Trying to submit multipart/form-data HTTP POST using PHP script

Boldgeek wrote:

I am trying to develop an app that will allow automatic updating of a
web form which uses multipart/form-data enctype (as it MIGHT be
sending an image)

I have an example form, which when submitted displays the results as
you would expect.
However when I send the same data using the PHP script I get a 400
error:

Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Request header field is missing colon separator.
( it then displays the boundary string.)

After examining the HTTP headers for the submitted form, it appears
EXACTLY the same as the post I make via the PHP script. I've tried
copying EVERYTHING exactly and it still comes up with the error.

If I remove the actual content, ie end the request like:

Content-Type: multipart/form-data;
boundary=---------------------------265001916915724
Content-Length: 0

It works fine. However as soon as we start adding boundary strings and
form parts, I get the error. Everything is formatted correctly. I
can provide examples if required.

I'm using fsockopen in the PHP script to connect to the target server
& page

I'm at my wits end trying to see what is wrong with the PHP script -
anyone got any ideas?

As my crystal ball is broken, I cannot see what is wrong with either the
request you send, or with the PHP code that builds it. If you really want
to know what's wrong, post an example of the request that breaks (offcourse
strip out the actual file-data, and possibily security stuff), not the
request that's OK :-)

What I can advise you though, is perhaps to use curl instead of fsockopen
if you have it available. It saves a lot of handcoding requests.
--
Rik Wasmus

"Boldgeek" <ap@mardona.com wrote:

>I am trying to develop an app that will allow automatic updating of a
web form which uses multipart/form-data enctype (as it MIGHT be sending
an image)

I have an example form, which when submitted displays the results as
you would expect.
However when I send the same data using the PHP script I get a 400
error:

Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Request header field is missing colon separator.
( it then displays the boundary string.)

After examining the HTTP headers for the submitted form, it appears
EXACTLY the same as the post I make via the PHP script. I've tried
copying EVERYTHING exactly and it still comes up with the error.

If I remove the actual content, ie end the request like:

Content-Type: multipart/form-data;
boundary=---------------------------265001916915724
Content-Length: 0

Is the "boundary" parameter on the same line as the Content-Type, or at
least indented on the next line?

>It works fine. However as soon as we start adding boundary strings and
form parts, I get the error. Everything is formatted correctly. I can
provide examples if required.

I'm using fsockopen in the PHP script to connect to the target server &
page

I'm at my wits end trying to see what is wrong with the PHP script -
anyone got any ideas?

You haven't given us enough information to know what the problem is. Here's
an example of a correct POST:

POST /cgi-bin/xxxx HTTP/1.0
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----xxxx----

------xxxx----
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="myname"

Tim Roberts
------xxxx----
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="email"

ti**@nonono.com

Is that what you are sending?
--
Tim Roberts, ti**@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

Rik wrote:

As my crystal ball is broken

(c) some other dude offcourse... :P
--
Rik Wasmus

Here is the HTTP request sent by the app:

POST testresults.php HTTP/1.1
Host: www.(mydomain).org
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1)
Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
Accept:
text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,ima ge/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-gb,en-us;q=0.7,en;q=0 .3
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: multipart/form-data;
boundary=---------------------------265001916915724
Content-Length: 364
-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"

test2
-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="descripti on"

This is a test
-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="cmd"

Submit
-----------------------------265001916915724--

I've copied this as exactly as possible from the HTTP request sent by
the forms version (I used a Firefox plugin called Live HTTP Headers to
capture the headers) Note: There is a blank line at the end after the
final boundary.

The server response is :
Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Request header field is missing colon separator.
-----------------------------265001916915724
Below is the HTTP request submitted by the form (copied from Live HTTP
Headers) which works fine.

POST /testresults.php HTTP/1.1
Host: www.(mydomain).org
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1)
Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
Accept:
text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,ima ge/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-gb,en-us;q=0.7,en;q=0 .3
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.(mydomain).org/testform.php
Content-Type: multipart/form-data;
boundary=---------------------------77877924991
Content-Length: 364
-----------------------------77877924991
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"

form test
-----------------------------77877924991
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="descripti on"

this is a test of the form
-----------------------------77877924991
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="cmd"

Submit
-----------------------------77877924991--
Now the only differences I can detect are the referrer (which has no
relevance to this particular application) and the boundary string. As a
test previously I've copied the same boundary string just to be certain
and there are no differences. Each line is terminated by "\r\n" as it
should be.

Thanks guys, your help is much appreciated.

Boldgeek wrote:

Here is the HTTP request sent by the app:

POST testresults.php HTTP/1.1
Host: www.(mydomain).org
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;
rv:1.8.1.1)
Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
Accept:

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q
=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5

Accept-Language: en-gb,en-us;q=0.7,en;q=0 .3
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: multipart/form-data;
boundary=---------------------------265001916915724
Content-Length: 364

And here there should be a blank line..........

-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"

test2
-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="descripti on"

This is a test
-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="cmd"

Submit
-----------------------------265001916915724--

Hope that's it.
--
Rik Wasmus

Rik wrote:

Boldgeek wrote:

Here is the HTTP request sent by the app:

POST testresults.php HTTP/1.1
Host: www.(mydomain).org
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;
rv:1.8.1.1)
Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
Accept:

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q
=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5

Accept-Language: en-gb,en-us;q=0.7,en;q=0 .3
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: multipart/form-data;
boundary=---------------------------265001916915724
Content-Length: 364

And here there should be a blank line..........

-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"

test2
-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="descripti on"

This is a test
-----------------------------265001916915724
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="cmd"

Submit
-----------------------------265001916915724--

Hope that's it.
--
Rik Wasmus

Dear God! That was exactly the problem... I completely forgot the blank
line (which has been filtered out of the Live HTTP Header output as
well)

Thank you for that - I've been tearing my hair out for a couple of days
because of that!