man http (1): perform an HTTP/HTTPS request

SYNOPSIS

http [-get | -post | -delete | -head | -options | -soptions | -put] [-ll log_level]: [-prompt] [-v] [--version] [[-ct string] | [--content-type string]]; [{-header name value}...] [-headers filename] [-body filename] [-ih]; [-user-agent string] [{-p name value}...] [-proto version-num] [-proxy proxyhost:proxyport]; [-proxymatch hostname[:port] proxyhost:proxyport] [-f name filename] [{-cookies filename}...] [-ah] [-ssl command-line] [-ssl-flags flags] uri

DESCRIPTION

This program is part of the DACS suite. It is a stand-alone program that neither accepts the usual DACS command line options (m[blue]dacsoptionsm[][1]) nor accesses any DACS configuration files.

This general-purpose utility sends an HTTP/HTTPS request for uri to a web server and prints the reply to its standard output.

http will automatically follow redirects according to m[blue]RFC 2616m[][2] and up to a compile-time maximum, unless the -prompt flag is given. A non-standard extension is that a redirect to a non-absolute URI is interpreted in a manner compatible with most browsers.

Note

DACS can issue its own HTTP requests, such as from dacs_authenticate to an external authentication module. This HTTP functionality is provided by the same support code that the http command uses, and therefore much of the following information applies to these internally generated requests also (e.g., m[blue]HTTP_PROGm[][3], m[blue]SSL_PROGm[][4], m[blue]SSL_PROG_ARGSm[][5], m[blue]SSL_PROG_CA_CRTm[][6], m[blue]SSL_PROG_CLIENT_CRTm[][7], m[blue]VFSm[][8]).

OPTIONS

The HTTP GET method is used by default, but some flags implicitly select a different method (e.g., -f and -p). One of the following flags can be used to explicitly specify the HTTP method, provided it is compatible with the other options:

-get

: Use the GET method (the default).

-post

: Use the POST method.

-head

: Use the HEAD method.

-put

: Use the PUT method.

-delete

: Use the DELETE method.

-options

: Use the OPTIONS method.

-soptions

: Use the OPTIONS method but ignore anything that follows the authority component of uri and instead use the special case "*" request URI that means that the request applies to the server itself rather than to a particular resource.

These command line flags are also recognized:

-ah

: If cookies (credentials) are to be sent (see -cookies), use an Authorization header rather than a Cookie header.

-body filename

: Read the message body from filename. It is assumed that the body has already been appropriately formatted for the request's content type.

-cookies filename

: Obtain cookies from filename, one per line, to send with the request using the Cookie header. Multiple cookies are separated using a semi-colon, which follows the m[blue]Netscape specm[][9]. Alternatively, multiple cookies can be combined on a single line, separated by either a semi-colon or a comma (following m[blue]RFC 2109m[][10] or m[blue]RFC 2965m[][11]). This argument may be repeated.

-ct string
--content-type string

: Set the Content-Type request-header to string. If the request has an entity-body, the default Content-Type is application/x-www-form-urlencoded; if the request does not have an entity-body, by default the Content-Type request-header is not set.

-f name filename

: Passes and encodes the contents of filename as the value for name. By default, the POST method will be used, although PUT and OPTIONS can be selected. If filename is "-", the standard input is read; this form can only be used once on the command line. This argument may be repeated.

-header name value

This flag, which may be repeated, causes the HTTP header name: value to be sent with the request. Neither name nor value are checked in any way.

Note
This will not override headers required or implied by other command line flags; for example, the following flags are not equivalent:

-header User-Agent foo
-user-agent foo

The former case will send the User-Agent header twice.

-headers filename

: Read additional message headers from filename, one per line, and send them with the request (refer to the -header flag). This flag may be repeated.

-ih

: Include the HTTP response headers in the output. They are terminated by a blank line. The status line is labelled "Status-Line".

-ll log_level

: Set the debugging output level to log_level (see m[blue]dacs(1)m[][12]). The default level is warn, and the -v flag bumps the level to debug or trace.

-p name value

: Passes and encodes name=value as part of the entity-body. By default, the POST method will be used, although PUT and OPTIONS can be selected. This argument may be repeated.

-prompt

: Prompt the user for permission to proceed after certain events, such as receiving a redirect; the response is affirmative only if it is "yes" or "y". If this option is not specified, the affirmative action will automatically be taken.

-proto version-num

: Function in compliance with version-num of the HTTP protocol (e.g., 1.0).

-proxy proxyhost:proxyport

: Forward all HTTP requests (except for those that match a -proxymatch flag) to the proxy server at proxyport (a numeric port number or recognized service name) on proxyhost (a domain name or IP address). Proxying is not fully supported by http, but it will connect to the specified proxy server instead of the server implied by uri.

