Fiddler requests vs browser requests, identical but different answer from the server - http

I'm playing a bit with HTTP requests with fiddler.
Basically the site is my router interface which asks for a password.
The password is then encrypted (with a function i have, branded MD5 of some kind) and passed to the server in the body of the POST request.
Here what i've done:
With fiddler i sniffed the browser GET request (got a redirection 302)
With fiddler i sniffed the server response
With fiddler i sniffed the browser POST request (after typing the password)
Browser successfully logged in.
then:
With fiddler composer i performed a GET request equal to the one sniffed. (got a redirection 302)
With fiddler i sniffed the server response (each time the site provides to the client a different Set-Cookie value which is used in the brand MD5 function for antiXRSF attacks).
With fiddler composer i reproduced the sniffed POST request with a different body content due to the new Set-Cookie value.
The body of the post request is indeed correct because it is calculated by the very same function used by the browser.
What came to my mind now:
I'm using the wrong Set-Cookie value --> not possible since if i try to guess the body content of a browser request with the available parameters, the guess turns out to be correct.
The redirection performed by fiddler is done without the Set-Cookie or with a different one --> i saw i can decide not to follow a redirect, is there a way to decide what to pass in the header during a redirection? I'll test more directly on the redirected url.
Regards,

The redirection performed by fiddler is done without the Set-Cookie
Correct. Fiddler's Composer does not have a cookie jar. If a call returns a cookie via Set-Cookie on a redirect, that cookie is not added to a Cookie header when the redirected request is sent.

Related

Can't replay a request from firefox in python

I'm sending a GET request with firefox. Only headers (no cookies within) and query parameters is sent. The website answers with 200.
When I'm trying to replay the request with python.
Even though I'm setting the exact same headers, I'm getting a 403.
So my question is, in the HTTP protocol, if I send a GET request to a domain with the same headers and cookies than another one, what else can make difference between these 2 requests ?
Put aside request body which is not applicable here. I'm also using the same IP.

What to do with headers on following HTTP 303

I'm trying to determine what a client should do with headers on receiving a 303 (See Other) from the server. Specifically, what should be done with the Authorization header that was sent on the initial request?
Here's the problem: the client makes a request to myserver.com (HTTP request method is not relevant here) and the server at myserver.com responds with a 303 and the Location header contains otherserver.com/some_resource/. Tools like Postman and curl will follow the redirect by passing all the same headers in the subsequent request to otherserver.com. I haven't found a way to make these tools drop the headers.
In the case I've described, sending the Authorization header to otherserver.com seems like a security risk: otherserver.com now knows my token and possibly what host it can be used on so now the token is compromised. This can also cause errors, depending on how the destination host is configured. In the case where the redirect is to another resources on the same host (ie, myserver.com) then the Authorization header will (probably) need to be sent, and because it's the same host nothing is compromised.
Effectively, in different situations it seems that the correct behaviour is different. The relevant section in the RFC does not address this issue. In developing my own API, I've written documentation telling API clients to drop the Authorization header on redirect to otherserver.com. However, based on mucking around with curl and Postman, it's not clear to me either (a) what the default behaviour is for a typical HTTP client library or (b) whether HTTP client libraries permit easy modification of the HTTP headers before following a 303 redirect. As a result, it's possible my suggestion isn't practical. I also know of no way for the server to instruct the client as to what it should do with headers on following the 303 redirect.
What should a HTTP client do with the headers when it follows a 303 redirect? Who is responsible for deciding whether to use the same headers on the redirect, the HTTP client or server?
You can argue that when sending the 303 with otherserver.com's Location, myserver.com trusted otherserver.com to handle your token. It could have sent the token in the background as well. From the client's perspective, the client trusts myserver.com to handle the token, store and verify it securely, etc. If myserver.com decides to send it on to otherserver.com, should the client override? In this case it can of course, but in general I don't think it should.
As an attacker does not control the response headers from myserver.com which is a legit resource, I think in general it is secure to send the token by default to the other server it specifies, maybe unless you have some good reason not to (say an explicit policy on the client).

How to change OPTION method to POST?

I use the next link in order to send chunking files with plupload.
I change the url parameter in order to send the request to my localhost:
url: "./upload.cfm", was changes to url: "localhost/upload"
As I see, the request is sent, but with request methods: OPTIONS.
Why it happens and how I can change it to POST?
Since you are now making a cross-origin HTTP request, you are triggering a preflight request in which the browser asks the destination server if your website is allowed to ask browsers to make POST requests to the destination server.
Either configure the destination server to respond to the OPTIONS request with a response granting permissions (after getting that response the browser will make the POST request), or continue to make requests with XHR only to the same origin.

Cookies not sent after a 302 redirect to a page on the same domain

I'm very confused by this.. My web application uses Spring Security which relies upon a JSESSIONID cookie to maintain a users session.
One of my pages does a 302 redirect to another page on the same domain, still http, not switching to https or anything fancy. For some reason the browser (Chrome in this case) does not pass the cookie with the second request and the user looses his session.
Is this the expected http behavior? I'm probably missing something..
Just to be clear, the cookie is already set before the redirect, I'm not setting the cookie in the same response as the redirect.
It could be a bug in Chrome. See Chromium bug #696204. In my case the workaround was changing SameSite=Strict to Lax.
302 doesn't delete any cookie, so I think you are changing the host/port or the server expires the cookie. Look at this 3 requests (before 302, 302, after 302) and search something related to Set-Cookie header with a expires value.
It could be you have a problem with the cookie path, if you set the cookie path to a something different to '/', it will be not accessible to all paths.
Answering my own question. Turns out that one has to use a 303 (see other) response when redirecting from a post request.
From RFC 2616
10.3.4 303 See Other
The response to the request can be found under a different URI and
SHOULD be retrieved using a GET method on that resource. This method
exists primarily to allow the output of a POST-activated script to
redirect the user agent to a selected resource. The new URI is not a
substitute reference for the originally requested resource. The 303
response MUST NOT be cached, but the response to the second
(redirected) request might be cacheable.

How does HTTP caching works in a proxy server?

It's my understanding that caching is one of the main utilities of a proxy server. I'm currently trying to develop a simple one and I would like to know exactly how caching works.
Intuitively I think that it's basically an association between a request and a response. For example: for the following request: "GET google.com" you have the following response: "HTTP/1.0 200 OK..."
That way, whenever the proxy server receives a request for that URL he can reply with the cached response (I'm not really worried right now about when to serve the cached response and when to actually send the request to the real destination).
What I don't understand is how to establish the association between a request and a response since the HTTP response doesn't have any field saying "hey this is the response you get when you request the X URL" (or does it?).
Should I get this information by analyzing the underlying protocols? If so, how?
Your cache proxy server is already putted into play when a request arrives. Therefore you have the requested resource URL. Then you look in your cache and try to find the cached resource for the requested resource URL, if you cannot find the resource in your cache (or the cache is outdated), you fetch the data from the source. Keep in Mind, that you have to invalidate the cached resource if you receive a PUT, POST or DELETE request.

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