Re: Need to monitor HTTP traffic

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

On Wednesday 23 March 2005 05:57 pm, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> I've been working on a problem for several days, and need to create a
> shortcut.  I've found a program called Ettercap, which lets me monitor
> network connections, but I can't find a way to monitor HTTP connections
> from my browser to a web site, which is what I really need to do.  (Unless
> I missed something, which is possible after several days with almost no
> sleep...)
>
> Is there a program that I can run on my system that can monitor traffic on
> a port, including listing it?  I need to see the headers on HTTP requests
> and responses to see what goes between my browser and the web site.
>
> I don't mean just telling me that packets are going out, or what their
> destination is.  I also need to see the content of the packages.
>
> What can I use to do this?
>
> Any help or alternatives is appreciated!
>
> Hal

Thanks!  The Liveheaders extension for Mozilla and Firefox does exactly what I 
need (and within a few hours after I installed it, I had finished up the 
program I had been working on for 3-4 days at that point -- it cut the trial 
and error out of the process).  I think a few people misunderstood what I was 
asking for.  Liveheaders let me read the actual headers for both the HTTP 
request AND response for each page, so I was able to see exactly what was 
coming and going.  I did not need to know if a header went out, where it was 
going (since I knew), or length, or any other stat or logging info -- I had 
to be able to read the full header.  It's no exaggeration to say that 
Liveheaders let me finish up a project that should have been simple but had 
turned into a nightmare and let me have my first night with more than 4 hours 
sleep in a good while.

As to all the other programs, WOW!  As someone else said, more toys to play 
with!  I am *really* looking forward to playing with some of the programs 
people suggested.  I've already printed out the manual for Ethereal and will 
be checking that out asap.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions!

Hal