Hello,
if your ASP.NET or Sharepoint web application is storing binary data (images, PDF’s) in a database, you’ll probably need a HTTP handler which would retrieve those files from DB, and then transfer them to the user’s browsers as well as set the correct content type of the response. A clever way to do that is using the IHttpHandler interface, but that’s not the point of this entry.
Assuming that we have our handler ready and working, for example, reading jpegs from the DB and presenting them to the public as if it were normal files on the server (www.example.com/name1.jpg). In order for our Sharepoint Web Application to map such request onto a correct handler, we need a web.config entry within the <httpHandlers> section, like this:
<add verb="GET" path="/*.jpg" validate="false" type="MyAssembly.MyHandler, MyAssembly,
Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=abcdefghi" />
The verb attribute defines allowed HTTP request methods for this handler. In the case above, a HTTP POST request would be rejected by the server with a HTTP 404 code. For “normal” purposes, such as displaying the images in browsers, the GET method would be enough.
However, once you know that other clients than web browsers would access the handler, you must know which HTTP methods they’re using. Recently, thanks to Fiddler, I was able to discover that one of the client-apps used in our organization is using HEAD method (very similar to GET) in order to retrieve a file. Since the method was not enabled in our configuration, the client could not download the desired file.
Enabling the HEAD method within the handler’s verbs in web.config solves the issue:
<add verb="GET,HEAD" path="/*.jpg" (...) />
Hope this helps,
Łukasz