What is HTTP(S)?
What is HTTP? (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
HTTP is what's used whenever you view a website, developed by Tim
Berners-Lee and his team between 1989-1991. HTTP is the set of rules used for
communicating with web servers for the transmitting of webpage data, whether
that is HTML, Images, Videos, etc.
Learn about how you request content from a web server using the HTTP protocol
What is HTTPS? (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure)
HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP. HTTPS data is encrypted so it not
only stops people from seeing the data you are receiving and sending, but it
also gives you assurances that you're talking to the correct web server and
not something impersonating it.
When we access a
website, your browser will need to make requests to a web server for assets
such as HTML, Images, and download the responses. Before that, you need to
tell the browser specifically how and where to access these resources, this is
where URLs will help.
What is a URL? (Uniform Resource Locator)
If you’ve used the internet, you’ve used a URL before. A URL is
predominantly an instruction on how to access a resource on the internet. The
below image shows what a URL looks like with all of its features (it does not
use all features in every request).
Scheme (http) - This instructs on what protocol to use for accessing the resource such as HTTP, HTTPS, FTP (File Transfer Protocol). User (userNpass) - Some services require authentication to log in, you can put a username and password into the URL to log in. Host (hackingtruth.in) - The domain name or IP address of the server you wish to access. Port (80) - The Port that you are going to connect to, usually 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS, but this can be hosted on any port between 1 - 65535. Path (view-article) - The file name or location of the resource you are trying to access. Query String (?id=10) - Extra bits of information that can be sent to the requested path. For example, /blog?id=1 would tell the blog path that you wish to receive the blog article with the id of 1. Fragment (#task3) - This is a reference to a location on the actual page requested. This is commonly used for pages with long content and can have a certain part of the page directly linked to it, so it is viewable to the user as soon as they access the page.
Making a Request
It's possible to make a request to a web server with just one line "GET / HTTP/1.1"
But for a much richer web experience, you’ll need to send other
data as well. This other data is sent in what is called headers, where headers
contain extra information to give to the web server you’re communicating with,
but we’ll go more into this in the Header task.
Example
GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: hackingtruth.in User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 Firefox/87.0 Referer: https://hackingtruth.in/
To breakdown each line of this request:
- Line 1: This request is sending the GET method ( more on this in the HTTP Methods task ), request the home page with / and telling the web server we are using HTTP protocol version 1.1.
- Line 2: We tell the web server we want the website hackingtruth.in
- Line 3: We tell the web server we are using the Firefox version 87 Browser
- Line 4: We are telling the web server that the web page that referred us to this one is https://hackingtruth.in
- Line 5: HTTP requests always end with a blank line to inform the web server that the request has finished.
Example Response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache/2.4.46
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2021 13:34:03 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 98
<html>
<head>
<title>HackingTruth</title>
</head>
<body>
Welcome To HackingTruth.in
</body>
</html>
To breakdown each line of the response:
Line 1: HTTP 1.1 is the version of the HTTP protocol
the server is using and then followed by the HTTP Status Code in this case
"200 Ok" which tells us the request has completed successfully.
Line
2: This tells us the web server software and version number.
Line
3: The current date, time and timezone of the web server.
Line 4:
The Content-Type header tells the client what sort of information is going to
be sent, such as HTML, images, videos, pdf, XML.
Line 5:
Content-Length tells the client how long the response is, this way we can
confirm no data is missing.
Line 6: HTTP response contains a blank
line to confirm the end of the HTTP response.
Lines 7-14: The
information that has been requested, in this instance the homepage.
HTTP Methods
HTTP methods are a way for the client to show their intended action when
making an HTTP request. There are a lot of HTTP methods but we'll cover the
most common ones, although mostly you'll deal with the GET and POST method.
GET Request
This is used for getting information
from a web server.
POST Request
This is used for submitting data to the web
server and potentially creating new records
PUT Request
This is used for submitting data to
a web server to update information
DELETE Request
This is used for deleting
information/records from a web server.
HTTP Status Codes
In the previous task, you learnt that when a HTTP server responds, the first
line always contains a status code informing the client of the outcome of
their request and also potentially how to handle it. These status codes can be
broken down into 5 different ranges:
100-199 -- Information Response These are sent to tell the client the first part of their request has been accepted and they should continue sending the rest of their request. These codes are no longer very common. 200-299 -- Success This range of status codes is used to tell the client their request was successful. 300-399 -- Redirection These are used to redirect the client's request to another resource. This can be either to a different webpage or a different website altogether. 400-499 -- Client Errors Used to inform the client that there was an error with their request. 500-599 -- Server Errors This is reserved for errors happening on the server-side and usually indicate quite a major problem with the server handling the request.
