Notes

GET Method

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When visiting a URL, browsers default to a GET request to obtain the resources hosted at that URL. After loading the page, the browser may send additional requests using various HTTP methods. This process can be monitored using the Network tab in browser developer tools.

HTTP Basic Authentication

Basic HTTP Authentication involves protecting a webpage or directory with credentials handled by the webserver. It doesn’t involve interacting directly with the web application.

curl -i http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/ <- without creds
curl -u admin:admin http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/
curl http://admin:admin@<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/

Viewing Response Headers

Add the -i flag in cURL to view response headers for both authenticated and unauthenticated responses.

curl -v http://admin:admin@<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/
curl -H 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/
  • With Basic Auth, the Authorization header is set to Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4= (Base64 encoded value of admin:admin).

GET Parameters & cURL Requests

After authentication, you may interact with page features like City Search, which can be tested by sending GET requests. For example, a request with the search parameter:

curl 'http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/search.php?search=le' -H 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4='

To capture and replicate a request using DevTools, right-click on the request in the Network tab and select Copy > Copy as cURL to copy the cURL command, which you can then paste into your terminal. Alternatively, you can copy the request as a Fetch command by selecting Copy > Copy as Fetch, then paste it into the JavaScript console to execute it directly.

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