Share via

2.1 Transport

  • Article

This protocol is carried out over a set of web services and virtual directories.

  • Each web service MUST support Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) [SOAP1.1] over HTTP over TCP/IP [RFC2616]. Each web service SHOULD support HTTPS for securing its communication with clients.<3>

  • Each virtual directory MUST support HTTP over TCP/IP. Each virtual directory SHOULD support HTTPS.

The following TCP ports MUST be exposed by the server as endpoints for the HTTP over TCP/IP transport.

  • commonPort: Used for self-update and web services communication.<4>

  • contentPort: Used by the virtual directory that contains content.<5>

The following virtual directories MUST be exposed by the server as endpoints for the HTTP and SOAP over HTTP transports.

Update content directory: This virtual directory MUST be exposed at URL http://serverUrl:[contentPort]/Content

Self-update content directory: This virtual directory, MUST be exposed at URL http://serverUrl:[commonPort]/SelfUpdate<6>

SimpleAuth Web service: This virtual directory, as specified in section 2.2.2.1, MUST be exposed at URL http[s]://serverUrl:[commonPort]/SimpleAuthWebService/SimpleAuth.asmx

Client Web service: This virtual directory, as specified in section 2.2.2.2, MUST be exposed at URL http[s]://serverUrl:[commonPort]/ClientWebService/Client.asmx

Reporting Web service: This virtual directory, as specified in section 2.2.2.3, MUST be exposed at URL http[s]://serverUrl:[commonPort]/ReportingWebService/ReportingWebService.asmx

Windows Server Update Services: Client-Server Protocol version 0.9 is a legacy version of the protocol that requires the following:

  • Requires that commonPort be configured to port 80.

  • Requires an additional virtual directory at URL http://serverUrl:[commonPort], which MUST be populated with self-update configuration files.

The server SHOULD<7> self-update over a configurable commonPort.

To optimize network bandwidth when invoking client Web service and SimpleAuth Web service methods, the client implementation SHOULD add xpress to the HTTP "Accept-Encoding" request-header to request xpress compression. If the client requests xpress compression, the update server SHOULD encode the response using the requested format, as specified in 2.1.1.1.

A client implementation MAY request another type of compression by specifying the encoding format in the HTTP Accept-Encoding request-header field ([RFC2616] section 14.3). If the client requests another type of compression, the update server MAY encode the response using the requested format.