The HTTP protocol requires two line breaks after a command set. This means that when logging into an HTTP daemon with telnet, we must press [enter] or [return] twice after each command given to the daemon.


Reading WWW documents on HTTP port 80:

Log into an HTTP server on port 80 with telnet and type the following:
	get / http/1.1
Press return twice [\n\n].
This will return the default document located in the sites root HTTP directory.

Other HTTP command variations:
	get /index.html http/1.1
	head / http/1.1
	put / http/1.1
HTTP server software query:

Type a single letter 'n' for example and then press return twice.
www.gte.net returns the following:
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0 Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 20:01:05 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 87 <html><head><title>Error</title></head><body>The parameter is incorrect.</body>      We now know the www.gte.net is running the Microsoft IIS 4.0 software on a Windows NT Server. We also know that they are more vulnerable to a hacker than say a government machine using a POSIX HTTP server. This is because GTE is profit oriented not security oriented. A Windows NT network can be maintained by less skilled technicians and therefore costs less to administrate.

     Using this same technique on www.yahoo.com returns nothing. This is because the system engineers have configured the server not to broadcast this information. This information is the first gathered by hackers who are attempting to exploit an HTTP server daemon.

Status Codes: 1xx to 5xx.

The most common is: HTTP/1.0 200 OK.
This status code indicates the request was successful.

Other status code information: