Useful "X headers"

Hi Jon

Great article. Actually I was also doing some self research on this type of man-made HTTP headers. Nicely you have listed those down. Hope from everyones response we will get the description of these personalized headers.

So far I understand, these headers are added by the WAP Gateway while passing. I was looking for any reference on "How to add extra headers". I mean if I want to work with Kannel WApGW, can I modify the Kannel code to add some extra header variable.

Muntasir Mamun Joarder
Sr. System Analyst
Product Service Innovation
AKTEL
Bangladesh
Cell: +88 01817 183 021

A useful article -- it presented several exotic HTTP header fields that I had never seen so far.

Many of the listed extra fields are however well-known and thoroughly described in the relevant technical documentation. Since this is certainly of general interest, here it is:

1. Opera:
   http://mobileopera.com/reference/ua
2. OpenWave:
   http://odn.openwave.com/docs/devcap.pdf
3. Avantgo:
   http://www.ianywhere.com/downloads/avantgo/chandev.pdf
   (rely upon archive.org if the link no longer points to anything).
4. Microsoft:
   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa451991.aspx
5. jphone:
   http://creation.mb.softbank.jp/download.php?docid=102
   (documentation in Japanese -- and you might have to register as a Softbank developer).

Enjoy.

E. Casais
areppim AG
Berne
Switzerland

It might be interesting to know that the Openwave WAP Gateway allows carriers to configure their own x-* headers.

The Gateway has a feature where carriers can define the name of the x-* header and populate it with data that is available within the Gateway, plus specify which site(s) will see this x-header.
This has been put into place to allow carriers to embed important information (mostly authentication related) and forward to internal services or partner services.

Depending on the configuration this might be seen elsewhere and thus all kind of interesting stuff might come up.

Cheers, Robert

Robert Oberhofer

Hi jonarne,
Great post, I just want to ask, some operators/carriers send the MSISDN number through the HTTP header (e.g. using x-up-calling-line-id or x-msisdn or else). Is it OK? I mean in the term of privacy.

Sony AK
Mobitrek Indonesia
http://m.mobitrek.com/

Hi.
It depends on the local regulations. In most countries I would guess you would need some kind of agreement (often called CPA agreement) with the mobile operator. For ensuring the privacy... On the other hand I do know of operators that are forwarding the msisdn by default, no agreement needed.
--
Jon Arne S.

So, have you any updates to this list?

We just released some free mobile applications (Blackberry & Windows Mobile) that allow you to add your own custom X header fields to HTTP. The app also allows you to access device side data like GPS and Cell Tower ID and then include that as well. All this is done via the Mobile browser so now you can use this new data to drive more relevant and interesting web applications.

Peter Cranstone
5o9Me

Here are some new X Headers for you...

Location:
HTTP_X_CELL_TOWER_CURRENT_ID="0"
HTTP_X_CELL_TOWER_CURRENT_SIGNAL_STRENGTH="-256"
HTTP_X_CELL_TOWER_CURRENT_TIME="5/15/2009 6:13:4 GMT/Zulu"
HTTP_X_CELL_TOWER_PREVIOUS_ID="13338"
HTTP_X_CELL_TOWER_PREVIOUS_TIME="5/14/2009 13:58:17 GMT/Zulu"
HTTP_X_CELL_TOWER_SIGNAL_PREVIOUS_STRENGTH="-70"
HTTP_X_GPS_CURRENT_ALTITUDE="-1962.0 m"
HTTP_X_GPS_CURRENT_DIRECTION="335.5829"
HTTP_X_GPS_CURRENT_LATITUDE="39.474105"
HTTP_X_GPS_CURRENT_LONGITUDE="-104.912521"
HTTP_X_GPS_CURRENT_SPEED="20.93 m/s"
HTTP_X_GPS_CURRENT_TIME="5/14/2009 11:44:16 GMT/Zulu"
HTTP_X_GPS_PREVIOUS_ALTITUDE="-1962.0 m"
HTTP_X_GPS_PREVIOUS_DIRECTION="357.64343"
HTTP_X_GPS_PREVIOUS_LATITUDE="39.474105"
HTTP_X_GPS_PREVIOUS_LONGITUDE="-104.912521"
HTTP_X_GPS_PREVIOUS_SPEED="26.93 m/s"
HTTP_X_GPS_PREVIOUS_TIME="5/14/2009 11:43:58 GMT/Zulu"

Owner Information:
HTTP_X_EMAIL_ADDRESS="john.doe@5o9inc.com"
HTTP_X_NAME="John Doe"
HTTP_X_ZIPCODE="96849"

Custom Data Fields:
HTTP_X_ME_CUSTOM_ITEM_1="1"
HTTP_X_ME_CUSTOM_ITEM_2="2"
HTTP_X_ME_CUSTOM_ITEM_3="3"
HTTP_X_ME_CUSTOM_ITEM_4="4"

Device:
HTTP_X_BROWSER_HEIGHT="480"
HTTP_X_BROWSER_VERSION="4.6.0.167"
HTTP_X_BROWSER_WIDTH="320"
HTTP_X_CARRIER="SRVC=0 TYPE=7"
HTTP_X_DEVICE_OS="4.6.0.167 (Platform 4.0.0.157)"
HTTP_X_DEVICE_TYPE="BlackBerry 9000"
HTTP_X_SCREEN_COLORS="65536"
HTTP_X_SCREEN_HEIGHT="480"
HTTP_X_SCREEN_RESOLUTION="Horz=8547PPM Vert=8547 PPM"
HTTP_X_SCREEN_WIDTH="320"

Windows Mobile Specific Fields:
HTTP_X_ME_ALLOW_ALL_DOMAINS="No"
HTTP_X_ME_CONVERT_NMEA="Yes"
HTTP_X_ME_DSR_SENSITIVITY="Yes"
HTTP_X_ME_JSAPI_ALLOW="Yes"
HTTP_X_ME_JSAPI_VERSION="JSAPI/1.2.3

Cheers,

Peter

Hello,

What are the most critical "X-Headers" among the above ones?

I am developing a transcoding proxy, I want forward the real end users' information to web sites, such as their IP addresses. While, I can not make all above "X-Headers", at least in a short time. What are the mandatory "X-Headers" I should implement?

Thanks for your time.

Rickey

I can shed some light on this one, this is a header added by the Firefox add-on LORI (Life-Of-Request Info.) Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1743
I think it adds a timestamp to the field which it then uses to work out how long it took for the server to respond. eg HTTP_X_LORI_TIME_1=123456789876

Hi,
I'd like to work with x-headers too. But my question is, do we need to configure our Apache httpd.conf to make it accept x-headers?

thank you

Hi Jonare, I've got a collection of HTTP Headers for you over a few years from a few test devices:
Here is the current file http://wap.defza.com/ua/ua.txt
But you can also look at http://wap.defza.com/ua/ua1.txt ... ua2.txt etc

Hi,

I am adding x-imsi=123456789123456 in the HTTP header in the GET request to identify the user at my portal, but
as soon as this change is added, the browsing stops and just re-transmission of GET request and response as 200 OK , goes on and on...

Can somebody please help? And tell what might be getting wrong with this approach

Regards,
Ravi

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