Question

Which of the following statements is/are true with respect to the interaction of a web browser with a web server using HTTP 1.1?

• A. HTTP 1.1 facilitates downloading multiple objects of the same webpage over the same TCP connection, if the objects are stored in the same server
• B. HTTP 1.1 facilitates downloading multiple objects of the same webpage over the same TCP connection, even if they are stored in different servers
• C. HTTP 1.1 facilitates sending a request for downloading one object without waiting for a previously requested object to be downloaded completely
• D. HTTP 1.1 facilitates downloading multiple webpages on the same server to be downloaded over a single TCP connection

Hint:

Think about what a TCP connection is tied to (one server, one socket pair) versus what persistence and pipelining in HTTP 1.1 actually allow on that one connection.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is A, C, D

Step 1: Recall what HTTP 1.1 changed about the underlying TCP connection. HTTP 1.0 opened a fresh TCP connection for every single object requested and closed it right after that object was delivered, which meant a full TCP handshake for every image, script, or stylesheet on a page. HTTP 1.1 introduced persistent connections (keep-alive by default) so that one TCP connection, once opened between a browser and a server, stays open and can be reused for many requests and responses before it is finally torn down. This single change is the key to evaluating every option in this question.

Step 2: Evaluate option A. A typical webpage is made of many separate objects such as the HTML file itself, CSS files, JavaScript files, and images, and in the common case all of these are hosted on the same server. Because HTTP 1.1 keeps the TCP connection alive after the first response, the browser does not need to open a new connection for the second object, the third object, and so on, as long as they all live on that same server. It simply keeps issuing requests and reading responses on the one already-established connection. So statement A, that multiple objects of the same webpage can be downloaded over the same TCP connection when they are stored on the same server, is true.

Step 3: Evaluate option B. A TCP connection is defined by a specific 4-tuple: source IP and port paired with destination IP and port. That pairing ties a connection to exactly one client socket and exactly one server socket. If two objects of a webpage sit on two different servers (two different IP addresses, such as the main site and a separate CDN or image host), the browser physically cannot reuse a connection that terminates at server 1 to also talk to server 2. It must open a second, independent TCP connection to the second server. Persistence lets a connection be reused many times against the same endpoint, but it never lets one connection bridge two different servers. So statement B is false, and this is the one incorrect statement among the four.

Step 4: Evaluate option C. Beyond just keeping the connection open, HTTP 1.1 also standardises pipelining. Without pipelining, even on a persistent connection, a client would send a request, wait for the complete response, and only then send the next request, so requests are strictly serialized in a stop-and-wait manner. Pipelining removes that wait: the client can send request two (and request three, and so on) right after sending request one, without waiting for request one's response to finish arriving. The server is still expected to send the responses back in the same order the requests were made, but the client is no longer blocked waiting for one full download to complete before issuing the next request. That is exactly what statement C describes, so it is true.

Step 5: Evaluate option D. Because the browser to server TCP connection persists rather than closing after a single request-response exchange, it stays available for reuse across time. If the user first opens one page on a server and then, shortly after, navigates to a different page on that very same server, the browser can reuse the still-open connection to fetch the new page instead of paying for a fresh handshake. So multiple different webpages hosted on the same server can indeed be fetched over a single persistent TCP connection, which makes statement D true as well.

Step 6: Combine the results. A is true because persistence allows object reuse of one connection within a single server. B is false because one TCP connection cannot span two distinct servers. C is true because pipelining lets a new request go out before the prior response is fully received. D is true because a persistent connection can be reused across separate webpage fetches on the same server, not just separate objects of one page. Therefore the true statements are A, C and D.

\[ \boxed{A, C, D} \]