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cURL commands you can use on windows
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cURL_windows.md

What is the Curl command ?

  • Networking command available on windows, Linux and macOS.
  • Curl stands for (Client URL)

[!hint] cURL on windows Windows 10/11 come with curl built in them, you can use the curl command from PowerShell or cmd

Basic Usage

Basic usage will include the curl and a URL, this will basically return the html content of URL you input

curl https://www.google.com
  • To get just the header you'd use the -I flag
> curl -I https://www.google.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only: object-src 'none';base-uri 'self';script-src 'nonce-3nbjnYmAWAiUDuFeFgEZEA' 'strict-dynamic' 'report-sample' 'unsafe-eval' 'unsafe-inline' https: http:;report-uri https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/gws/other-hp
P3P: CP="This is not a P3P policy! See g.co/p3phelp for more info."
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 22:48:52 GMT
...

[!info] using the -i flag will get you both the content + header but that would be too much info to display

  • To output/download the content of the curl to a file, you can use the -o which comes built in curl and specify a file, or you can use the -O (capital O) flag without a file name, and that will use the name of the default html page served in this case index.html as the output. You can use -s to silence the status.
> curl -o google.html https://www.google.com

 % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 20749    0 20749    0     0   6798      0 --:--:--  0:00:03 --:--:--  6805

# using the -O flag
> curl -O https://www.google.com/index.html

PS C:\Users\jamal\Desktop> curl -O https://www.google.com/index.html
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 20752    0 20752    0     0  13682      0 --:--:--  0:00:01 --:--:-- 13706

[!important] If you don't specify a protocol like HTTPS for the URL This could help you test for redirects to check if a site has HTTPS redirect

  • Testing redirect:
> curl -I google.com

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://www.google.com/
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only: object-src 'none';base-uri 'self';script-src 'nonce-ac_yxVWLqCe8HOcnKSm7Yg' 'strict-dynamic' 'report-sample' 'unsafe-eval' 'unsafe-inline' https: http:;report-uri https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/gws/other-hp
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 23:08:05 GMT
Expires: Sun, 14 Apr 2024 23:08:05 GMT
Cache-Control: public, max-age=2592000
Server: gws
Content-Length: 219
X-XSS-Protection: 0
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
  • To follow redirects you add the -L flag.
curl -IL google.com

# adding the -v flag for verbose
curl -ILv google.com
  • You can test all methods for both http and https websites

HTTP:

curl -i -X OPTIONS http://example.com/

HTTPS:

curl –insecure -i -X OPTIONS https://example.com/

You may also use -v (verbose) instead of -i to see more output to print both the request and response, or the vvv which gives more verbose info.

[!alert] curl against a site with self signed certificate if you attempt to use curl against domain with self signed certificate you get an error

  • below example this site uses a self signed certificate
 curl https://self-signed.badssl.com/

You can use the -k to proceed to the site and skip certificate check.

curl -k https://self-signed.badssl.com/

Interacting with APIs

You can use curl to test APIs.

1. fetching data with GET

Example 1: fetching list of employees

> curl https://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/employees

{"status":"success","data":[{"id":1,"employee_name":"Tiger Nixon","employee_salary":320800,"employee_age":61,"profile_image":""},{"id":2,"employee_name":"Garrett Winters","employee_salary":170750,"employee_age":63,"profile_image":""},{"id":3,"employee_name":"Ashton Cox","employee_salary":86000,"employee_age":66,"profile_image":""},{"id":4,"employee_name":"Cedric Kelly","employee_salary":433060,"employee_age":22,"profile_image":""},{"id":5,"employee_name":"Airi Satou","employee_salary":162700,"employee_age":33,"profile_image":""},
...
],"message":"Successfully! All records has been fetched."}

Example 2 : testing same endpoint with different query parameter ( this doesn't work in windows PowerShell)

> curl https://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/employee/1 https://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/employee/2

Example 3 : using regex with curl to search a range of parameters ( this doesn't work in windows PowerShell)

# fetching values for employee ids 1 to 5
curl https://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/employee/[1-5]

Example 4: basic authentication

curl -u user:pass -d status="Hello" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

Example 5 : file/data upload

# multipart file upload
curl -v -include --form key1=value1 --form upload=<@localfilename> http://example.com/submit.cgi

# multipart form: send data from text field and upload file
curl -F person=anonymous -F secret=@file.txt http://example.com/submit.cgi

2. Sending data with POST

  • The -d flag comes in handy, it's shorthand for --data, which is the body of the post request you want to send
  • When you add this flag the request is by defaulted to POST

Example 1: sending form data

curl -d name=jamal&salary=800&age=110 https://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/create

[!NOTE]- By default this method expects the payload to be form data types of key value pairs delimited by &

Example 2: sending json data To send json data we need to us the flag -H to define the header "content-type"

curl -d '{"name":"test","salary":"123","age":"23"}' -H "content-type:application/json" https://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/create

Example 2.1: using header shorthand -H with CSRF

curl -X POST -H "X-CSRF: 1ndrgg9" -H "Origin: http://localhost:8080" -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{}' http://localhost:8080/csrf
CSRF check passed!

