go-httpbin

A reasonably complete and well-tested golang port of Kenneth Reitz's httpbin service, with zero dependencies outside the go stdlib.

Usage

Docker

Docker images are published to Docker Hub:

# Run http server
$ docker run -P mccutchen/go-httpbin

# Run https server
$ docker run -e HTTPS_CERT_FILE='/tmp/server.crt' -e HTTPS_KEY_FILE='/tmp/server.key' -p 8080:8080 -v /tmp:/tmp mccutchen/go-httpbin

Standalone binary

Follow the Installation instructions to install go-httpbin as a standalone binary. (This currently requires a working Go runtime.)

Examples:

# Run http server
$ go-httpbin -host 127.0.0.1 -port 8081

# Run https server
$ openssl genrsa -out server.key 2048
$ openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out server.key
$ openssl req -new -x509 -sha256 -key server.key -out server.crt -days 3650
$ go-httpbin -host 127.0.0.1 -port 8081 -https-cert-file ./server.crt -https-key-file ./server.key

Unit testing helper library

The github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/httpbin/v2 package can also be used as a library for testing an application's interactions with an upstream HTTP service, like so:

package httpbin_test

import (
	"net/http"
	"net/http/httptest"
	"os"
	"testing"
	"time"

	"github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2/httpbin"
)

func TestSlowResponse(t *testing.T) {
	app := httpbin.New()
	testServer := httptest.NewServer(app)
	defer testServer.Close()

	client := http.Client{
		Timeout: time.Duration(1 * time.Second),
	}

	_, err := client.Get(testServer.URL + "/delay/10")
	if !os.IsTimeout(err) {
		t.Fatalf("expected timeout error, got %s", err)
	}
}

Configuration

go-httpbin can be configured via either command line arguments or environment variables (or a combination of the two):

Notes:

• Command line arguments take precedence over environment variables.
• See Production considerations for recommendations around safe configuration of public instances of go-httpbin

Installation

To add go-httpbin to an existing golang project:

go get -u github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2

To install the go-httpbin binary:

go install github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2/cmd/go-httpbin

Production considerations

Before deploying an instance of go-httpbin on your own infrastructure on the public internet, consider tuning it appropriately:

1. Restrict the domains to which the /redirect-to endpoint will send traffic to avoid the security issues of an open redirect

   Use the -allowed-redirect-domains CLI argument or the ALLOWED_REDIRECT_DOMAINS env var to configure an appropriate allowlist.

2. Tune per-request limits

   Because go-httpbin allows clients send arbitrary data in request bodies and control the duration some requests (e.g. /delay/60s), it's important to properly tune limits to prevent misbehaving or malicious clients from taking too many resources.

   Use the -max-body-size/MAX_BODY_SIZE and -max-duration/MAX_DURATION CLI arguments or env vars to enforce appropriate limits on each request.

3. Decide whether to expose real hostnames in the /hostname endpoint

   By default, the /hostname endpoint serves a dummy hostname value, but it can be configured to serve the real underlying hostname (according to os.Hostname()) using the -use-real-hostname CLI argument or the USE_REAL_HOSTNAME env var to enable this functionality.

   Before enabling this, ensure that your hostnames do not reveal too much about your underlying infrastructure.

4. Add custom instrumentation

   By default, go-httpbin logs basic information about each request. To add more detailed instrumentation (metrics, structured logging, request tracing), you'll need to wrap this package in your own code, which you can then instrument as you would any net/http server. Some examples:

   • examples/custom-instrumentation instruments every request using DataDog, based on the built-in Observer mechanism.

   • mccutchen/httpbingo.org is the code that powers the public instance of go-httpbin deployed to httpbingo.org, which adds customized structured logging using zerolog and further hardens the HTTP server against malicious clients by tuning lower-level timeouts and limits.

Development

# local development
make
make test
make testcover
make run

# building & pushing docker images
make image
make imagepush

Motivation & prior art

I've been a longtime user of Kenneith Reitz's original httpbin.org, and wanted to write a golang port for fun and to see how far I could get using only the stdlib.

When I started this project, there were a handful of existing and incomplete golang ports, with the most promising being ahmetb/go-httpbin. This project showed me how useful it might be to have an httpbin library available for testing golang applications.

Known differences from other httpbin versions

Compared to the original:

• No /brotli endpoint (due to lack of support in Go's stdlib)
• The ?show_env=1 query param is ignored (i.e. no special handling of runtime environment headers)
• Response values which may be encoded as either a string or a list of strings will always be encoded as a list of strings (e.g. request headers, query params, form values)

Compared to ahmetb/go-httpbin:

• No dependencies on 3rd party packages
• More complete implementation of endpoints