when would you get a web request without a host name?

Question

I've been reviewing some nginx configuration docs and i found this: http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/request_processing.html I'm specifically reading the section about rejecting requests that don't provide a host name.

I'm wondering how to generate these types of requests for testing purposes, and when would these types of request come in - in real life...aka do i need to care?

What I've tried so far:

I've added the following into my nginx conf file

server {
    listen      80;
    server_name "";
    return      444;
}

Then I tried to play around with curl and send a request with an empty host header like so:

curl --verbose --header 'Host:' 'http://192.1.6.1/test/hello'

That returns the error 400 bad request.

In the olden days there was HTTP/1.0 which did not require a Host header. You could try `curl --http1.0` — Richard Smith, May 27 '19 at 19:45
that worked @RichardSmith. and thanks for putting context around it by mentioning HTTP 1.0 — dot, May 27 '19 at 19:57

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 27 '19 at 20:02

0

An old version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.0) did not require a Host request header. See this question for details.

You can force curl to use HTTP/1.0 with the --http1.0 command line option.

answered May 27 '19 at 20:02

Richard Smith

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when would you get a web request without a host name?

1 Answers1