Use Fiddler to capture traffic between Essentials and external services – VertiGIS

Overview:
Use Fiddler as a proxy to monitor GIS server communications

Solution:

Fiddler can be used to expose the traffic between Essentials and other servers it connects to. You will not see the traffic between Essentials and your browser (clients) when you use Fiddler as a proxy. Fiddler will make connections on your behalf, and the traffic on these connections are what you will see recorded.

It is useful when:

You are trying to connect to an Internet resource, and do not get the results you expect,
You wish to test/change the behavior of a resource, or
You wish to measure the time it takes to obtain a web resource.

Note: Only use Fiddler as a temporary proxy! If Fiddler is not running on the server, your Essentials site will not be able to communicate at all! Revert to the original files when you are done your monitoring tasks.

This knowledge base article assumes you’ve read and followed the directions to install Fiddler on your Geocortex Essentials server in the “Use Fiddler to capture web traffic between a web browser and a web site” article found here .

Open Fiddler, and select Fiddler Options from the Tools menu. In the dialog, switch to the Connections tab.
- Make a note of the port that Fiddler listens on (port 8888 in this instance) , and
- Then check the box to Allow remote computers to connect if not already enabled.
Click OK. You may have to exit and restart Fiddler to continue.
Now configure your Geocortex Essentials application(s). Start by making a backup copy of the web.config for REST Elements (normally C:\Program Files (x86)\Latitude Geographics\Geocortex Essentials\Default\REST Elements\REST\Web.config )
Add the following XML as a child of the <system.net> element
```
    <defaultProxy>
        <proxy proxyaddress="http://localhost:8888" bypassonlocal="true" />
    </defaultProxy>
```
Edit the URL and/or host to reflect the port and host machine of the Fiddler instance intercepting traffic, and save the web.config file.
Complete whatever diagnostic/monitoring tasks you need to accomplish.
Revert to the original web.config file by restoring the backup copy. Fiddler should only be used as a proxy temporarily!

Note: If you need to monitor Essentials Manager, you can update the web.config file for it in a similar fashion. This configuration will allow you to see the connection a wizard is attemting to make to a mapservice. Again, remember to revert to your original Web.config so you're no longer using Fiddler as a proxy when your monitoring tasks are complete!

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