httpry is a specialized packet sniffer designed for displaying and logging HTTP traffic. It is not intended to perform analysis itself, but to capture, parse, and log the traffic for later analysis. It can be run in real-time displaying the traffic as it is parsed, or as a daemon process that logs to an output file. It is written to be as lightweight and flexible as possible, so that it can be easily adaptable to different applications.
What can you do with it? Here's a few ideas:
Here's an example of the log file output using the default output format string:
# httpry version 0.1.6
# Fields: timestamp,source-ip,dest-ip,direction,method,host,request-uri,http-version,status-code,reason-phrase
2009-01-12 15:02:31 192.168.0.16 209.85.171.103 > GET www.google.com / HTTP/1.1 - -
2009-01-12 15:02:31 192.168.0.16 209.85.171.103 > GET www.google.com / HTTP/1.1 - -
2009-01-12 15:02:32 192.168.0.16 209.85.171.103 > GET www.google.com / HTTP/1.1 - -
2009-01-12 15:02:33 192.168.0.16 209.85.171.103 > GET www.google.com / HTTP/1.1 - -
2009-01-12 15:02:33 209.85.171.103 192.168.0.16 < - - - HTTP/1.1 200 OK
2009-01-12 15:02:33 192.168.0.16 209.85.171.103 > GET www.google.com /intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif HTTP/1.1 - -
2009-01-12 15:02:33 209.85.171.103 192.168.0.16 < - - - HTTP/1.1 200 OK
2009-01-12 15:02:33 192.168.0.16 209.85.171.103 > GET www.google.com /extern_js/f/CgJlbhICdXMrMAo4DSwrMA44AywrMBg4Ayw/AQ-hC7_2R8g.js HTTP/1.1 - -
2009-01-12 15:02:33 209.85.171.103 192.168.0.16 < - - - HTTP/1.1 200 OK
2009-01-12 15:02:33 192.168.0.16 209.85.173.101 > GET clients1.google.com /generate_204 HTTP/1.1 - -
2009-01-12 15:02:33 209.85.173.101 192.168.0.16 < - - - HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Of course, the fun of collecting data is finding ways to analyze it. The log files are designed to be easily parsed by command line utilities, but sometimes you need to dig a little deeper. Complementing the core httpry program is a set of parsing scripts for mining information out of generated log files. Most of these scripts are written as plugins for a core parsing script and include functionality for extracting search terms, searching for specified terms within client flows, and outputting the logs in XML among other things. It is relatively straightforward to write custom plugins for additional parsing tasks.
Two major features have been added in the latest release of httpry. The first is IPv6 support which has been one of the most requested new features. Second, there is a new HTTP rate statistics mode that will show the requests per second for active hosts. Both of these features were added as a result of much appreciated patches.
Additionally, a new -F switch was added to disable output buffering in situations where it was not helpful.
Alternately, httpry is now hosted on GitHub! Releases will continue to be posted here, but you can access the latest builds there as well as easily contribute back to the project.
If you are using FreeBSD, you can also get httpry as a FreeBSD port.