index.md

---

title: Connection
slug: Web/HTTP/Headers/Connection
browser-compat: http.headers.Connection

---

{{HTTPSidebar}}

The Connection general header controls whether the network connection stays open after the current transaction finishes. If the value sent is keep-alive, the connection is persistent and not closed, allowing for subsequent requests to the same server to be done.

Warning: Connection-specific header fields such as {{HTTPHeader("Connection")}} and {{HTTPHeader("Keep-Alive")}} are prohibited in HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. Chrome and Firefox ignore them in HTTP/2 responses, but Safari conforms to the HTTP/2 spec requirements and does not load any response that contains them.

All hop-by-hop headers used by the message - including standard hop-by-hop headers ({{HTTPHeader("Keep-Alive")}}, {{HTTPHeader("Transfer-Encoding")}}, {{HTTPHeader("TE")}}, {{HTTPHeader("Connection")}}, {{HTTPHeader("Trailer")}}, {{HTTPHeader("Upgrade")}}, {{HTTPHeader("Proxy-Authorization")}} and {{HTTPHeader("Proxy-Authenticate")}}) - must be listed in the Connection header, so that the first proxy knows it has to consume them and not forward them further.

Header type	{{Glossary("Request header")}}, {{Glossary("Response header")}}
{{Glossary("Forbidden header name")}}	yes

Syntax

Connection: keep-alive
Connection: close

Directives

• close

  • : Indicates that either the client or the server would like to close the connection. This is the default on HTTP/1.0 requests.

• any comma-separated list of HTTP headers [Usually keep-alive only]

  • : Indicates that the client would like to keep the connection open. Keeping a connection open is the default on HTTP/1.1 requests. The list of headers are the name of the header to be removed by the first non-transparent proxy or cache in-between: these headers define the connection between the emitter and the first entity, not the destination node.

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}