Inspect and analyze the full chain of HTTP URL hops caused by redirections, complete with metadata!
This Python-based tool follows URL redirect chains, allowing you to inspect response status codes, headers, and response body previews at every step.
With support for proxy configurations, it's your go-to utility for web debugging, redirect analysis, or understanding how URL shorteners work.
- Trace URL Hops: Follow each step in the HTTP redirection chain to the final destination.
- Inspect HTTP Metadata: View HTTP status codes, headers, and preview parts of the response body for debugging.
- End-to-End Analysis: See the full URL journey from the initial input to the final resolved URL.
- Proxy Support: Configure HTTP/HTTPS proxies to route requests through custom servers.
- Lightweight and Easy to Use: Built with Python and the popular
requestslibrary.
- Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/url-hops-inspector.git
cd url-hops-inspectorNote: The tool primarily uses the requests library. Ensure Python 3.6 or higher is installed.
A. Run within a Jupyter Notebook
- Git clone the repository in JupyterHub or directly import the .ipynb file : url_hops_inspector.ipynb
- Launch all cells
- Use the tool interactively
B. Run Interactively in your terminal
You can run the script interactively in your terminal. Change the extension from .ipynb to .py.
Example in Terminal:
python url_hops_inspector.pyInput in the terminal:
Please enter the URL to trace: https://bit.ly/3xyzAbc
Enter proxy URL (or leave blank to skip): http://123.45.67.89:8888Example Output:
Tracing URL redirects for: https://bit.ly/3xyzAbc
--------------------------------------------------
Hop #1
Request URL: https://bit.ly/3xyzAbc
Status Code: 301
Headers:
Location: https://example.com/somewhere
Response body (limit 200 chars):
<html>Redirecting...</html>
--------------------------------------------------
Hop #2
Request URL: https://example.com/somewhere
Status Code: 302
Headers:
Location: https://example.com/destination
Response body (limit 200 chars):
<html>Temporary Redirect...</html>
--------------------------------------------------
Final Destination:
URL: https://example.com/destination
Status Code: 200
Headers:
Content-Type: text/html
Response body (limit 200 chars):
<html><body>Welcome!</body></html>To hide your IP address or test from a different location, you can configure a proxy. Here’s an example of how to use one:
HTTP proxy: http://123.45.67.89:8080
HTTPS proxy: https://proxyserver.com:443
Simply enter the proxy URL when prompted, or leave it blank for no proxy.
If you want to integrate this tool into your own projects, here’s a simple example of how to use the trace_url_jumps_with_details function: from url_hops_inspector import trace_url_jumps_with_details
url_to_trace = "https://bit.ly/3xyzAbc"
proxy_url = "http://123.45.67.89:8080" # Proxy (optional)
final_url = trace_url_jumps_with_details(url_to_trace, proxy=proxy_url)
print("Final URL:", final_url)- Handling Redirect Loops: The tool automatically limits redirects to 30 hops by default to prevent infinite loops.
- Truncated Response Bodies: Only the first 200 characters of the response body are shown by default. This limit is configurable.
- Proxies: Free or public proxies can be unreliable or slow. Use trusted proxies for the best experience.
- Respect Terms of Service: When tracing URLs, ensure you comply with the terms of service of the target websites.
- Debugging redirect chains for shortened URLs (e.g., bit.ly, t.co).
- Checking and validating final destinations for campaign/marketing URLs.
- Analyzing website behavior for redirections or affiliate links.
- Privacy-friendly request tracing using custom proxies.
Interested in improving URL Hops Inspector? Contributions are welcome! Here’s how to get started:
- Fork the repository.
- Create a feature branch:
git checkout -b my-feature- Commit your changes:
git commit -m "Add my awesome feature"- Push to your branch:
git push origin my-feature- Submit a pull request for review 🚀.
This project is licensed under the MIT License, making it free for personal and commercial use.
Built with ❤️ using Python and Requests. Inspired by a need for transparent and detailed HTTP debugging tools. Thanks to the open-source community for their continuous support!