On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 10:36 AM, John BORIS <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have a question concerning the process for an http request. I need to > know the transactions between a web server and a web browser to bring > the home page. I am trying to troubleshoot a problem and I have to prove > to the keepers of our network that it is not my web server. > <snip> So after such a long story I would like to know the actual mechanics > of a web request. Like client makes a call to web server. Web server > then finishes the connection. I know there are a bunch of ACKs and stuff > in there but I need to see where this is broken. > This is not strictly an answer to your question, but the resources pointed to from this Server Fault question<http://serverfault.com/questions/84750/monitoring-http-traffic-using-tcpdump>seem like they'll be helpful to you in troubleshooting this problem. As an actual answer, the mechanics are fairly straightforward if you know how a TCP handshake<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol#Connection_establishment>works; once the TCP connection is established, the client sends a HTTP GET request to the server, and the server replies with a response and (depending on configuration) closes the connection. All of this is done in plaintext, so you can troubleshoot this yourself with telnet<http://www.esqsoft.com/examples/troubleshooting-http-using-telnet.htm> : acompton@: $ telnet wordpress.com 80 Trying 72.233.104.124... Connected to wordpress.com. Escape character is '^]'. GET / HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.1 302 Found Server: nginx Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:04:38 GMT Content-Type: text/html Connection: close Vary: Cookie Location: http://wordpress.com/signup/?ref=typo&new=* Content-Length: 0 Connection closed by foreign host. Hopefully this is helpful. Good luck! - Adam Compton
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