-proxymatch hostname[:port] proxyhost:proxyport

If hostname matches the host specified in uri, proxy the HTTP request through proxyhost (a domain name or IP address) at proxyport (a numeric port number or recognized service name). If port is not given, it is assumed to be 80 (for the http scheme) or 443 (for the https scheme). Matching is done by resolving hostname to an IP address (if necessary) and comparing it to the effective IP address that is specified by uri. This flag is given priority over the -proxy flag, so it can be used to override a default proxy server.

: Note
This option is not implemented. The SSL flags apply to all connections; this is probably a bug.

-ssl command-line

This flag indicates that HTTPS (i.e, HTTP over an SSL connection) is to be used, regardless of the scheme specified by uri. Because http does not directly include SSL functionality, it uses pipes to communicate with an external program that provides the SSL connection. The m[blue]sslclient(1)m[][13] command is strongly recommended for this purpose (version 3.26 of stunnel(1) and stunnel3, which comes with some releases of stunnel-4.x, might also work).

The command-line is a complete shell command line that will be used to run the program as a filter. For example, this argument might look like either of:

-ssl "/usr/local/dacs/bin/sslclient example.com:443"
-ssl "/usr/local/bin/stunnel -c -r example.com:443"

If the -ssl argument is absent but the uri argument uses the https scheme, http will still try to use SSL. It will attempt to use m[blue]sslclient(1)m[][13] and assume it is in its default location. If the -ssl argument is present but specifies only one string, that string is assumed to be the path to m[blue]sslclient(1)m[][13]. The first example below will run m[blue]sslclient(1)m[][13] from /tmp/sslclient to connect to port 443 at example.com; the second example has the same effect but will run m[blue]sslclient(1)m[][13] from its default location:

% http -ssl "/tmp/sslclient" https://example.com
% http https://example.com

-ssl-flags flags

If SSL operation is enabled but the -ssl flag is absent or did not simply specify a pathname, append flags to the list of arguments to be passed to the external SSL provider; when the -ssl flag specifies more than one argument, this flag is ignored. The flags string is a space-separated list of arguments. This flag may be repeated.

For example, in this example http will invoke sslclient with the two arguments -sm and bobo.example.com:

% http -ssl-flags "-sm bobo.example.com" https://example.com

If a wildcard server certificate is used, it may be necessary to explicitly match all hosts within a specific domain:

% http -ssl-flags "-sm .*\.example\.com" https://example.com

: Important
When called by http, error messages produced by sslclient may be lost. If you encounter problems with SSL operation, work with m[blue]sslclient(1)m[][13] to ensure that an SSL connection can be established, or to determine and resolve the problem. If you discover that sslclient requires command line flags for proper operation, you will need to make sure that http passes those flags to it.

-user-agent string

: Set the User-Agent request-header to string. If not provided, this string will have the prefix "DACS-http/", followed by a DACS release identifier (example: "DACS-http/1.4.1").

-v

: Increase the level of debugging output. This will cause response headers to be displayed, for example. The flag may be repeated.

--version

: Print version information to stderr, then exit immediately.

The uri argument is the URL to invoke. It may include a query string suffix (even if HTTP POST is selected).

Whether selected implicitly or explicitly, the command line must specify exactly one of the HTTP methods.

Request headers specified using the -header or -headers flags are sent in the order in which the flags appear on the command line. If they are read from a file, there ordering is maintained.

EXAMPLES

The following will retrieve m[blue]RFC 2616m[][2] and save it in rfc2616.txt:

% http "http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt" > rfc2616.txt

This will do a GET on the given URL, passing the query string foo=baz, and writing the result to stdout:

% http "https://example.com/cgi-bin/dacs/dacs_prenv?foo=baz"

This will do a POST on the given URL, passing two arguments:

% http -p foo baz -p bar zork https://example.com/cgi-bin/dacs/dacs_prenv

This will make an HTTP GET method request over SSL to the given URL:

% http -ssl "/usr/local/dacs/bin/sslclient example.com:443" \
    https://example.com/cgi-bin/dacs/dacs_prenv

DIAGNOSTICS

The program exits 0 if everything was fine, 1 if an error occurred.

BUGS

Use of an SSL provider other than m[blue]sslclient(1)m[][13] is officially deprecated. Recent development makes it doubtful that any other program will function properly with http.

It is only a partial implementation of m[blue]RFC 2616m[][2] (HTTP 1.0). It only talks HTTP (no other URI schemes are supported). Received cookies are discarded, there is no support for m[blue]RFC 2617m[][14] authentication, and no client-side caching is performed. http should not require an external program to provide SSL functionality. The program is a bit confused about when it should be able to send a message body.