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How to send a Head Http request from command line

 
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# 1  
Old 04-02-2008
How to send a Head Http request from command line
Ok. I'm testing a new program component that is supposed to speed up our pipeline on the server. What it does is take in HEAD requests and shuffle them off to a different pipeline that is specially designed to handle HEAD requests quickly. The functionality works but now comes the question: how much does it speed things up? Or does it speed things up at all?

To originally test this I SSHed onto the server I wanted to test and telneted from there back to the box itself. This let me verify that the component handled the request correctly. I sent the telnet from the server itself to eliminate the http travel time as much as possible.

Now I need to time how long it takes for a request to work through the pipeline. I've been trying to

time telnet myserver

but entering in user information like the host and body information makes the time erratic

I.E.
HEAD /csmonitor/web/guest/world HTTP/1.1
host: preprod.dev.csmonitor.com


So I'm trying to find something I can script to give me a more accurate idea of the time.
The Expect program requires TLC which we don't really want to install so can anyone recommend a command line argument I can use to send Head requests? One I can script so I can use the time command?

Any help would be great. Thanks
# 2  
Old 04-02-2008
If you don't mind installing a Perl module Net::HTTP, you can do that very easily. The write_request() does not return until a response can be received.

Code:
$ time perl -MNet::HTTP -e '$h = Net::HTTP->new(Host => "www.sun.com"); $h->write_request(HEAD => "/")'

real    0m2.746s
user    0m0.072s
sys     0m0.012s

The corresponding packet dump to show a HEAD request was actually sent:

Code:
[root@bernardchan ~]# tcpdump -s 0 -A -i eth0 tcp and port 80
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes
10:15:30.925197 IP bernardchan.41865 > 72.5.124.61.http: S 2605374828:2605374828(0) win 5840 <mss 1460,sackOK,timestamp 482811 0,nop,wscale 2>
E..<..@.@.*|..
.H.|=...P.J.l........&..........
..].........
10:15:31.120470 IP 72.5.124.61.http > bernardchan.41865: S 3988518783:3988518783(0) ack 2605374829 win 33304 <nop,nop,timestamp 1576677510 482811,mss 1460,nop,wscale 0,nop,nop,sackOK>
E..@.=@.1...H.|=..
..P.......J.m....5......
].0...].............
10:15:31.120547 IP bernardchan.41865 > 72.5.124.61.http: . ack 1 win 1460 <nop,nop,timestamp 482860 1576677510>
E..4..@.@.*...
.H.|=...P.J.m...............
..^,].0.
10:15:31.121101 IP bernardchan.41865 > 72.5.124.61.http: P 1:58(57) ack 1 win 1460 <nop,nop,timestamp 482860 1576677510>
E..m..@.@.*I..
.H.|=...P.J.m...............
..^,].0.HEAD / HTTP/1.1
Connection: close
Host: www.sun.com


10:15:31.121423 IP bernardchan.41865 > 72.5.124.61.http: F 58:58(0) ack 1 win 1460 <nop,nop,timestamp 482860 1576677510>
E..4..@.@.*...
.H.|=...P.J.................
..^,].0.
10:15:31.315358 IP 72.5.124.61.http > bernardchan.41865: . ack 58 win 33304 <nop,nop,timestamp 1576677530 482860>
E..4.>@.1...H.|=..
..P.......J......v,.....
].0...^,
10:15:31.315474 IP 72.5.124.61.http > bernardchan.41865: . ack 59 win 33304 <nop,nop,timestamp 1576677530 482860>
E..4.?@.1...H.|=..
..P.......J......v+.....
].0...^,
10:15:31.345593 IP 72.5.124.61.http > bernardchan.41865: F 517:517(0) ack 59 win 33304 <nop,nop,timestamp 1576677533 482860>
E..4.A@.1...H.|=..
..P.......J......t#.....
].0...^,
10:15:31.345644 IP bernardchan.41865 > 72.5.124.61.http: R 2605374887:2605374887(0) win 0
E..(..@.@.....
.H.|=...P.J......P....l..
10:15:31.348082 IP 72.5.124.61.http > bernardchan.41865: P 1:517(516) ack 59 win 33304 <nop,nop,timestamp 1576677533 482860>
E..8.@@.1...H.|=..
..P.......J.............
].0...^,HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Sun-Java-System-Web-Server/6.1
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:15:32 GMT
Content-type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
P3p: policyref="http://www.sun.com/p3p/Sun_P3P_Policy.xml", CP="CAO DSP COR CUR ADMa DEVa TAIa PSAa PSDa CONi TELi OUR  SAMi PUBi IND PHY ONL PUR COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA POL PRE GOV"
X-powered-by: Servlet/2.4,JSP/2.0
Connection: close
Set-cookie: Starload=star-fep5; Path=/
Set-cookie: JSESSIONID=12112cc14aabcdfffffffffe2641a9e183505; Path=/
Set-cookie: JROUTE=Pe4Y; Path=/


10:15:31.348114 IP bernardchan.41865 > 72.5.124.61.http: R 2605374887:2605374887(0) win 0
E..(..@.@.....
.H.|=...P.J......P....l..

# 3  
Old 04-03-2008
Thanks. That should work but I'll have to wait for the system guys to actually install something whether its perl net or expect and TCL. I'm not allowed to do it myself. Can anyone think of a more direct way?
Thanks for the advice
# 4  
Old 04-04-2008
Your system does not even have Perl? Otherwise, it should still be an easy one.

The Net::HTTP module is not compiled so does not need access to any C compiler. It does not even need to be installed as root either. Just extract the modules in the current directory and you ought to be ready to go.

http://search.cpan.org/~gaas/libwww-perl-5.808/

Put everything in the "lib/" in the tarball in the CWD.

Given the plaintext nature of HTTP, it is certainly possible to do it with primitive socket code but unless you are a programmer that would mostly be an overkill.
 
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