Question

Capturing outbound http traffic

Asked by: x_terminat_or_3

I would like to capture all outbound http traffic, and log the hostname it goes to, as well as the page requested, and the request type (get/post/..)

Is it possible to do so with tcpdump and have it write the information to a file as a one-liner (ie: time source destination req type url)

If it is possible, how to do it
If it isn't possible, what program *can* do it

Linux OS requirement.

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Asked On
2007-09-22 at 03:21:57ID22845927
Tags

tcpdump

,

http

,

traffic

,

capture

Topics

Network Security

,

Unix Networking

,

Linux Networking

Participating Experts
5
Points
500
Comments
16

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Answers

 

by: alexjayaprakashPosted on 2007-09-22 at 04:08:28ID: 19941160

Basically what i think you need is a software gateway or a proxy here are some links, i've used wingate and it works well ...

You could try http://www.wingate.com/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/acfreeproxy/

http://3proxy.ru/

 

by: alexjayaprakashPosted on 2007-09-22 at 04:11:49ID: 19941166

Sorry din notice the Linux env ...

You could install Squid

http://www.squid-cache.org/

it has a reporting feature which gives you what you need

 

by: alexjayaprakashPosted on 2007-09-22 at 04:13:04ID: 19941168

 

by: x_terminat_or_3Posted on 2007-09-22 at 04:23:37ID: 19941197

I do not want to use a proxy, I want to use tcpdump or equivalent

 

by: farhankaziPosted on 2007-09-22 at 07:19:51ID: 19941582

Try Wireshark (Network protocol analyzer)
http://www.wireshark.org/

 

by: x_terminat_or_3Posted on 2007-09-22 at 07:29:01ID: 19941597

dude tcpdump is part of wireshark! tcpdump is what collects the data that wireshark-gnome displays.

 

by: RedimidoPosted on 2007-09-22 at 08:30:42ID: 19941734

I show tcpdump being a package by itself:

PACKAGE DESCRIPTION:
tcpdump: tcpdump
tcpdump:
tcpdump: Tcpdump is a tool for network monitoring and data acquisition.  You
tcpdump: can use it to dump information on all the packets on a network that
tcpdump: match a boolean expression.  Tcpdump uses libpcap, a system
tcpdump: independent interface for user-level packet capture.

 

by: x_terminat_or_3Posted on 2007-09-22 at 08:36:49ID: 19941744

Guess this is what gave me that idea
"Wireshark's native capture file format is libpcap format, which is also the format used by tcpdump and various other tools. "

What I really need help with is the filters needed to log the outbound http information I want.

 

by: RedimidoPosted on 2007-09-22 at 09:19:35ID: 19941912

if you want to do that with tcpdump, then you are headed for a bad time... you will be able to get that but will need to write complex scripts.

however, as been told, squid does all that for you, and you can configure squid to do transparent proxying, so noone will notice but you will have exactly that report on the access.log squid creates.

why you don't give it a check?

 

by: x_terminat_or_3Posted on 2007-09-22 at 09:40:03ID: 19941957

The site is in production 24/7.  I can justify the use such as tcpdump or wireshark like tools that gather data on demand and without any changes to the application. Whereas installing a proxy and routing everything through it just to analyze and log traffic seems out of proportion.

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2007-09-22 at 12:37:15ID: 19942416

> .. capture all outbound http traffic, and log the hostname it goes to,
yes no problem (as long as you can reverse map IPs to hostnames)

> .. as well as the page requested, and the request type
only if it is a http request, not for https requests unless you use a proxy

 

by: KeremEPosted on 2007-09-23 at 06:07:21ID: 19944209

Hi,

As you told earlier Wireshark is the answer. Tcpdump is just a command line utility where you'll mostly use for creating dumps in remote locations etc. As you mentioned earlier the format they dump data is the same. But I think using wireshark will be OK for for you. Then all you do would be to create a filter to capture only the packests with a destination port of 80 and SYN bit set. When you capture the packets you'll filter out the destination address and you'll log it to a file. The trick here is when a client wants to establish a communication with a server it sends the first packet with SYN and ACK bits are set. When the server acknowledgess the connection client responds with ACK again. So if you capture the packets with ACK you'd log the same address twice.  

 

by: x_terminat_or_3Posted on 2007-09-23 at 07:05:10ID: 19944309

ok, I understood that well enough, you are referring to the three way handshake that occurs on all tcp connections.

What I don't understand well enough, is what capture filter to use exactly. When I try to write one, I usually get a syntax error, or, a 'this is a display filter, not a capture filter'

 

by: KeremEPosted on 2007-09-23 at 07:55:14ID: 19944419

Ok. This part is clear enough I guess :))

In fact this filter creation with Wireshark is always a bit tricky. It never warn when you create but it will dispaly eror after you complete editing :) I'll suggest you display the existing filters and play with them a while.

Heres the capture filters wiki:
http://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureFilters

 

by: x_terminat_or_3Posted on 2007-09-23 at 08:20:59ID: 19944511

Right. Exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. Much better than the clumsy Man page.

Thanks

 

by: KeremEPosted on 2007-09-23 at 13:31:12ID: 19945327

yr welcome.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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