[privoxy-users] [ ijbswa-Support Requests-3555167 ] how to redirect HTTPS to HTTP

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Support Requests item #3555167, was opened at 2012-08-07 12:39
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by fabiankeil
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Category: actions files
Group: 3.0.17
>Status: Pending
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: dg1727 (dg1727)
>Assigned to: Fabian Keil (fabiankeil)
Summary: how to redirect HTTPS to HTTP

Initial Comment:
I am using Privoxy 3.0.17 on Linux with Firefox.  
I would like to redirect a certain webpage's HTTPS requests to HTTP so I can inspect the contents of the requests.  
I have tried the following in user.action:  

{ +redirect{s@^https://@http://@} }
.example.com

... which produces the following in the Privoxy logfile:  
Redirect: pcrs command "s@^https://@http://@" didn't change "www.example.com:443".

I then tried the following (then I tried it again without the backslashes):  

{ +redirect{s@\:443$@\:80@} }
.example.com

... which didn't seem to do anything (no logfile entries).  

I have found https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2899297&group_id=11118&atid=111118
which mentions stunnel.  Is stunnel the recommended way to do what I'm trying to do, or is there a way in Privoxy?  

Thanks for your help.  

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>Comment By: Fabian Keil (fabiankeil)
Date: 2012-08-08 01:03

Message:
Your first +redirect{} doesn't work because CONNECT requests (which the
browser uses to tunnel https:// connections) do not contain the protocol as
can also be seen in the "Redirect:" message you got.

Your second +redirect{} will not work for CONNECT requests because the
result lacks the protocol.

The error message you should have gotten for it looks like this:
09:44:41.843 003 Error: pcrs command "s@\:443$@\:80@" changed
"www.example.com:443" to "www.example.com:80" (1 hit), but the result
doesn't look like a valid URL and will be ignored.

The colon isn't special, so it doesn't need escaping. It shouldn't make a
difference, though.

The following should redirect all requests for https://www.example.com/.*
to http://www.example.com/:

{+redirect{s@(www\.example\.com):443$@http://$1/@}}
.example.com

but the path will be lost as Privoxy doesn't see it.

Also note that Firefox no longer supports proxy redirects for CONNECT
request and will simply show a misleading error message about not being
able to connect to the server. I think Mozilla broke this in version 3 or 4
and I suspect that it was intentional.

Using stunnel to MITM the connection before sending the redirect should
work, but I'm not familiar with it's competition, so I don't know if there
are better options available nowadays.

Using stunnel is a bit inconvenient as you have to generate the fake
certificates yourself. Before using it I'd recommend that you look for a
similar tool that generates the certificates automatically first.

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