I want to know that when browser sends a request do the server sends back the contents explicitly? And how would i confirm it?
There are several toolbars in Firefox that show exactly what are coming and going when making an HTTP request.
For firefox i use the following plugins:
Firebug
Web Developer
You could also install a utility called WireShark. It will "sniff" all the network traffic on your computer and show you at a packet level how it all works.
Browser plugins such as firebug (for firefox) let you see exactly what the server is returning; that's quite instructive and recommended! You'll see a bunch of headers followed by the response body in any of several formats (could be chunked, etc, etc).
In a Windows environment you can use Fiddler.
Fiddler includes a fair amount of documentation and is easy to use.
Related
What is an easy way to capture data send to a webserver?
I want to get the code, which gets send when I give someone reputation on a forum...
Try Fiddler. It acts as a system-wide proxy and captures all http requests and provides a way to inspect them.
If the data is sent using a browser.
You can monitor the traffic using Firebug in firefox or Developer Console in Chrome.
The question is pretty straightforward. I want to know if there are ways of discovering the HTTP requests my browser sends while I navigate. For instance, what happens when I click on a certain link which sends a PUT method? I mean, I wish I could determine the exact HTTP request that my browser sends to that website. Further, I want to, later, reproduce that request on Curl. Basically, I want to inspect requests my browser sends so I can automate that task later through the Curl command (command, not library).
Thanks in advance!
Fernando.
Fiddler does exactly what you want. It sets up a proxy that can monitor http communication from your browser.
http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/
You would want the Firebug extesion for Firefox. It can show a lot of what is happening, and you can add more options by installing more extensions.
On the other hand, you can use wireshark to capture the traffic to and from your computer.
Then you can use filters to save the relevant packets (pcap is often the format for storing the packets).
Later, you can replay the packets using tools like tcpreplay.
You could try it out with backtrack linux (live cd/usb).
And nowadays there should be some new tools for windows also. :)
EO2 and JohnnyC are correct. Fiddler, WireShark, FireBug (FireFox addon), etc. are what you are going to look for. You can use them free of charge.
WireShark will capture all incoming and outgoing traffic on your box. You can listen on any port, filter data etc.
FireBug will capture outgoing and incoming data streams, the raw data (XML, JSON, images etc.) for each request.
Fiddler is great for tracking web data in a seperate application if you do not use FireFox.
I've installed FireBug, but I am not sure how to find out if a certain http header is present in my HTTP response. Where should I look for this information?
Use the Net tab in Firebug to monitor network traffic. There you can see the complete headers as well as the timing and content of any network/HTTP queries.
Looks like this:
Fiddler is the best tool I know of to do this and much more, including inspecting the entire request/response in many formats including a nice XML browser.
Fiddler in good but sometimes it causes problems because of changing the system proxy configuration.
Check the HTTP Debugger, it's not a proxy and doesn't create such problems
https://www.httpdebugger.com
How does one inspect the HTTP traffic in Adobe Air? Obviously because it's running outside of a browser you can't use firebug ...
I've tried this: ServiceCapture
but it doesn't work either... (nothing shows up in the log). I also don't really want to pay for a program.
Any ideas?
Try Fiddler: http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/
Charles (http://www.charlesproxy.com/) works very well with AIR and has built-in AMF decoding, allowing the inspection of AMF requests/responses.
Wireshark will do that - it works at the network level, so it will work with any web technology.
The most important thing to know about is the right-click "Follow TCP/IP stream" command, which will show you your app's HTTP conversation.
I believe both HTTPScoop (for mac) and HTTP Analyzer (Windows) will let you watch HTTP traffic from non-browser programs (I can see requests made by the Google Notifier, for example).
that's it
isn't there a way to see the raw text file that my browser sends to a website when I do a POST method?
something like:
POST /path/script.cgi HTTP/1.0
From: frog#jmarshall.com
User-Agent: HTTPTool/1.0
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 32
home=Cosby&favorite+flavor=flies
Thanks!
You need a proxy such as Fiddler. Fiddler is a freeware HTTP Debugging Proxy which allows you to inspect all HTTP Traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data.
Firebug is also a great addition to Firefox that will let you see HTTP traffic as well as lots of other aspects of your pages.
Might be a little bit of overkill in this instance, but you might want to check out Wireshark.
Checkout HttpFox
Live HTTP Headers is a nice Firefox plug-in.
i can't beleive nobody mentioned tcpdump or wireshark (the tool previously known as Ethereal). There was also a time when several articles said that every network administrator should have a Mac only to run Etherpeek (now known as OmniPeek, and runs on windows instead of mac)
Also there is Tamper Data plugin for Firefox
TCPMon is a Java based TCP proxy, not as full featured as Fiddler appears to be, but runs on anything with a JVM.