Line Processor

Stream requests to a long-running process for stateful, high-performance filtering.

How It Works

1. httpjail spawns your processor once at startup
2. For each HTTP request, httpjail sends a JSON line to the processor's stdin
3. The processor evaluates and responds with "true" or "false"
4. The process continues running until httpjail exits

Protocol

Request Format

Each request is sent as a single JSON line:

{
  "url": "https://example.com/api",
  "method": "GET",
  "host": "example.com",
  "scheme": "https",
  "path": "/api"
}

Response Format

Your processor must respond with one line per request:

• Boolean strings: "true" (allow) or "false" (deny)
• JSON object: {"allow": false, "deny_message": "Blocked by policy"}
• JSON with message only: {"deny_message": "Blocked"} (implies deny)
• Any other text: Treated as deny with that text as the message (e.g., "Access denied" becomes a deny with message "Access denied")

Command Line Usage

# Use a Python script as processor
httpjail --proc ./filter.py -- your-command

# Use any executable
httpjail --proc "/usr/bin/python3 -u filter.py" -- your-command

# Pass arguments to the processor
httpjail --proc "./filter.sh --strict" -- your-command

Examples

Python Example

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys, json

allowed_hosts = {'github.com', 'api.github.com'}

for line in sys.stdin:
    try:
        req = json.loads(line)
        if req['host'] in allowed_hosts:
            print("true")
        else:
            # Can return JSON for custom messages
            response = {"allow": False, "deny_message": f"{req['host']} not allowed"}
            print(json.dumps(response))
    except:
        print("Invalid request")  # Any non-boolean text becomes deny message
    sys.stdout.flush()  # Ensure immediate response

Bash Example

#!/bin/bash

while IFS= read -r line; do
    host=$(echo "$line" | jq -r .host)

    if [[ "$host" == *.github.com ]]; then
        echo "true"
    else
        echo "false"
    fi
done

Important Notes

• Flush output after each response (sys.stdout.flush() in Python, automatic in bash)
• Handle errors gracefully - always respond with allow or deny
• Use stderr for debugging - stdout is reserved for responses

Best for

• High-throughput scenarios
• Stateful processing (caching, rate limiting)
• Complex logic requiring external libraries