HTTP headers / request & response

Connection

Connection: keep-alive

What it does

Controls whether the TCP connection survives after the response (keep-alive) or closes (close), plus which hop-by-hop headers to strip.

The gotcha

Forbidden in HTTP/2 — proxies translating between versions drop it, so never build logic on it.

Debugging headers on a phone

The fastest way to see what Connection is actually doing is to send the request and read both sides raw — ReqPad shows auto-generated and custom headers for every request, on all six protocols, with history. Related references: status codes · Content-Type · Content-Length · Cache-Control · X-Request-Id

Inspect Connection on a live request.

Build the request, send it, read raw headers and timing — from your iPhone. Free to start.