compliant with RFC 2617 which describes the Basic and Digest Authentication techniques.

The RomWebClient Advanced toolkit adds built-in object caching support, pipelined request support, proxy authentication support and HTTP Cookies support. HTTP Cookies are a non-standard addition to the protocol that was developed by Netscape to support maintaining state information over multiple transactions.

Additional security is available with the RomWebClient Secure option. This toolkit adds support for the SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 encryption protocols to RomWebClient or RomWebClient Advanced. With the included cryptography libraries and certificate services a device can participate in secure communications with any secure Web server.

The RomWebClient toolkits include integrated retrieval/transmission of XML objects using the embedded XML parsing and framing support of the RomXML toolkit. XML objects provide machine-independent computer-to-computer data exchange with a syntax that is easily read by humans.

The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is an XML request-response protocol that uses HTTP to make requests and receive responses. SOAP is the foundation of many Web services applications. With the use of the RomWebClient and RomXML toolkits, an embedded device can make SOAP requests and receive SOAP responses, thus allowing devices to be more easily integrated with corporate information systems.

The RomWebClient toolkits use a single task from the host operating system and uses asynchronous calls, so that the embedded device may perform other tasks while the HTTP request is being serviced. The toolkits are designed to use minimal device resources. The RomWebClient Standard toolkit, for instance, uses as little at 10Kb of ROM depending on compilation options. The RomWebClient toolkits are provided in ANSI-C source code and use a Software Abstraction Layer to provide portability to any RTOS, TCP/IP and file system environment.

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