---
title: Connection
slug: Web/HTTP/Headers/Connection
translation_of: Web/HTTP/Headers/Connection
---
<div>{{HTTPSidebar}}</div>

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

<div class="blockIndicator warning">
<p>Connection-specific header fields such as {{HTTPHeader("Connection")}} and {{HTTPHeader("Keep-Alive")}} are <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7540#section-8.1.2.2">prohibited in HTTP/2</a>. Chrome and Firefox ignore them in HTTP/2 responses, but Safari conforms to the HTTP/2 spec requirements and won’t load any response which contains them.</p>
</div>

<p>Except for the 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")}}), any hop-by-hop headers used by the message must be listed in the <code>Connection</code> header, so that the first proxy knows it has to consume them and not forward them further. Standard hop-by-hop headers can be listed too (it is often the case of {{HTTPHeader("Keep-Alive")}}, but this is not mandatory).</p>

<table class="properties">
 <tbody>
  <tr>
   <th scope="row">Header type</th>
   <td>{{Glossary("General header")}}</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <th scope="row">{{Glossary("Forbidden header name")}}</th>
   <td>yes</td>
  </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

<h2 id="Syntax">Syntax</h2>

<pre class="syntaxbox notranslate">Connection: keep-alive
Connection: close
</pre>

<h2 id="Directives">Directives</h2>

<dl>
 <dt><code>close</code></dt>
 <dd>Indicates that either the client or the server would like to close the connection. This is the default on HTTP/1.0 requests.</dd>
 <dt>any comma-separated list of HTTP headers [Usually <code>keep-alive</code> only]</dt>
 <dd>Indicates that the client would like to keep the connection open. Having a persistent connection 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.</dd>
</dl>

<h2 id="Browser_compatibility">Browser compatibility</h2>

<p class="hidden">The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out <a href="https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data">https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data</a> and send us a pull request.</p>

<p>{{Compat("http.headers.Connection")}}</p>