what is a range request?

Hello,
my question is about range_offset_limit, BTW what is a range request?
well anyway if I set to -1 squid is fetching it faster than the client
can get
right? for example if squid has 1Mbit connection to internet and the
client is
connecting to squid box with a 56Kbit modem then squid can fetch the
whole
object before client get it since the client has lower bandwidth?
If I set it to 0 (the default) then the squid is fetching the object
according
to the clients bandwidth limit which is 56Kbit in this case even if it
could
fetch it faster right?
I could not understand what happens if I set for example 8 MB. What
happens
then? is there any further documentation about this?
Also in the squid.conf file it says;
# TAG: range_offset_limit (bytes)
but the default is defined by KB (is this mean I can define MB too?)

BTW the only information I could find about range request was an email
from Henrik Nordstrom but it was not very explanatory

>Bandwidth spikes may also be caused by Range requests in Squid 2.0. This
>has been addressed in Squid 2.1 by the squid.conf range_offset_limit
>directive. Hopefully the problem with storage of partial objects is
>addressed soon so that no bandwidth spikes can be caused by Range
>requests.

Evren Yurtesen
yurtesen@ispro.net.tr
Received on Sun Aug 15 1999 - 13:16:42 MDT