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I’m not a web developer, but that RFC, which talks about bootstrapping, talks about using the CONNECT method to “transition” to the WebSockets protocol. Which matches what I thought the CONNECT method does: Switch to a protocol that is not HTTP?

But I only skimmed the introduction, did I miss something?

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normally uses GET and the Upgrade header, not CONNECT

That’s for HTTP/1.1, where WebSockets are really a completely different protocol which “hijacks” the underlying TCP or TCP+TLS stream from HTTP via the Upgrade request.

HTTP/2 has its own concept of streams, so WebSockets can run over a single HTTP/2 stream, and the linked RFC describes extending the CONNECT method to take over a single stream.

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