A simple interface to retrieve and examine HTTP headers from a website. The package is installed in the usual way
install.packages('serverHeaders', repos = c('https://jumpingrivers.r-universe.dev', 'https://cloud.r-project.org'))
The main function is check()
library("serverHeaders")
x = check("google.com")
The output from check() is contains the status code x$status_code and a data frame
of headers x$headers. The data frame provides information about each header.
Note: An unknown header is expected.
As every web-page is different, there isn't a "one-size fits all" approach to server headers.
These headings take a variety of values and need to be constructed to match the set.
However, there are a number of headings that some people suggest should be set.
When you check() these headings are printed to the console and also indicated in the console
output.
For example, running
check("jumpingrivers.com")
# ── Checking Server ──
#
# ✔ Status code: 200
# ✖ content-security-policy: Header not set (Docs)
# ✖ permissions-policy: Header not set (Docs)
# ✔ referrer-policy: Acceptable setting found
# ✔ strict-transport-security: max_age present and greater than 1 year
# ✔ x-content-type-options: Acceptable setting found
# ✔ x-frame-options: Acceptable setting found
highlights we still need to set our content security policy and our permissions policy.
When we check a website, there are typically a few redirects before we reach the final destination. For example,
http://jumpingrivers.com -> https://jumpingrivers.com -> https://www.jumpingrivers.com
This corresponds to
check("jumpingrivers.com")$status_codes
# 301 301 200
Where 301 indicates a redirect and 200 the final successful response.
Note: when we omit the transport protocol (the http part), the default is http, i.e.
jumpingrivers.com is the same as http://jumpingrivers.com.
This package was based on the hdrs R Package by Bob Rudis.