Tool to view response headers

Question

What is the best way to view the HTTP response headers from a request against a particular URL? Telnet or is there some other really good command or tool?

URLs don't have a "header" per se, requests and responses do. A request is issued against a particular resource, identified by a URL. Are you asking for a tool which shows the response headers returned from a particular request against some URL? — Rob, Apr 30 '09 at 21:58

score 37 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 30 '09 at 21:58

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I find that Fiddler is my weapon of choice, although there are firefox plugins as well. Fiddler will show you all the HTTP Requests, their response status, all the headers, with different views (raw, hex, image), a timeline view, HTTPS Connects, everything.

answered Apr 30 '09 at 21:58

Tom Ritter

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In their site, they offer to install some addons but after virustotal test, there's a trojan hic http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=e44e811581ff40382b7a0da6244f89918b4577253e5f3287ecc77c7012533cad-1320172710 – Nam G VU Nov 08 '11 at 04:03

pts · Accepted Answer · 2009-04-30T22:16:03.247

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I use the httpfox Firefox extension to view all HTTP requests and responses (including header and body) initiated from the web browser in the interval I specify (by pressing the start-recording and the stop-recording buttons). httpfox presents the data in a structured way in which I can quickly find the request I am interested in. It nicely complements LiveHTTPHeaders, because httpfox can view requests in the past as well.

edited Apr 30 '09 at 22:16

answered Apr 30 '09 at 22:10

pts

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Don't need a plugin anymore, it's built-in: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Web_Console – odigity Oct 02 '14 at 20:37

score 23 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 12 '15 at 12:00

23

On Linux I use:

wget -S [url]

This gets the file and shows all headers sent by the server.

On Windows one can use the same command if Cygwin is installed; either on regular command prompt, if the environment variables were properly adjusted, or through the Cygwin command window.

edited Jun 12 '15 at 12:00

BaCaRoZzo

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answered Apr 30 '09 at 21:59

Norbert Hartl

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In the same vein: `curl -i [url]` – Nicolas Raoul Apr 04 '13 at 07:18
Will wget work on mac ? – Vivo Nov 29 '14 at 11:11
In order to make wget work you need to install it. This is easy with brew. If you don't have that it might be better to use curl instead because it comes with Mac OS (don't know since when it's included) – Norbert Hartl Dec 01 '14 at 10:36

score 16 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 15 '12 at 19:15

HttpFox for Firefox is pretty good. It will show the headers in real time. I prefer it to Live HTTP Headers.
Microsoft Fiddler for Internet Explorer is a web debugger that logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP traffic, set breakpoints, and fiddle with incoming or outgoing data
Wireshark is a complete network protocol analyzer. It is good, but it might be overkill if HTTP headers is all that are required. It has problems if the client and server are on the same machine.

score 12 · Answer 5 · edited Nov 26 '16 at 16:53

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Using a recent version of Firefox (19.0 in my case), going to menu Tools -> Web Developer -> Web Console (Ctrl + Shift + K on Windows) then refreshing the page produces a log of requests.

Then clicking on one of the first GET requests, the one with the URL of the page, opens a box with information about it, including request and response headers. It works out of the box, no need for fancy-shmancy add-ons any more.

edited Nov 26 '16 at 16:53

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 03 '13 at 22:47

Evgeni Sergeev

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Web Console is nice but has several problem that I described in the second paragraph here: http://aegif-labo.blogspot.jp/2013/04/how-to-get-https-headers.html These are minor problems, so I agree that Web Console is the first tool to try. – Nicolas Raoul Apr 04 '13 at 07:22

score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 23 '13 at 15:21

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Check out httpie, a very nice Python tool: enter image description here

You can use the --headers option to view only headers:

enter image description here

answered Feb 23 '13 at 15:21

Mihai Rotaru

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score 5 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 06 '12 at 18:38

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The Firebug addon for Firefox is the easiest way I think.

edited Sep 06 '12 at 18:38

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 30 '09 at 21:58

ercu

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score 5 · Answer 8 · edited Sep 06 '12 at 18:39

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For Internet Explorer, Fiddler will work. Or you can go all out with Wireshark.

edited Sep 06 '12 at 18:39

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 30 '09 at 22:00

JP Alioto

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FWIW, you can watch traffic from ANY web browser (or any other client which supports proxies) using Fiddler. – EricLaw Jun 30 '09 at 21:04
Note: Wireshark does not work for HTTPS – Nicolas Raoul Apr 04 '13 at 07:18

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 01 '13 at 02:03

If you are familiar with the developer tools in your browser, open the network tab on the developer tools, refresh the page, then click on the headers tab. The response headers will be listed. For instance this page sends this header:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: public, max-age=60
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Encoding: gzip
Expires: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:00:20 GMT
Last-Modified: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 01:59:20 GMT
Vary: *
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 01:59:19 GMT
Content-Length: 13555

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 30 '09 at 22:10

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There is a better choice (in my point of view)

It's a Firefox extension calle HTTPfox. You can not only see the header but much more information. It´s a very complete HTTP analyzer

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6647

answered Apr 30 '09 at 22:10

backslash17

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score 0 · Answer 11 · edited Nov 26 '16 at 16:52

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burpsuite is a free tool, Java-based and runs on all platforms.

edited Nov 26 '16 at 16:52

Peter Mortensen

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answered Nov 02 '13 at 23:55

Martin

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Dec 19 '13 at 15:03

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There is a great addon/plugin/extension called Web Developer from Chris Pederick.

It works with Chrome, Firefox and Opera and has mighty dev functions and also a possibility to 'View Response Headers'. You can find it within the tab 'Information'.

answered Dec 19 '13 at 15:03

sthag

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 07 '14 at 06:34

If you aren't looking to do it on your machine, you can use any number of online applications that do it for you.

Rex Swain's HTTP viewer
http://web-sniffer.net/: This one is a bit more flexible with regard to the app layer protocol (HTTP/S)
Ask Apache: This one lets you customize your request a lot more.

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Jan 09 '15 at 07:12

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If you are looking for an online tool View-Http-Request-and-Response-Headers is great

answered Jan 09 '15 at 07:12

BT64

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 19 '15 at 15:31

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On Internet Explorer, inside Developer Tools (press F12), go to the Network tab and press "Start Capturing". Refresh the page, click on "Go to detailed view" and you will get a very nice overview of the request and response data.

answered Mar 19 '15 at 15:31

Fahad Owais

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score 0 · Answer 16 · edited Sep 06 '12 at 18:39

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I found a good tool to do it for Firefox called Live HTTP Headers.

edited Sep 06 '12 at 18:39

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 30 '09 at 22:07

Daniel Kivatinos

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Tool to view response headers

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