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Exercise: Looking at a Real HTTP Response

Discover how to use the cURL command-line tool to inspect real HTTP responses. Learn about HTTP headers, status codes, and the anatomy of responses to better understand application layer communication in networking.

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cURL

Run the following command to look at a real HTTP response.

Shell
curl http://example.org --head -silent

cURL (pronounced ‘curl’) is a command-line tool that transfers data to or from a server. The transfer can be based on a vast set of protocols, so we’ll be seeing cURL a lot. It’s perfect for our purposes because it doesn’t require live user interaction. cURL stands for “Client URL.” You can read ...