HTTPRY(1)

👑 httpry(1) — General Commands Manual, but make it a group chat 👑

okay bestie, so this is httpry(1), from the General Commands Manual, and it's genuinely one of the most useful little tools ever, so let's get into it 💖

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🌸 NAME 🌸

httpry — the HTTP logging and information retrieval tool, aka your new fave ✨

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

httpry [ -dFpq ] [ -b file ] [ -f format ] [ -i device ] [ -m methods ]
[ -n count ] [ -o file ] [ -P file ] [ -r file ] [ -S bytes ] [ -u user
] [ 'expression' ]
httpry -s [ -l threshold ] [ -t seconds ]
httpry -h

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so httpry is a tool made for displaying and logging HTTP traffic. and here's the important part, bestie — it is not designed to do the analysis itself. no no. it captures, parses and logs the traffic so you can analyze it later. main character energy but make it humble 🫶

you can run it in real time and watch the live traffic on the wire, or run it as a daemon process that logs everything into an output file. both are iconic, pick your vibe ✨

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -b file — write every single processed HTTP packet to a binary pcap dump file. lowkey so good if you wanna dig into the logged data later 🔥
• -d — run the program as a daemon process. all the program status output goes to syslog, and a pid file gets created for the process in /var/run/httpry.pid by default. requires an output file specified with -o. no -o, no daemon, fr fr.
• -f format — hand it a comma-delimited string saying which parsed HTTP data to output. go peek at the doc/format-string file for all the deets on the available options and syntax 📖
• -F — disable all output buffering. super helpful when you're piping httpry output into another program. it's giving instant gratification 💅
• -h — show a brief description of these options. short and sweet, we love her.
• -i device — specify an ethernet interface for the program to listen on. if you don't specify one, the program polls the system for a list of interfaces and picks the first one found. bestie, just set it yourself, trust 🙈
• -l threshold — set a requests-per-second rate threshold value when you're running in rate statistics mode (-s). only hosts with a rps value greater than or equal to this number get displayed. defaults to 1.
• -m methods — give it a comma-delimited string that specifies which request methods to parse. if you don't set this option, it defaults to parsing all of the standard RFC2616 method strings. see the doc/method-string file for more info 📚
• -n count — parse this number of HTTP packets and then exit. defaults to 0, which means loop forever ♾️
• -o file — specify an output file for writing parsed packet data. the classic move.
• -p — do not put the NIC in promiscuous mode on startup. heads up though: the NIC could already be in that mode for another reason, so don't be shocked 👀
• -P file — specify a path and filename for creating the PID file when you're in daemon mode.
• -q — suppress non-critical output (the startup banner, statistics, etc.). quiet luxury 🎀
• -r file — provide an input capture file to read from instead of doing a live capture. and the best part?? this option does not require root privileges 🎉
• -s — run httpry in an HTTP request per second display mode. this periodically displays the rate per active host and the total rate at a specified interval. the numbers, the drama, obsessed ✨
• -S — specify a number of bytes to skip in the ethernet header. this lets you account for custom header offsets.
• -t seconds — specify the host statistics display interval in seconds when running in rate statistics mode (-s). defaults to 5 seconds.

ok so heads up, the original page has a stray merge-conflict marker sitting right here in this entry: >>>>>>> HEAD~0. not me noticing that 💀 anyway, the actual info is the sentence above.

• -u user — specify an alternate user to take ownership of the process and any output files. you will need root privileges to do this; it switches to the new user after initialization.
• 'expression' — specify a bpf-style capture filter, overriding the default. here are a few basic examples, starting with the default filter:

'tcp port 80 or 8080'
'tcp dst port 80'
'tcp dst port 80 and src host 192.168.1.1'

so those filters, in order, will: capture all web traffic both directions on two common ports, capture only requests made to port 80, and capture requests to port 80 by a particular host. respectively 💅 see man tcpdump for more info on the syntax and the available primitives.

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🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

httpry was written by Jason Bittel <jason.bittel@gmail.com>. see the included COPYING file for specific licensing information.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🌈 — General Commands Manual, httpry(1), that's the footer, and honestly? slay. periodt 💖✨