Common HTTP Status Codes:
There are a lot of different HTTP status codes and that's not including
the fact that applications can even define their own, we'll go over the most
common HTTP responses you are likely to come across:
200 -- OK The request was completed successfully. 201 -- Created A resource has been created (for example a new user or new blog post). 301 -- Permanent Redirect This redirects the client's browser to a new webpage or tells search engines that the page has moved somewhere else and to look there instead. 302 -- Temporary Redirect Similar to the above permanent redirect, but as the name suggests, this is only a temporary change and it may change again in the near future. 400 -- Bad Request This tells the browser that something was either wrong or missing in their request. This could sometimes be used if the web server resource that is being requested expected a certain parameter that the client didn't send. 401 -- Not Authorised You are not currently allowed to view this resource until you have authorised with the web application, most commonly with a username and password. 403 -- Forbidden You do not have permission to view this resource whether you are logged in or not. 405 -- Method Not Allowed The resource does not allow this method request, for example, you send a GET request to the resource /create-account when it was expecting a POST request instead. 404 -- Page Not Found The page/resource you requested does not exist. 500 -- Internal Service Error The server has encountered some kind of error with your request that it doesn't know how to handle properly. 503 -- Service Unavailable This server cannot handle your request as it's either overloaded or down for maintenance.
Headers
Headers are additional bits of data you can send to the web server when making requests.
Although no headers are strictly required when making a HTTP request, you’ll find it difficult to view a website properly.
Common Request Headers
These are headers that are sent from the client (usually your browser) to the server.
Host: Some web servers host multiple websites so by providing the host headers you can tell it which one you require, otherwise you'll just receive the default website for the server.
User-Agent: This is your browser software and version number, telling the web server your browser software helps it format the website properly for your browser and also some elements of HMTL, JavaScript and CSS are only available in certain browsers.
Content-Length: When sending data to a web server such as in a form, the content length tells the web server how much data to expect in the web request. This way the server can ensure it isn't missing any data.
Accept-Encoding: Tells the web server what types of compression methods the browser supports so the data can be made smaller for transmitting over the internet.
Cookie: Data sent to the server to help remember your information (see cookies task for more information).
Common Response Headers
These are the headers that are returned to the client from the server after a request.
Set-Cookie: Information to store which gets sent back to the web server on each request (see cookies task for more information).
Cache-Control: How long to store the content of the response in the browser's cache before it requests it again.
Content-Type: This tells the client what type of data is being returned, i.e., HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Images, PDF, Video, etc. Using the content-type header the browser then knows how to process the data.
Content-Encoding: What method has been used to compress the data to make it smaller when sending it over the internet.
Cookies
You've probably heard of cookies before, they're just a small piece of data that is stored on your computer. Cookies are saved when you receive a "Set-Cookie" header from a web server. Then every further request you make, you'll send the cookie data back to the web server. Because HTTP is stateless (doesn't keep track of your previous requests), cookies can be used to remind the web server who you are, some personal settings for the website or whether you've been to the website before. Let's take a look at this as an example HTTP request:
Get / HTTP/1.1 (The client requests the Host: Cookies.ht webpage from User-agent: xyxyx https:/cookies.ht)
HTTP/1.1 200 Ok (The server responds back with Server: Apache/2.4.46 a simple webpage with a form Date: Tue 18 Feb 2021 07:07:19 GMT asking for the users name) Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
POST / HTTP/1.1 (The client sends back the Host: cookies.ht form with the name User-Agent: xyxyx set to atul) Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded content-Length: 12 name = atul
HTTP/1.1 200 OK (The server responds with a set server: Apache/2.4.46 cookie header telling the Date: Tue 18 Feb 2021 07:07:19 GMT client to save the data Set-Cookie: name=atul name=atul) Content-Type: text/html; chatset=UTF-8 HTML DATA.........
GET / HTTP/1.1 (On the next and every further Host: cookies.ht requests the client send the User-Agent: xyxyx cookie data back to the server) Cookie: name=atul
HTTP/1.1 200 OK (The server then see the cookie data and Server: Apache/2.4.46 instead of displaying the form Date: Tue 18 Feb 2021 07:07:19 GMT it displays a welcome back message instead) Content-Type: text/html; chatset=UTF-8 Welcome back atul
Cookies can be used for many purposes but are most commonly used for website authentication. The cookie value won't usually be a clear-text string where you can see the password, but a token (unique secret code that isn't easily humanly guessable).
Viewing Your Cookies
You can easily view what cookies your browser is sending to a website by using the developer tools, in your browser. If you're not sure how to get to the developer tools in your browser, click on the "View Site" button at the top of this task for a how-to guide.
Once you have developer tools open, click on the "Network" tab. This tab will show you a list of all the
Disclaimer
This was written for educational purpose and pentest only.
The author
will not be responsible for any damage ..!
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responsible for any misuse of the information.
You will not misuse the
information to gain unauthorized access.
This information shall only be
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attacks. Performing any hacks without written permission is illegal ..!
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- Hacking Truth by
Kumar Atul Jaiswal
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