Monday, June 4, 2012

Linux-alternative to Fiddler2


I have used Fiddler2 with great results on windows before, but now I have moved to using linux for development. The problem I have, is that I have not been able to find a decent replacement for Fiddler2 that will run on linux.



I have tried Wireshark, but it is perhaps too generic in what it does, and I can never really make any sense of its output.



What tools do you use on linux to debug/inspect web-traffic during development?


Source: Tips4all

13 comments:

  1. Charles looks good, although it isn't free.

    There are various plugins for firefox such as Live HTTP headers that do some of this.

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  2. Late to the game, I know, but there is also WebScarab which is a free Java web proxy similar to Fiddler. Quite good, I've been using it for years.

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  3. You could run Fiddler on a different machine and set that as your HTTP proxy; this way, it doesn't matter on what OS your app runs. As MarkR notes, "different machine" can also mean "inside a VM."

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  4. There is another Java application that aims to do what Fiddler does called Paros. Runs in Linux and Windows, etc.

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  5. You could continue to use Fiddler anyway, as you'll definitely want to run Windows VMs to test your applications (Assuming you support Windows as a client OS for your app).

    If on the other hand, your app is 100% Linux-only and doesn't support Windows as a client environment, then you can still install a VM to run Fiddler (Fiddler is a proxy and sits between the client and server hence does not depend on a specific client or server).

    I can't imagine developing any web app which doesn't support Windows as a client OS, it would be commercially inadvisable.

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  6. Firebug is a good option. Granted that it doesn't even get close to the functionality provided by Fiddler (i.e. breakpoints, rules, etc.) but if all you want is just to inspect http requests and responses, Firebug is decent enough.

    http://getfirebug.com/network

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  7. Burp proxy is a proprietary, java based application that can be used for analyzing http requests. It's free version has enough features to replace fiddler for an ordinary web developer.

    As it works in "proxy" mode, some trickery is necessary to make it work in "sniffing" mode - see my blog entry over here. Short version of the post is to create wrapper script to run burp:

    sudo iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -m owner \
    --uid-owner evgeny -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080
    sudo java -jar burpsuite_v1.3.03.jar
    sudo iptables -t nat -D OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -m owner \
    --uid-owner evgeny -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080

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  8. Still using Fiddler, you can use a Windows PC as a proxy for your network:


    http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler/help/hookup.asp#Q-NonWindows


    Another good Firefox plugin is HttpFox. It shows the query string separated by key and value.

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  9. I like Burp.

    http://portswigger.net/burp/

    I think it's even better then Fiddler2 (used it as you before moved to Linux).
    Burp has good comparer, much more convenient repeater and comparer.

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  10. WebScarab-ng is distributed using java webstart at

    http://dawes.za.net/rogan/webscarab-ng/webstart/WebScarab-ng.jnlp

    So you can give it a whirl and forget about if you think it stinks since its not installed (well - if you already have the java plugin installed in your browser ;-)

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  11. google tamper data its a plugin for firefox

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  12. Although a useful answer has been I want to mention Rest Client:
    http://code.google.com/p/rest-client/

    It is simple and just works.

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  13. If you use chrome, you can use RESTConsole on any platform
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cokgbflfommojglbmbpenpphppikmonn?hl=en&hc=search&hcp=main

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