Example 3 : using the --url flag

curl --request POST --data "username=user1&password=test1234" -H 'Origin: https://securitylabs-ce.veracode.com' --url https://aeb7f888.community.ht/login

Example 4 : sending bearer token in request header

curl --request GET --url https://aeb7f888.community.ht/users \
  --header 'Origin: https://securitylabs-ce.veracode.com' \
  --header 'X-Auth-Token: eyJhbGciOiAiSFMyNTYiLCAidHlwIjogIkpXVCJ9.eyJjbGFpbXMiOiB7ImxldmVsIjogInVzZXIiLCAidXNlcm5hbWUiOiAidXNlcjEifX0=.842611e2a755eaf54d0d05d8d84fab8cd6d35f3e4ea903bd743d605d7f2c9d87'

3. Defining HTTP request methods

Other than GET, POST what if we want to use other HTTP requests, you strictly specify the method you want to trigger using the -X flag

Example 1 : using DELETE method

curl -X DELETE https://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/delete/2

Host manipulation

When your developing or debugging an app on your local machine and you want to simulate the host being a different domain. Use the flag `--

Example 1: define a custom host header

curl --header "Host:example.com" http://127.0.0.1

Example 2 : custom resolve let's resolve and address locally using the --resolve

curl --resolve navek.org:443:127.0.0.1 https://navek.org/

Example 3: testing individual host , maybe if you are behind a load balancer and want to test a certain host, use the --connect-to flag to resolve to that host

curl --connect-to example.com:443:host-47.exmaple.com:443 https://example.com

Testing other protocols other than HTTP(s)

With curl you can test ftp, LDAP,SMTP, sockets and Telnet

Example 1 : test Telnet

curl telnet:localhost:4317

Advanced tricks

Example1: Get the MD5 hash for the websites favicon image using curl + PowerShell

PS C:\Users\user> curl https://static-labs.tryhackme.cloud/sites/favicon/images/favicon.ico -UseBasicParsing -o favicon.ico
Enter proxy password for user 'seBasicParsing':
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  1406  100  1406    0     0    811      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:--   812

PS C:\Users\user> Get-FileHash .\favicon.ico -Algorithm MD5

Algorithm       Hash                                                                   Path
---------       ----                                                                   ----
MD5             F276B19AABCB4AE8CDA4D22625C6735F                                       C:\Users\user\favico…

Check public IP address

C:\Users\user>curl checkip.amazonaws.com

Fun stuff

  • Get the weather
C:\Users\user>curl wttr-in/Dubai
  • Un-shorted short links
C:\Users\user>curl --head --location "https:/btl.short" | findstr location
  • Check website status
C:\Users\user>curl -Is https://google.com
  • Create a QR code
C:\Users\user>curl qrenco.de/{your website URL}
  • Check latest video from favorite channel on YouTube, or X (Twitter)
%% Youtube %%
C:\Users\user>curl -s https://decapi.me/youtube/latest_video?user=networkchuck

%% X %%
C:\Users\user>curl -s https://decapi.me/twitter/latest?user=networkchuck
  • Check online dictionary for meaning of a word
C:\Users\user>curl dict.org/d:congress

Glossary

Options
-V # --version : show version number
-h # --help : displays help menu or category if specified
-o {file} # --output: write to file
-u user:pass # --user: Authentication
-v
 # --verbose
-vv # Even more verbose
-s # --silent: don't show progress meter or errors
-S # --show-error: when used with --silent (-sS), show errors but no progress meter
-i # --include: Include the HTTP-header in the output
-I # --head: headers only
Request
-X {HTTP method} # --request
-L # follow link if page redirects
-F # --form: HTTP POST data for multipart/form-data
Data
-d
'data'		 # --data: HTTP post data, URL encoded (eg, status="Hello")
-d @file # --data via file
-G # --get: send -d data via get
Headers
-A {str} # --user-agent
-b 'name=val' # --cookie
-b FILE # --cookie
-H "X-Foo: y" # --header
--compressed # use deflate/gzip
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