Make an HTTP request without a forward slash

Question

I came across an odd HTTP request in my Apache access log:

"GET www.example.com HTTP/1.0"

Using a browser (Waterfox, Firefox or Chrome, (in that order)) or PuTTY/cURL|Terminal how can I reproduce this HTTP request? Preferably for localhost as I can see the logs in real-time.

I did some reading and apparently cURL can only make absolute URL requests. I also have not been able to reproduce this with Edit and Resend in the Network panel of Waterfox. This request triggered some minor errors I wish to fix in my system.

Answer 1

First install Telnet.

Then copy and paste the following into a terminal window:

telnet localhost 80

GET www.example.com HTTP/1.0

Press Enter two times.

This is what it looks like in my access logs:

::1 - - [30/Oct/2020:23:37:28 -0700] "GET www.example.com HTTP/1.0" 400 310

You can also do this with PHP. Here is a file I created called test.php:

<?php
$fp = stream_socket_client("tcp://localhost:80", $errno, $errstr, 30) or die("$errstr ($errno)");
$request = "GET www.example.com HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n";
$written = 0;
do {
    $bytes = fwrite($fp, substr($request, $written)) or die('fwrite error');
    $written+= $bytes;
}
while ($written!==strlen($request));
fclose($fp) or die('fclose error');
echo 'Request sent successfully';
exit;

The above does the same thing it just uses PHP to do it. Create a PHP file with the above text, point your browser to it, it should say "Request sent successfully" and then check your access logs.

Edit:

If you need to use TLS then try the following instead. Again save as test.php and point your browser to this file:

$fp = fsockopen("tls://localhost", 443, $errno, $errstr, 30) or die("$errstr ($errno)");
$request = "GET www.example.com HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n";
$written = 0;
do {
    $bytes = fwrite($fp, substr($request, $written)) or die('fwrite error');
    $written+= $bytes;
}
while ($written!==strlen($request));
while (!feof($fp)) {
    echo fgets($fp, 128);
}
fclose($fp) or die('fclose error');
echo 'Request sent successfully';
exit;