What is the purpose of HTTP status code 200 vs. 201, and when does a server return each?
- A.200 means the page was cached; 201 means the page was freshly fetched from the server; a protocol analyzer must open the target port to capture its traffic. NTP stratum numbers count upward from 15 at the reference clock to 0 at clients. DNS zone transfers ride UDP 53 because TCP cannot carry records larger than 512 bytes. TLS 1.3 removed certificates in favor of pre-shared DNS TXT fingerprints
- B.200 (OK): the request was successful and the response body contains the requested resource (used for GET requests and successful general responses). 201 (Created): the request was successful and a new resource was created as a result (returned after a successful HTTP POST or PUT that creates a new record -- the response typically includes the Location header with the URL of the new resource)
- C.200 is for HTTP/1.0 responses; 201 is for HTTP/2 responses