The parrot-server is a bit like the Echo-Server, but with additional features. Its purpose is to aid in the debugging in containerized environments of

• service accessibility
• header information
• timeouts
• file upload limits

The primary use-case is running via a container in Docker or Kubernetes, but it can also be run directly from the command line. It has also been tested on Minikube.

Running the parrot-server

docker pull ghcr.io/opennomad/parrot-server
docker run -p 8000:8000 ghcr.io/opennomad/parrot-server

or

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opennomad/parrot-server/main/k8s.yaml
kubectl apply -f k8s.yaml

See Install Options or other ways of running the service, including locally.

Features and usage

/health

The /health endpoint returns 200 and OK. Always start here to make sure the service is reachable.

$ curl localhost:8000/health
OK

/headers

The /headers endpoint returns all headers that made it to the service. This allows testing of header transformations, stripping, etc.

$ curl -H 'Host: foo.bar.com' -H 'x-my-special-field: monkeys' localhost:8000/headers
{
  "host": "foo.bar.com",
  "user-agent": "curl/7.74.0",
  "accept": "*/*",
  "x-my-special-field": "monkeys"
}

/echo

The /echo endpoint will return the query string or body received. This also enables testing of transformations, etc of requests.

# query string
$ curl 'localhost:8000/echo?test=foo'
{"test":"foo"}% 

# body payload
curl 'localhost:8000/echo' -d'test=foo' -d'test=bar'
{"test":["foo","bar"]}% 

/pause

The /pause endpoint will sleep for the specified length of time. This is useful for testing timeouts. When no response comes back, a timeout has been exceeded. Test the /health endpoint first to ensure the service is reachable.

# using query parameter
$ curl 'localhost:8000/pause?seconds=5'
Pause complete after 5 seconds% 

# using POST and request body
curl -XPOST 'localhost:8000/pause' -d 'seconds=5'
Pause complete after 5 seconds%

/upload

The /upload endpoint allows uploading, listing, fetching, and deleting of files. This can be used to test if there are upload limits in place.

Note: This is not intended to be a file server. There are no security or safety checks. There is no authentication. This is purely for debugging purposes.

# upload the file
$ curl -XPOST localhost:8000/upload -F 'file=@/etc/resolv.conf'
{
  "file": "/uploads/resolv.conf",
  "md5": "c24158be15d674d6ff31815b8e83316a",
  "sha1": "216d98d31c01ea099ce27d5537626238519512bf",
  "sha256": "0e52be9a9dfd65bef09398ef03e4c6c600d99e4e5313f81cb6f53e455dbf7c30"
}%

# list the files
$ curl -XGET localhost:8000/upload
[
  "resolv.conf"
]%

# get the file
$ curl -XGET localhost:8000/upload/resolv.conf

# delete the file
$ curl -XDELETE localhost:8000/upload/resolv.conf
resolv.conf has been deleted

Future ideas

• add proxy ability to fetch another URL
• test DNS resolution
• test for reachability (open port)