HTTPSNIF

                                                    

This help file contains information on the following sections

     Overview 
     Configuration 
     Plug-in 
     Local Client 
     Local Server 
     Options 
     Limitations 

Overview

HTTPSNIF is meant to be used to monitor HTTP transactions between a client and a server. Currently, the data being sent cannot be modified. HTTPSNIF
basically acts like a proxy between the server and the client, but no proxy configuration is necessary. HTTPSNIF listens on a port, and when a client
connects and sends data, that data is displayed. The client data is then sent to the server and the response from the server is then displayed. This data can
then be sent back to the client.

Use of HTTPSNIF is (hopefully) pretty simple. 

   1.You select the port that you want HTTPSNIF to listen on. Remember, if HTTPSNIF is running on the same machine as the server you are testing,
     pick a different port than the one the server is listening on. 
   2.Choose a port to connect to on the server. This must be the port that the target server is listening on. 
   3.Press the "listen" button. 
   4.Using a browser, connect to HTTPSNIF on the port you've specified. 
   5.When you see data from the client appear in the client edit box, connect to the server by pressing the connect button. 
   6.Once connected, press the send button to send the client data. 
   7.When the server returns data in the local server edit box, press the send button for the local server to send the data back to the client. 

Note that the data being sent and received is managed internally by HTTPSNIF. Therefore, if the send button is hit more than once with the same data in the
edit box, HTTPSNIF will only send the data once.

Configuration

The configuration portion of HTTPSNIF contains the following information:

     Listen Port - The port on which HTTPSNIF will listen. Port 80 is the HTTP standard. 
     Destination Port - The port on which HTTPSNIF will try to connect to the server. 
     Destination Host - The host to which HTTPSNIF will try to connect (this is the server you want to monitor transactions with). 

Plug-in

Currently the plug-in interface is not supported. Given the time/need I plan to implement a simple plugin interface so that users can write their own request
processors to monitor/change the data.

Local Client

This section is the portion of HTTPSNIF that looks like a client. When a remote client connects to HTTPSNIF, its request will show up here. At this time
you'll probably need to connect to the remote server by pressing the connect button next to the client box. Once connected, the send button will become
active and you can forward the request to the server.

Local Server

This section is the portion of HTTPSNIF that looks like a server. When a request is sent to the remote server from the Local Client, the server response is
gathered in the Local Server edit box. Pressing the send button next to this box will send this data back to the client.

Options

The local server and local client both have check boxes for "CRLF" and "Clear".

     CRLF - Allows you to see the carriage-return and line-feed characters as \r\n. Otherwise these are hidden. 
     Clear - When checked, the edit box data will automatically be cleared everytime the send button is pressed. 

Limitations

HTTPSNIF is a simple single threaded program. Therefore, if some browsers (such as Netscape) send more than one Keep-Alive session without doing a
Close-Connection, the subsequent requests will be left pending until you manually disconnect the current session.

Secure connections (SSL) are not supported.