Option request

what's it for?

[RobBroekhuis]

In my logs today, something I've never seen before:

xx.34.246.4. Microsoft Data Access Internet Publishing Provider Protocol Discovery
19:06:55:OPTIONS / (- bytes)
19:07:00:OPTIONS / (- bytes)
19:07:02:OPTIONS / (- bytes)
19:07:02:OPTIONS /portrait.php?plantid%3D100 (- bytes)

These requests came on the heels of "normal" requests for my pages from the same IP. As you can see, my server didn't exactly provide much in response. I know about GET, POST, and HEAD requests - what's this OPTIONS thing?
Rob

[webnerd]

options is a HTTP method to usually just receive HTTP headers as response
(like the HEAD method, no objects or entity body data as with PUT POST GET TRACE)
it's used to determine webserver capabilities

[RobBroekhuis]

Thanks. Any thoughts as to the reasons a browser would want to use this?
Rob

[webnerd]

Hi Rob:
See Section 9.2 OPTIONS of
[w3.org...]

Makes for interesting reading.
It could help people with an insomnia problem.
webnerd