The era of HTTP/2 is now here, with both browsers and web servers supporting the next generation of the HTTP protocol that powers the modern web.
The new Apache HTTP 2.4.17 release this week now includes the mod_http2 module providing HTTP/2 support. The basic syntax to enable HTTP/2, is about as easy at it gets – H2Direct on|off
According to the module documentation:
This directive toggles the usage of the HTTP/2 Direct Mode. This should be used inside a section to enable direct HTTP/2 communication for that virtual host. Direct communication means that if the first bytes received by the server on a connection match the HTTP/2 preamble, the HTTP/2 protocol is switched to immediately without further negotiation. This mode falls outside the RFC 7540 but has become widely implemented as it is very convenient for development and testing. By default the direct HTTP/2 mode is enabled.
As a standard, HTTP/2 was declared to be ‘done’ back on February 18, so having support in Apache now makes sense. Rival web server Nginx, landed HTTP/2 support in its open-source version just a few week ago.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist
