What's wrong with this HTTP POST request?

Question

I'm trying to fuzz a server using the Sulley fuzzing framework.

I observe the following stream in Wireshark. The error talks about a problem with JSON parsing, however, when I try the same HTTP POST request using Google Chrome's Postman extension, it succeeds.

Can anyone please explain what could be wrong about this HTTP POST request? The JSON seems valid.

POST /restconf/config HTTP/1.1
Host: 127.0.0.1:8080
Accept: */*
Content-Type: application/yang.data+json
{ "toaster:toaster" : { "toaster:toasterManufacturer" : "Geqq", "toaster:toasterModelNumber" : "asaxc", "toaster:toasterStatus" : "_." }}


HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
Content-Type: */*
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 05:26:35 GMT
Connection: close

152
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<errors xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-restconf">
    <error>
        <error-type>protocol</error-type>
        <error-tag>malformed-message</error-tag>
        <error-message>Error parsing input: Root element of Json has to be Object</error-message>
    </error>
</errors>

0

Solution 1

It was the "Content-Length" property that was missing in the header and the server thought it was mandatory, which I suppose shouldn't be mandatory?

After adding the "Content-Length" to the header, works like a charm.

Solution 2

Based on your message, it should be a blank line before the body of the POST Request. Can you try adding one ?

As is, it is possible the server sees this request with no body and an header like :

{ "toaster:toaster" : value

which would explain the error.

Comments

[bigboy]

Nope. Tried changing the "Content-Type" to "application/json". Still the same error.

[bigboy]

Still doesn't work. :(

[Barmar]

RFC 2616 section 4.4 says If a request contains a message-body and a Content-Length is not given, the server SHOULD respond with 400 (bad request) if it cannot determine the length of the message