Assignment-02

Wireshark: HTTP
Having gotten our feet wet with the Wireshark packet sniffer in the introductory Assignment, we’re now ready
to use Wireshark to investigate protocols in operation. In this assignment, we’ll explore several aspects of the
HTTP protocol: the basic GET/response interaction, HTTP message formats, retrieving large HTML files,
retrieving HTML files with embedded objects, and HTTP authentication and security.

1. The Basic HTTP GET/response interaction

Let’s begin our exploration of HTTP by downloading a very simple HTML file - one that is very short, and
contains no embedded objects. Do the following:
1. Start up your web browser.
2. Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer, as described in the Introductory lab (but don’t yet begin packet
capture). Enter “http” (just the letters, not the quotation marks, and in lower case) in the display-filter-
specification window, so that only captured HTTP messages will be displayed later in the packet-listing
window. (We’re only interested in the HTTP protocol here, and don’t want to see the clutter of all
captured packets).
3. Wait a bit more than one minute (we’ll see why shortly), and then begin Wireshark packet capture.
4. Enter the following to your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file1.html
Your browser should display the very simple, one-line HTML file.
5. Stop Wireshark packet capture.

Your Wireshark window should look similar to the window shown in Figure 1. If you’re unable to run
Wireshark on a live network connection, you can download a packet trace that was created when the steps
above were followed. 1

Figure 1: Wireshark Display after http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/ HTTP-wireshark-file1.html has been retrieved by your browser
The example in Figure 1 shows in the packet-listing window that two HTTP messages were captured: the GET
message (from your browser to the gaia.cs.umass.edu web server) and the response message from the server to
your browser. The packet-contents window shows details of the selected message (in this case the HTTP OK
message, which is highlighted in the packet-listing window). Recall that since the HTTP message was carried
inside a TCP segment, which was carried inside an IP datagram, which was carried within an Ethernet frame,
Wireshark displays the Frame, Ethernet, IP, and TCP packet information as well. We want to minimize the
amount of non-HTTP data displayed, so make sure the boxes at the far left of the Frame, Ethernet, IP and TCP
information have a plus sign or a right-pointing triangle (which means there is hidden, un-displayed
information), and the HTTP line has a minus sign or a down-pointing triangle (which means that all information
about the HTTP message is displayed).

(Note: You should ignore any HTTP GET and response for favicon.ico. If you see a reference to this file, it is your browser
automatically asking the server if it (the server) has a small icon file that should be displayed next to the displayed URL in
your browser. We’ll ignore references to this pesky file in this lab.).

By looking at the information in the HTTP GET and response messages, answer the following questions.

1. Is your browser running HTTP version 1.0, 1.1, or 2? What version of HTTP is the server running?
2. What languages (if any) does your browser indicate that it can accept to the server?
3. What is the IP address of your computer? What is the IP address of the gaia.cs.umass.edu server?
4. What is the status code returned from the server to your browser?
5. When was the HTML file that you are retrieving last modified at the server?
6. How many bytes of content are being returned to your browser?
7. By inspecting the raw data in the packet content window, do you see any headers within the data that are
not displayed in the packet-listing window? If so, name one.

In your answer to question 5 above (assuming you’re running Wireshark “live”, as opposed to using an earlier-
recorded trace file), you might have been surprised to find that the document you just retrieved was last
modified within a minute before you downloaded the document. That’s because (for this particular file), the
gaia.cs.umass.edu server is setting the file’s last-modified time to be the current time, and is doing so once per
minute. Thus, if you wait a minute between accesses, the file will appear to have been recently modified, and
hence your browser will download a “new” copy of the document.

2. The HTTP CONDITIONAL GET/response interaction

Most web browsers perform object caching and thus often perform a conditional GET when retrieving an HTTP
object. Before performing the steps below, make sure your browser’s cache is empty. Now do the following:
• Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above.
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
• Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file2.html
Your browser should display a very simple five-line HTML file.
• Quickly enter the same URL into your browser again (or simply select the refresh button on your
browser)
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” (again, in lower case without the quotation marks) in
the display-filter-specification window, so that only captured HTTP messages will be displayed later in
the packet-listing window.

Answer the following questions:

8. Inspect the contents of the first HTTP GET request from your browser to the server. Do you see an “IF-
MODIFIED-SINCE” line in the HTTP GET?
 9. Inspect the contents of the server response. Did the server explicitly return the contents of the file?
How can you tell?
10. Now inspect the contents of the second HTTP GET request from your browser to the server. Do you see
an “IF-MODIFIED-SINCE:” line in the HTTP GET2? If so, what information follows the “IF-
MODIFIED-SINCE:” header?
11. What is the HTTP status code and phrase returned from the server in response to this second HTTP
GET? Did the server explicitly return the contents of the file? Explain.

