The HTTP interface lets you use ClickHouse on any platform from any programming language. We use it for working from Java and Perl, as well as shell scripts. In other departments, the HTTP interface is used from Perl, Python, and Go. The HTTP interface is more limited than the native interface, but it has better compatibility.
Sometimes, `curl` command is not available on user operating systems. On Ubuntu or Debian, run `sudo apt install curl`. Please refer this [documentation](https://curl.se/download.html) to install it before running the examples.
If you make a `GET /` request without parameters, it returns 200 response code and the string which defined in [http_server_default_response](../operations/server-configuration-parameters/settings.md#server_configuration_parameters-http_server_default_response) default value “Ok.” (with a line feed at the end)
Send the request as a URL ‘query’ parameter, or as a POST. Or send the beginning of the query in the ‘query’ parameter, and the rest in the POST (we’ll explain later why this is necessary). The size of the URL is limited to 16 KB, so keep this in mind when sending large queries.
When using the GET method, ‘readonly’ is set. In other words, for queries that modify data, you can only use the POST method. You can send the query itself either in the POST body or in the URL parameter.
As you can see, `curl` is somewhat inconvenient in that spaces must be URL escaped.
Although `wget` escapes everything itself, we do not recommend using it because it does not work well over HTTP 1.1 when using keep-alive and Transfer-Encoding: chunked.
The POST method of transmitting data is necessary for `INSERT` queries. In this case, you can write the beginning of the query in the URL parameter, and use POST to pass the data to insert. The data to insert could be, for example, a tab-separated dump from MySQL. In this way, the `INSERT` query replaces `LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE` from MySQL.
You can use the internal ClickHouse compression format when transmitting data. The compressed data has a non-standard format, and you need `clickhouse-compressor` program to work with it. It is installed with the `clickhouse-client` package. To increase the efficiency of data insertion, you can disable server-side checksum verification by using the [http_native_compression_disable_checksumming_on_decompress](../operations/settings/settings.md#settings-http_native_compression_disable_checksumming_on_decompress) setting.
If you specify `compress=1` in the URL, the server will compress the data it sends to you. If you specify `decompress=1` in the URL, the server will decompress the data which you pass in the `POST` method.
You can also choose to use [HTTP compression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_compression). ClickHouse supports the following [compression methods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_compression#Content-Encoding_tokens):
To send a compressed `POST` request, append the request header `Content-Encoding: compression_method`.
In order for ClickHouse to compress the response, enable compression with [enable_http_compression](../operations/settings/settings.md#settings-enable_http_compression) setting and append `Accept-Encoding: compression_method` header to the request. You can configure the data compression level in the [http_zlib_compression_level](../operations/settings/settings.md#settings-http_zlib_compression_level) setting for all compression methods.
!!! note "Note"
Some HTTP clients might decompress data from the server by default (with `gzip` and `deflate`) and you might get decompressed data even if you use the compression settings correctly.
By default, the database that is registered in the server settings is used as the default database. By default, this is the database called ‘default’. Alternatively, you can always specify the database using a dot before the table name.
You can also use the URL parameters to specify any settings for processing a single query or entire profiles of settings. Example:http://localhost:8123/?profile=web&max_rows_to_read=1000000000&query=SELECT+1
Similarly, you can use ClickHouse sessions in the HTTP protocol. To do this, you need to add the `session_id` GET parameter to the request. You can use any string as the session ID. By default, the session is terminated after 60 seconds of inactivity. To change this timeout, modify the `default_session_timeout` setting in the server configuration, or add the `session_timeout` GET parameter to the request. To check the session status, use the `session_check=1` parameter. Only one query at a time can be executed within a single session.
You can receive information about the progress of a query in `X-ClickHouse-Progress` response headers. To do this, enable [send_progress_in_http_headers](../operations/settings/settings.md#settings-send_progress_in_http_headers). Example of the header sequence:
Running requests do not stop automatically if the HTTP connection is lost. Parsing and data formatting are performed on the server-side, and using the network might be ineffective.
The HTTP interface allows passing external data (external temporary tables) for querying. For more information, see the section “External data for query processing”.
`buffer_size` determines the number of bytes in the result to buffer in the server memory. If a result body is larger than this threshold, the buffer is written to the HTTP channel, and the remaining data is sent directly to the HTTP channel.
To ensure that the entire response is buffered, set `wait_end_of_query=1`. In this case, the data that is not stored in memory will be buffered in a temporary server file.
Use buffering to avoid situations where a query processing error occurred after the response code and HTTP headers were sent to the client. In this situation, an error message is written at the end of the response body, and on the client-side, the error can only be detected at the parsing stage.
You can create a query with parameters and pass values for them from the corresponding HTTP request parameters. For more information, see [Queries with Parameters for CLI](../interfaces/cli.md#cli-queries-with-parameters).
ClickHouse also supports Predefined HTTP Interface which can help you more easily integrate with third-party tools like [Prometheus exporter](https://github.com/percona-lab/clickhouse_exporter).
As you can see from the example if `http_handlers` is configured in the config.xml file and `http_handlers` can contain many `rules`. ClickHouse will match the HTTP requests received to the predefined type in `rule` and the first matched runs the handler. Then ClickHouse will execute the corresponding predefined query if the match is successful.
-`method` is responsible for matching the method part of the HTTP request. `method` fully conforms to the definition of [method](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Methods) in the HTTP protocol. It is an optional configuration. If it is not defined in the configuration file, it does not match the method portion of the HTTP request.
-`url` is responsible for matching the URL part of the HTTP request. It is compatible with [RE2](https://github.com/google/re2)’s regular expressions. It is an optional configuration. If it is not defined in the configuration file, it does not match the URL portion of the HTTP request.
-`headers` are responsible for matching the header part of the HTTP request. It is compatible with RE2’s regular expressions. It is an optional configuration. If it is not defined in the configuration file, it does not match the header portion of the HTTP request.
-`handler` contains the main processing part. Now `handler` can configure `type`, `status`, `content_type`, `response_content`, `query`, `query_param_name`.
`type` currently supports three types: [predefined_query_handler](#predefined_query_handler), [dynamic_query_handler](#dynamic_query_handler), [static](#static).
-`query_param_name` — use with `dynamic_query_handler` type, extracts and executes the value corresponding to the `query_param_name` value in HTTP request params.
-`content_type` — use with `static` type, response [content-type](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Content-Type).
-`response_content` — use with `static` type, response content sent to client, when using the prefix ‘file://’ or ‘config://’, find the content from the file or configuration sends to client.
`query` value is a predefined query of `predefined_query_handler`, which is executed by ClickHouse when an HTTP request is matched and the result of the query is returned. It is a must configuration.
The following example defines the values of [max_threads](../operations/settings/settings.md#settings-max_threads) and `max_final_threads` settings, then queries the system table to check whether these settings were set successfully.
In `dynamic_query_handler`, the query is written in the form of param of the HTTP request. The difference is that in `predefined_query_handler`, the query is written in the configuration file. You can configure `query_param_name` in `dynamic_query_handler`.
ClickHouse extracts and executes the value corresponding to the `query_param_name` value in the URL of the HTTP request. The default value of `query_param_name` is `/query` . It is an optional configuration. If there is no definition in the configuration file, the param is not passed in.
To experiment with this functionality, the example defines the values of [max_threads](../operations/settings/settings.md#settings-max_threads) and `max_final_threads` and `queries` whether the settings were set successfully.
`static` can return [content_type](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Content-Type), [status](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status) and `response_content`. `response_content` can return the specified content.