The Prosody server has several modules that allow it to respond to HTTP requests.
For example, mod_http_rest allows me to make a POST request on port 5280 with an XMPP stanza as the payload, and the Prosody server responds by sending that stanza on its way.
However, I am looking for a module that would do the opposite: i.e. take an XMPP message received by the usual means, and make an HTTP POST request to a specified server with that message as the payload.
I can't seem to find any module that will do this. Is there such a thing?
If not, is there any functionality available in the Prosody API that would allow such a module to be written?
Alternatively, are there good reasons why this might be a bad idea?
To answer your question, yes, it's possible for Prosody to make HTTP requests to external services.
The module you describe (take XMPP and forward it over HTTP) did not exist, but there's little reason for it not to. So I just published a module that provides this feature: https://modules.prosody.im/mod_component_http.html
I dont known if there is a module already for that but there is a way to achieve it yourself. I made my own module some months back for specific purposes and I used net.http which as the Docs say:
Is an API for making non-blocking HTTP requests to remote servers.
So you should check the Docs from here so you can use it like:
local req = require "net.http"
req.request( URL, opts, callBack )
Where opts are your options in json, and callBack is a function that defines what you want to do with the response.
I hope it helps.
I have a web server running on an EC2 node. There is an endpoint which accepts HTTP DELETE requests. It accepts the requests and proceeds with the intended functionality only if some certain headers are found in the DELETE request it send. What would be the easiest way to test this?
Check http://www.hurl.it/
Set the type the DELETE, and click Add Headers to add the headers you want.
Is there a tool which enables me to prepare a custom HTTP request. I need to request ressources which are bound to custom HTTP methods on server side.
I know about the fire fox plugin RESTClient which is pretty perfect, except that I can't set a custom HTTP method type like: FOO.
EDIT
I found out that the RESTClient plugin also provides the possibility to create custom HTTP methods. It's the same as with Fiddler. But however, Fiddler is a nice alternative.
I would suggest something similar to fiddler
Postman supports custom HTTP methods...
Source: https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/166
Do SOAP and REST put their respective payloads as a URL? For example:
http://localhost/action/?var=datadatadata
I know SOAP uses XML and sometimes runs on a different port on the server, but do you still submit data like the example above or do you send it as one big XML encapsulated packet to that port?
It depends on your HTTP method. GET method will put everything into URL while POST method only put path information in URL and the rest of them are streamed into the HTTP request body.
SOAP should also rely on HTTP protocol and hence should follow the same rule. Check out http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part0/#L10309
Is it allowable to pass parameters to a web page through the URL (after the question mark) when using the POST method? I know that it works (most of the time, anyways) because my company's webapp does it often, but I don't know if it's actually supported in the standard or if I can rely on this behavior. I'm considering implementing a SOAP request handler that uses a parameter after the question mark to indicate that it is a SOAP request and not a normal HTTP request. The reason for this that the webapp is an IIS extension, so everything is accessed via the same URL (ex: example.com/myisapi.dll?command), so to get the SOAP request to be processed, I need to specify that "command" parameter. There would be one generic command for SOAP, not a specific command for each SOAP action -- those would be specified in the SOAP request itself.
Basically, I'm trying to integrate the Apache Axis2/C library into my webapp by letting the webapp handle the HTTP request and then pass off the incoming SOAP XML to Axis2 for handling if it's a SOAP request. Intuitively, I can't see any reason why this wouldn't work, since the URL you're posting to is just an arbitrary URL, as far as all the various components are concerned... it's the server that gives special meaning to the parts after the question mark.
Thanks for any help/insight you can provide.
Lets start with the simple stuff. HTTP GET request variables come from the URI. The URI is a requested resource, and so any webserver should (and apache does) have the entire URI stored in some variable available to the modules or appserver components running within the webserver.
An http POST which is different from an http GET is a separate logical call to the webserver, but it still defines a URI that should process the post. A good webserver (apache being one) will again make the URI available to whatever module or appserver is running within it, then will additionally make available the variables which were sent in the POST headers.
At the point where your application takes control from apache during a POST you should have access to both the GET and POST variables and be able to do whatever control logic you wish, including replying with a SOAP protocol instead of HTML.
If you are asking whether it is possible to send parameters via both GET and POST in a single HTTP request, then the answer is "YES". This is standard functionality that can be used reliably AFAIK.
One such example is sending authentication credentials in two pieces, one over GET and the other through POST so that any attempt to hijack a session would require hijacking both the GET and POST variables.
So in your case, you can use POST to contain the actual SOAP request but test for whether it is a SOAP request based on the parameter passed in GET (or in other words through the URL).
I believe that no standard actually defines the concept of "HTTP parameters" or "request variables". RFC 1738 defines that an URL may have a "search part", which is the substring after the question mark. HTML specifies in the form submission protocol how a browser processing a FORM element should submit it. In either case, how the server-side processes both the search part and the HTTP body is entirely up to the server - discarding both would be conforming to these two specs (but fairly useless).
In order to determine whether you can post a search part to a specific service, you need to study this service's protocol specification. If the service is practically defined by means of a HTML form, then you cannot use a mix - you can't even use POST if the FORM specifies GET (and vice versa). If you post to a web service, you need to look at the web service's WSDL - which will typically mandate POST; with all data in a SOAP message. Etc.
Specific web frameworks may have the notion of "request variables" - whether they will draw these variables both from a search part and a request body, you need to find out in the product documentation.
I deployed a web application with 3 (a mobile network operator) in the UK. It originally used POST parameters, but the 3 gateway stripped them (and X-headers as well!). So beware...
allowable? sure, it's doable, but i'm leaning towards the spec suggesting dual methods isn't necessarily supposed to happen, or be supported. RFC2616 defines HTTP/1.1, and i would argue suggests only one method per request. if you think about your typical HTTP transaction from the client side, you can see the limitation as well:
$ telnet localhost 80
POST /page.html?id=5 HTTP/1.1
host: localhost
as you can see, you can only use one method (POST/GET, etc...), however due to the nature of how various languages operate, they may pick up the query string, and assign it to the GET variable. ultimately though, this is a POST request, and not a GET.
so basically, yes this functionality exists, is it intended? i would say no.