3. Retrieving Long Documents

In our examples thus far, the documents retrieved have been simple and short HTML files. Let’s next see what
happens when we download a long HTML file. Do the following:
• Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above.
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
• Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file3.html
Your browser should display the rather lengthy US Bill of Rights.
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification window, so that only
captured HTTP messages will be displayed.

In the packet-listing window, you should see your HTTP GET message, followed by a multiple-packet TCP
response to your HTTP GET request. Make sure you your Wireshark display filter is cleared so that the multi-
packet TCP response will be displayed in the packet listing.

This multiple-packet response deserves a bit of explanation. Recall from Section 2.2 (see Figure 2.9 in the text)
that the HTTP response message consists of a status line, followed by header lines, followed by a blank line,
followed by the entity body. In the case of our HTTP GET, the entity body in the response is the entire
requested HTML file. In our case here, the HTML file is rather long, and at 4500 bytes is too large to fit in one
TCP packet. The single HTTP response message is thus broken into several pieces by TCP, with each piece
being contained within a separate TCP segment (see Figure 1.24 in the text). In recent versions of Wireshark,
Wireshark indicates each TCP segment as a separate packet, and the fact that the single HTTP response was
fragmented across multiple TCP packets is indicated by the “TCP segment of a reassembled PDU” in the Info
column of the Wireshark display.

Answer the following questions 3:

12. How many HTTP GET request messages did your browser send? Which packet number in the trace
contains the GET message for the Bill or Rights?
13. Which packet number in the trace contains the status code and phrase associated with the response to the
HTTP GET request?
14. What is the status code and phrase in the response?
15. How many data-containing TCP segments were needed to carry the single HTTP response and the text
of the Bill of Rights?
4. HTML Documents with Embedded Objects

Now that we’ve seen how Wireshark displays the captured packet traffic for large HTML files, we can look at
what happens when your browser downloads a file with embedded objects, i.e., a file that includes other objects
(in the example below, image files) that are stored on another server(s).

Do the following:
• Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above.
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
• Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file4.html
Your browser should display a short HTML file with two images. These two images are referenced in
the base HTML file. That is, the images themselves are not contained in the HTML; instead the URLs
for the images are contained in the downloaded HTML file. As discussed in the textbook, your browser
will have to retrieve these logos from the indicated web sites. Our publisher’s logo is retrieved from the
gaia.cs.umass.edu web site. The image of our 8th edition cover (one of our favorite covers) is stored at
a server in France.
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification window, so that only
captured HTTP messages will be displayed.

Answer the following questions 4:

16. How many HTTP GET request messages did your browser send? To which Internet addresses were
these GET requests sent?
17. Can you tell whether your browser downloaded the two images serially, or whether they were
downloaded from the two web sites in parallel? Explain.

5 HTTP Authentication
Finally, let’s try visiting a web site that is password-protected and examine the sequence of HTTP message
exchanged for such a site. The URL
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/protected_pages/HTTP-wireshark-file5.html is password protected.
The username is “wireshark-students” (without the quotes), and the password is “network” (again, without the
quotes). So let’s access this “secure” password-protected site. Do the following:
• Make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above, and close down your browser. Then,
start up your browser
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
• Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/protected_pages/HTTP-wireshark-file5.html
Type the requested user name and password into the pop up box.
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification window, so that only
captured HTTP messages will be displayed later in the packet-listing window.
• Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can use the “classic” http-
ethereal-trace-5 packet trace, or other additional traces, as notes in footnote 2, to answer the questions
below.

Now let’s examine the Wireshark output. You might want to first read up on HTTP authentication by
reviewing the easy-to-read material on “HTTP Access Authentication Framework” at
http://frontier.userland.com/stories/storyReader$2159
Answer the following questions 5:
18. What is the server’s response (status code and phrase) in response to the initial HTTP GET message
from your browser?
19. When your browser’s sends the HTTP GET message for the second time, what new field is included in
the HTTP GET message?

The username (wireshark-students) and password (network) that you entered are encoded in the string of
characters (d2lyZXNoYXJrLXN0dWRlbnRzOm5ldHdvcms=) following the “Authorization: Basic”
header in the client’s HTTP GET message. While it may appear that your username and password are
encrypted, they are simply encoded in a format known as Base64 format. The username and password are not
encrypted! To see this, go to http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp and enter the base64-
encoded string d2lyZXNoYXJrLXN0dWRlbnRz and decode. Voila! You have translated from Base64
encoding to ASCII encoding, and thus should see your username! To view the password, enter the remainder of
the string Om5ldHdvcms= and press decode. Since anyone can download a tool like Wireshark and sniff
packets (not just their own) passing by their network adaptor, and anyone can translate from Base64 to ASCII
(you just did it!), it should be clear to you that simple passwords on WWW sites are not secure unless additional
measures are taken.

Fear not! there are ways to make WWW access more secure. However, we’ll clearly need something that goes
beyond the basic HTTP authentication framework!