Observetron

Overview

Observetron is a java program that allows you to observe HTTP traffic. It is not a proxy as defined per RFC 2616. Per the same RFC, it is formally known as a "gateway." Here is the definition:

A server which acts as an intermediary for some other server. Unlike a proxy, a gateway receives requests as if it were the origin server for the requested resource; the requesting client may not be aware that it is communicating with a gateway.

It is meant to be used as a debugging tool for developing web applications and protocols that use HTTP as their underlying transport.

Features

• Supports most HTTP 1.1 features, including persistent connections and Transfer-Encoding: chunked
• Can use HTTP 1.1 for the server connections, even if the client requested 1.0.
• Shows HTTP traffic, both headers and content. Text, images, arbitrary binary files (as hex) and serialized java objects are supported.
• Has an object browser for serialized java objects. Useful for debugging.
• Allows you to save the content of an HTTP transaction.
• Can connect to the originating server via SSL.