cURL
A command line tool for getting or sending files using URL syntax.
Since cURL uses libcurl, it supports a range of common Internet protocols, currently including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, LDAP, LDAPS, DICT, TELNET, FILE, IMAP, POP3, SMTP and RTSP (the last four only in versions newer than 7.20.0 or 9 February 2010).
The name of the project is a play on 'Client for URLs', originally with URL spelled in uppercase to make it obvious that it deals with URLs. The fact that it can also be pronounced 'see URL' also helped; it works as an abbreviation for "Client URL Request Library" or the recursive version: "Curl URL Request Library".
Daniel Stenberg started writing cURL in 1997, as a way to transfer files via protocols such as HTTP, FTP, Gopher, and many more, via a command-line interface. Several other people made important and crucial contributions to the project. Distributed under the MIT License, cURL is free software
Below are some Curl examples for testing URL Redirection for any
site.
To start with, Below are some basic commands :
Syntax :
$curl [options] [URL...]
1.) Check redirection :
OPTIONS :
-I, --head
(HTTP/FTP/FILE) Fetch the HTTP-header only! HTTP-servers feature
the command HEAD
which this uses to get nothing but the header of a document.
When used on an FTP or FILE file,
curl displays the file size and last modification time only.
-L, --location
(HTTP/HTTPS) If the server reports that the requested page has
moved to a different location
(indicated with a Location: header and a 3XX response code),
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 177
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 11:34:42 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
Content-Length: 480
Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 11:34:43 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
No Redirect implemented for http://m.staging.mcdonaldsarabia.com/mobilearabia/uae/
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 180
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 11:37:00 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 189
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Footprint Distributor V4.8
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 11:37:00 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 18364
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
ETag: "116c113-47bc-4d1812618f9c0"
Last-Modified: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 08:48:47 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 11:37:00 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
2.) Checking
Redirection on based of cookies value :
Suppose we have
asked L3 to redirect on basis of cookies i.e. it will first look for cookies
values. If it didn’t found any cookies then it will redirect on HTTP headers.
We can verify the same using below examples.
OPTIONS :
-b, --cookie
If no ’=’ symbol is
used in the line, it is treated as a filename to use to read previously stored
cookie lines from, which should be used in his session if they match. Using
this method also activates the "cookie parser" which will make curl record
incoming cookies too, which may be handy if you’re using this in combination
with the -L, --location option. The file format of the file to read cookies
from should be plain HTTP headers or the Netscape/Mozilla cookie file format.
-H, --header
(HTTP) Extra header
to use when getting a web page. You may specify any number of extra headers.
Note that if you should add a custom header that has the same name as one of
the internal ones curl would use, your externally set header will be used instead
of the internal one. This allows you to make even trickier stuff than curl
would normally do. You should not replace internally set headers without
knowing perfectly well what you’re doing. Remove an internal header by giving a
replacement without content on the right side of the colon, as in: -H
"Host:". If you send the custom header with no-value then its header
must be terminated with a semicolon, such as −H "XCustom-Header;" to
send "X-Custom-Header:".
a.)
Using same value for Header and Cookies :
$ curl -IL http://m.staging.mcdonaldsarabia.com/mobilearabia/kuwait
-H"Accept-Language:ar" -b"cookies:country=kumait; language=ar"
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 180
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:05:15 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 192
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Footprint Distributor V4.8
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:05:15 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 9388
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
ETag: "1064056-24ac-4d1826f884d80"
Last-Modified: Sun, 23 Dec 2012
10:20:54 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:05:15 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
b.)
Now Different Values for Header and Cookies, But we will notice
that which one will notice get “preference” as
we have asked L3 to priorities “cookies value over HEADER”.
$curl -IL http://m.staging.mcdonaldsarabia.com/mobilearabia/kuwait
-H"Accept-Language:ar" -b"cookies:country=kumait; language=en"
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 180
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:09:16 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 192
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Footprint Distributor V4.8
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:09:16 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 9779
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
ETag:
"cfc025-2633-4d18272c04700"
Last-Modified: Sun, 23 Dec 2012
10:21:48 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:09:17 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
3.) Redirection based of User
Agent(Means checking Redirect for different devices e.g. Mobiles/Desktop/ipad
etc )
OPTIONS :
-A, --user-agent
(HTTP) Specify the User-Agent string to send to the HTTP server. Some badly
done CGIs fail if this field isn’t set to "Mozilla/4.0". To encode
blanks in the string, surround the string with single quote marks. This can
also be set with the -H, --header option of course. If this option is used
several times, the last one will be used.
c.)
Check using without any option by default will act as Desktop :
$ curl -IL http://www.mcdonalds.com/mcnuggets
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 186
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Footprint Distributor V4.8
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:37:09 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 75605
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
ETag:
"8b8495-12755-4d1653ad85200"
Last-Modified: Fri, 21 Dec 2012
23:30:16 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:37:09 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
d.)
Specifying User Agent (Checking with nokia)
$ curl -IL http://www.mcdonalds.com/mcnuggets
-A "nokia"
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 148
Content-Type: text/html
Location: http://mobile.mcstate.com
Server: Footprint Distributor V4.8
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:38:10 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:38:11 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.15 (Red Hat)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.3
Set-Cookie:
PHPSESSID=e8dk52fi05h62h8kukt3mq3je5; path=/
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache,
must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Set-Cookie:
BIGipServerPOOL_74.205.90.114-MOMS=1929488576.20480.0000; path=/
e.)
Testing with other Agent, we have asked L3 to redirect from some
specific user agent to move to different location, Here we goes :
$ curl -IL http://www.mcdonalds.com/mcnuggets
-A "iphone*os*5*mobile*"
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 192
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Footprint Distributor V4.8
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:39:58 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 8162
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
ETag:
"8b873c-1fe2-4d1653a8c06c0"
Last-Modified: Fri, 21 Dec 2012
23:30:11 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Server: Apache
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:39:58 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
Hope this will be useful.
These Curl tips are fantastic for anyone looking to enhance their command-line skills! The examples provided really clarify how powerful Curl can be for testing APIs. For more in-depth tutorials and insights on using Curl effectively, check out hostingmella!
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