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Waters

How to view HTTPS headers - WKB202467

Article number: 202467

OBJECTIVE or GOAL

Troubleshoot HTTPS connection issues in Waters software products by viewing the HTTP request and response headers.

ENVIRONMENT

  • Windows 10
  • Windows Server 2019/2016/2012
  • Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer (also IE mode in Microsoft Edge)

PROCEDURE

  1. Via Developer Tools in a web browser (available in MS Edge, IE Mode in Edge, Chrome, Firefox):
    1. Click the Menu button > Developer Tools. The exact name of the menu item differs between browsers and browser versions; however, "developer tools" seems to be commonly used in all of the major web browsers.
    2. Click the Network tab.
    3. Start recording network activity.
    4. Reproduce the problem, or browse the website, as applicable. The HTTP requests will be recorded and made visible in the Developer Tools tab or window.
    5. Stop the capture when appropriate.
    6. Click one of the requests in the list. The request and response headers for that request should now appear. In some browsers the headers are in a separate tab in the user interface.
    7. Review the HTTP headers for clues to the problem.
  2. Via cURL:
    1. Download the appropriate binary package for cURL from https://www.curl.se/.
    2. Open a command prompt.
    3. Browse to the installation path for cURL.
    4. Run curl.exe with parameters.
      1. Example: curl.exe --include https://server
      2. "--include" means that cURL should include the HTTP headers in the output.
      3. "--insecure" is useful if the web server has a self-signed certificate. This type of certificate is commonly used for test servers and is categorically rejected by web clients as being inherently insecure. This option is the most expedient way to bypass the restriction. The connection will still be via HTTPS, but cURL will ignore the certificate error. Another option is to supply the web server with a certificate issued by a trusted CA, and configure CA to trust that certificate.
      4. "--http1.1" and "--http2" specify the version of the HTTP to use, in case of transient transport errors, incompatible servers, or for checking for differences in server output between protocol versions.
    5. Copy the output from the command prompt to a file as evidence or for further offline analysis.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Request headers are sent by a web client as part of each request to a web server. Response headers are sent by the web server in response to requests from web clients. The headers are a means of communication between web clients and servers about the requests.

Articles on specific HTTP headers:

id202467, comms

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