# HTTP request Help!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-request-help/84153>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 27, 2001, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-request-help/84153 "2001-09-27T17:57:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fandango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5ac83/32.png) [@fandango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fandango)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-request-help/84153/1 "2001-09-27T17:57:50Z")

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Could anyone provide me with an example of an actual IE HTTP request?  
Here’s the problem: If I use a browser to go to [http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/poems.html](http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/poems.html), I get a page, but if telnet to that same site (port 80, of course) and type  
GET /daeron/poems.html HTTP/1.0

I get a 404 Not Found. I thought it might be because I am missing some request fields, but I’ve added as many as I could think of (Connection, Accept, Accept-Language, Host, User-Agent, etc.) nothing seems to work…and it just seems to be that web site, I can get a page just fine with other websites I’ve tried.

Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-request-help/84153/2 "2001-09-27T18:33:35Z")

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HTTP/1.0 is defined in [RFC 1945](http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/rfc1945.html) which should answer your questions. What you typed looked like it should work to me.

When I was taking a network programming class, I used to have a server that would simply echo commands recieved to the screen. To see what HTTP messages look like, for example, I’d just point a web browser at the server and see what it sent.

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**Author:** ![fandango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5ac83/32.png) [@fandango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fandango)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-request-help/84153/3 "2001-09-27T18:41:17Z")

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I know my request is up to standard with the RFC, and I get back a 404, not a “malformed request”, but somehow IE doesn’t get a 404 when requesting the same page.

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**Author:** ![micco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@micco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micco)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-request-help/84153/4 "2001-09-27T19:18:19Z")

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This page has a “Check your browser’s headers” link which echos the HTTP header:  
[http://grc.com/su/earthlink.htm](http://grc.com/su/earthlink.htm)

This page allows you to enter a URL and see what headers it returns. This may not help your situation, but you might see if your server is returning a redirect that you’re not processing when you do it manually.  
[http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html](http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html)

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**Author:** ![fandango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5ac83/32.png) [@fandango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fandango)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-request-help/84153/5 "2001-09-27T19:53:34Z")

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That site has some python scripts that require you to send  
Host: [http://www.forodrim.org](http://www.forodrim.org)

with the header, otherwise it causes exceptions.

Thanks! Those links helped!