How to reliably categorize HTTP sessions in proxy to corresponding browser' windows/tabs user is viewing?
- by Jehonathan
I was using the Fiddler core .Net library as a local proxy to record the user activity in web. However I ended up with a problem which seems dirty to solve. I have a web browser say Google Chrome, and the user opened like 10 different tabs each with different web URLs. The problem is that the proxy records all the HTTP session initiated by each pages separately, causing me to figure out using my intelligence the tab which the corresponding HTTP session belonged to. I understand that this is because of the stateless nature of HTTP protocol. However I am just wondering is there an easy way to do this? I ended up with below c# code for that in Fiddler. Still its not a reliable solution due to the heuristics.
This is a modification of the sample project bundled with Fiddler core for .NET 4. Basically what it does is filtering HTTP sessions initiated in last few seconds to find the first request or switching to another page made by the same tab in browser. It almost works, but not seems to be a universal solution.
Fiddler.FiddlerApplication.AfterSessionComplete += delegate(Fiddler.Session oS)
{
//exclude other HTTP methods
if (oS.oRequest.headers.HTTPMethod == "GET" || oS.oRequest.headers.HTTPMethod == "POST")
//exclude other HTTP Status codes
if (oS.oResponse.headers.HTTPResponseStatus == "200 OK" || oS.oResponse.headers.HTTPResponseStatus == "304 Not Modified")
{
//exclude other MIME responses (allow only text/html)
var accept = oS.oRequest.headers.FindAll("Accept");
if (accept != null)
{
if(accept.Count>0)
if (accept[0].Value.Contains("text/html"))
{
//exclude AJAX
if (!oS.oRequest.headers.Exists("X-Requested-With"))
{
//find the referer for this request
var referer = oS.oRequest.headers.FindAll("Referer");
//if no referer then assume this as a new request and display the same
if(referer!=null)
{
//if no referer then assume this as a new request and display the same
if (referer.Count > 0)
{
//lock the sessions
Monitor.Enter(oAllSessions);
//filter further using the response
if (oS.oResponse.MIMEType == string.Empty || oS.oResponse.MIMEType == "text/html")
//get all previous sessions with the same process ID this session request
if(oAllSessions.FindAll(a=>a.LocalProcessID == oS.LocalProcessID)
//get all previous sessions within last second (assuming the new tab opened initiated multiple sessions other than parent)
.FindAll(z => (z.Timers.ClientBeginRequest > oS.Timers.ClientBeginRequest.AddSeconds(-1)))
//get all previous sessions that belongs to the same port of the current session
.FindAll(b=>b.port == oS.port ).FindAll(c=>c.clientIP ==oS.clientIP)
//get all previus sessions with the same referrer URL of the current session
.FindAll(y => referer[0].Value.Equals(y.fullUrl))
//get all previous sessions with the same host name of the current session
.FindAll(m=>m.hostname==oS.hostname).Count==0 ) //if count ==0 that means this is the parent request
Console.WriteLine(oS.fullUrl);
//unlock sessions
Monitor.Exit(oAllSessions);
}
else
Console.WriteLine(oS.fullUrl);
}
else
Console.WriteLine(oS.fullUrl);
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
}
}
};
