I'm using NodeJS and trying to make a simple server request. I'd like to determine if the server is HTTP/2 or not. If it is, I'd want to use the 'http2' module to make the request. Otherwise, I'll fall back to the 'http' / 'https' modules to make the request.
With NodeJS, how can I determine if a target remote server uses HTTP/2?
TIA
The general idea is that if you want to use http2 (if available), then you make your request from node.js using the http2 module. As part of that connection and part of the SSL/TLS negotiation, the two sides will exchange whether http2 can be used or not (via an extension called ALPN). If both sides agree on http2, then it will be used. If not, it will fall back to regular https.
Some relevant references:
How to check if website has http/2 protocol support
ALPN negotiation using node.js http2 library
If you're curious, this website: https://tools.keycdn.com/http2-test will tell you if any site supports HTTP/2 and the ALPN extension.
Related
I have a working node.js express based server (and client) application here that shows RPC over http+websockets. This works perfectly when run locally (using devcontainers) and includes the Dockerfile as well as devcontainer.json. However, when run from a codespace, it fails with the following client-side error messages.
client.js:9 Mixed Content:
The page at 'https://aniongithub-jsonrpc-bidirectional-example-<redacted>-8080.preview.app.github.dev/'
was loaded over HTTPS, but attempted to connect to the insecure WebSocket endpoint
'ws://aniongithub-jsonrpc-bidirectional-example-<redacted>-8080.preview.app.github.dev/api'.
This request has been blocked; this endpoint must be available over WSS.
(anonymous) # client.js:9
client.js:9 Uncaught DOMException: Failed to construct 'WebSocket':
An insecure WebSocket connection may not be initiated from a page loaded over HTTPS
at 'https://aniongithub-jsonrpc-bidirectional-example-<redacted>-8080.preview.app.github.dev/client.js:9:10'
The documentation here states that By default, GitHub Codespaces forwards ports using HTTP but you can update any port to use HTTPS, as needed. When I check the settings indicated:
it's set to http. What am I missing here? How can I get it to serve my express application over http?
Note: My intention is that when locally cloned and opened in a devcontainer, the code works just as it would if opened in a CodeSpace. This means I need to ensure that the certs generated by CodeSpaces are somehow factored into my local devcontainer process or that I forego authentication altogether. Alternatively, I need to find out if I'm running on CodeSpaces and do different things, which seems messy and shouldn't be the case. Hope this makes my intentions for asking this question clearer!
It turns out that I just couldn't use http for the RPC endpoint when running over https, so the solution was to use location.protocol and ws/wss depending on the current protocol to initialize the client RPC endpoint.
For example I have a node server which uses the built-in module "http" (which is http1.1 version I assume). So will it be able to serve any XHR request from browser with http2 protocol?
Yes. Browsers negotiate HTTP/2 as part of the HTTPS setup (since browsers only support HTTP/2 over HTTPS). If HTTP/2 is not supported by both sides it will just use HTTP/1.1
Thanks one of the great things about HTTP/2 and why it’s made such headway - the ability to (almost!) seamlessly roll it out to the web without breaking existing sites/servers/browsers.
I have a nodejs based web app that uses http2 library of nodejs. I start my app
HTTP/2 server is listening on port 3000. PID: 238718.
and want to check app's homepage: http://localhost:3000/
I have an error in Chrome browser: ERR_INVALID_HTTP_RESPONSE
I know that Chrome uses HTTP/2 over TLS (HTTPS).
Does any possibility exist to use HTTP/2 w/o HTTPS in a browsers?
Does HTTP/2 require encryption?
No. After extensive discussion, the Working Group did not have consensus to require the use of encryption (e.g., TLS) for the new protocol.
However, some implementations have stated that they will only support HTTP/2 when it is used over an encrypted connection, and currently no browser supports HTTP/2 unencrypted.
Source: https://http2.github.io/faq/#does-http2-require-encryption
Note that you can just use a self signed certificate for local development
I'm trying to understand what is the difference between HTTPS and http/2?
If I'm going to build a Node.js/express app, what should I use?
Can I use HTTPS with http/2?
Maybe if I use HTTPS, I don't need http/2 because it's the same, or HTTPS use http/2 under the hood?
I'm confused.
Someone is linked to me "difference between HTTP 1.1 and HTTP 2.0 [closed]", but I understand the difference between HTTP and HTTP2. I'm asking about HTTPS and HTTP/2
HTTP - A protocol used by clients (e.g. web browsers) to request resources from servers (e.g. web servers).
