HTTP request builders for GNU/Linux?

Question

I’m looking for tools for interactively inspecting HTTP servers by manually constructing requests (and viewing responses), under GNU/Linux. Something that would let me quickly specify standard header fields, make a form request body, etc. (netcat doesn’t really excel at this.)

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Maybe simply cURL is what you need?

Answer 2

A Python script with urllib2 would seem appropriate. You can manipulate headers at will. Of course you have access to all the request/response fields too. A tutorial can be found here.

Answer 3

If all you are looking to do is to make manual HTTP requests to interact with web services for testing / reference purposes, then there is a really nice add-on for Firefox that does just that. It is called Poster.