Message Monitoring with TCPMon¶

The most common usage of TCPMon is as an intermediary which monitors the communication between the client (front end) and the back-end server. That is, the messages sent from the client are received by the intermediary instead of the back-end server. These messages are then forwarded to the back-end server from the intermediary.

Monitor messages between client and server¶

The following diagram depicts a typical communication between the front-end client and the back-end server. 80 is the listening port of the back-end server which receives the messages from the client.

The following diagram depicts how TCPMon is placed between the client and the server in order to monitor the messages. 8081 is the listening port in TCPMon which receives the messages from the client instead of the back-end server:

Note that TCPMon cannot be used to view messages transferred over the https protocol.

Follow the instructions given below to monitor messages from client to server using TCPMon.

1. Start TCPMon.
2. Enter 8081 (the listening port of TCPMon) in the Listen Port field (This could be any unused port in your local machine).
3. Enter the address of the back-end server as the target hostname. For example, if you are monitoring messages sent to www.apache.org, enter this web address as the hostname.
4. Enter 80 as the target port, which is the listening port of www.apache.org.
5. Click Add to save the setting.
6. Now, point the browser to localhost:8081 instead of www.apache.org.
   
7. A new tab in TCPMon will indicate the 8081 port. You can view the requests and responses passing through TCPMon as shown below.
   

8. The options at the bottom of the screen can be used to have the messages in XML format (useful in debugging Web services), to save and resend the messages and also to switch the layout of the message windows.