HTTPS - A way of encrypting HTTP. It basically wraps HTTP messages up in an encrypted format using SSL/TLS. The web is moving towards HTTPS more and more and web browsers are starting to put more and more warnings when a website is served over unencrypted HTTP. Unless you have a very good reason not to, use HTTPS on any websites you create now.
Digging into HTTP more we have:
HTTP/1.1 - this was the prevalent format of HTTP until recently. It is a text-based protocol and has some inefficiencies in it - especially when requesting lots of resources like a typical web page. HTTP/1.1 messages can be unencrypted (where web site addresses start http://) or encrypted with HTTPS (where web site address start with https://). The client uses the start of the URL to decide which protocol to use, usually defaulting to http:// if not provided.
HTTP/2 - a new version of HTTP released in 2015 which addresses some of the performance issues by moving away from a text based protocol to a binary protocol where each byte is clearly defined. This is easier to parse for clients and servers, leaves less room for errors and also allows multiplexing. HTTP/2, like HTTP/1.1, is available over unencrypted (http://) and encrypted (https://) channels but web browsers only support it over HTTPS, where it is decided whether to use HTTP/1.1 or HTTP/2 as part of the HTTPS negotiation at the start of the connection.
HTTP/2 is used by about a third of all websites at the time of writing (up to 50% of websites as of Jan 2020, and 67% of website requests). However not all clients support HTTP/2 so you should support HTTP/1.1 over HTTPS and HTTP/2 over HTTPS where possible (I believe node automatically does this for you when using the http module). I do not believe HTTP/1.1 will be retired any time soon. You should also consider supporting HTTP/1.1 over unencrypted HTTP and then redirect to HTTPS version (which will then use HTTP/1.1 or HTTP/2 as appropriate). A web server like Apache or Nginx in front of Node makes this easy.
HTTP/3 - the next version of HTTP, currently under development. It is expected to be finalised in 2020 though it will likely be late 2020 or even 2021 before you see this widely available in web servers and languages like node. It will be built on top of a UDP-based transport called QUIC (rather than the TCP-based protocol that HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 are based on top of). It will include part of HTTPS in the protocol so HTTP/3 will only be available over HTTPS.
In short you should use HTTP/1.1 over HTTPS, should consider HTTP/2 as well if easy to implement (not always possible as not quite ubiquitous yet - but getting there) and in future you might be using HTTP/3.
I suggest you get a firm understanding of all of these technologies (except maybe HTTP/3 just yet) if you want to do web development. It will stand you in good stead.
I'm trying to create a very secure connection between client and server using Node.js, Express.js and TLS (1.2).
I think my problem is in understanding what TLS actually is - meaning what is being exchanged, when and how by who.
Anyhow, I'm searching the internet like a nutter (crazy person) to try and figure out following:
what does var tls = require('tls'); invoke?
what does var https = require('https'); invoke?
I can get tls working when using another node as a client, but in this case the client will be a user in a browser. Can I use both for a browser or only https??
Thanks
Let's indeed start with what TLS is.
TLS is a way to provide secure connections between a client and a server. It does this by providing a safe way for clients and servers to exchange keys so they can then use public-key cryptography to secure their transmission. The exact mechanism is found here, but it's really not important for this answer.
Now, what is https? Well first, let's talk about HTTP. HTTP is a protocol that defines how web servers and clients talk and exchange web pages or data. Basically, it includes a request from a client and the server responds with a numerical message, headers, and (optionally) a body. If you're familiar with writing web pages, this is obvious.
So now, finally, what is HTTPS? HTTPS is a version of HTTP using TLS to secure data. This means that clients and servers can use the same protocol they're used to, wrapped in encryption.
Now, let's talk about these in node.js.
When you use require('tls'), you're only using the encryption layer, without defining the protocol. This will work fine for anything that doesn't expect an exact protocol, such as your other node.js client.
When you use require('https'), you're specifically using HTTP over TLS. The https module is actually a subclass of the tls module! (Oops, actually, the https.Server is a subclass of tls.Server) This means that whenever you're using the https module, you're also using the tls one.
Now, the final question: What does the browser want? If you've been following everything I've said, you can see that the browser wants https. In fact, it's likely that most of the webpages you've visited today has been over https.