On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 5:05 PM, Greg Lawson [email protected] wrote:
Is it necessarily considered poor web server configuration to be able to telnet into a webserver and pull off the server info? For example, if you telnet to this site (and many others I've tested too):
www.missouriwestern.edu (port 80)
--then do a "get /"
you will get the server info and the html from the website. So is that good, bad, neither, unavoidable?
Neither, Webserver (is a server), you are connecting with telnet (client). So if you know the right sequence you can "get" the HTML page just like your Browser. Its a typical client/server setup. You can do mail this way too (but isn't recommended).
$ telnet www.missouriwestern.edu 80 Trying 150.200.1.30... Connected to www.missouriwestern.edu. Escape character is '^]'. GET / HTTP/1.1 <-----------------I typed this, then two <CR> in a row
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:17:43 GMT Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub Content-Length: 15388 Content-Type: text/html Cache-control: private Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDCQADCCQT=JPNLMKEAJHKFIOAHOIIBHLDE; path=/ Connection: Keep-Alive
<html> <head> <title>Missouri Western State University (MWSU)</title> <meta name="keywords" content="Missouri Western State University,colleges,missouri colleges,colleges in missouri,saint joseph,undergraduate degrees,missouri education,MWSU,midwest colleges,liberal arts,technology,missouri universities,undergraduate programs,continuing education,distance education, graduate studies,masters" /> <meta name="description" content="Missouri Western State University (MWSU) is a four-year, state-supported institution providing a blend of traditional liberal arts and career-oriented degree programs. The college offers one-year certificates, two-year associate, four-year baccalaureate and master of applied science degrees." /> <meta name="verify-v1" content="AUqLBGmV+/qdmo2pkW37Ulxtn3lCMC3rYvjQIaQ3lUI=" /> <link href="http://www.missouriwestern.edu/CSS/mwscStyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="http://www.missouriwestern.edu/favicon.ico"> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.missouriwestern.edu/mainmenu.js"></script> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.missouriwestern.edu/mm_menu.js"></script> </head>