Identify the destination in HTTPS connections

开发者_如何学C

How does the browser figure out the destination in an HTTPS connection? All the headers are encrypted..

Update:No this is not a homework.. my name is student because I'll always be learning in this HUGE awesome field

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When a browser views an url like https://www.gmail.com/ first thing your browser does is resolves www.gmail.com to 72.14.213.19.

Next your browser opens up a TCP connection to 72.14.213.19 on port 443.

The browser & server before ANY headers are transmitted negotiate a public key encryption scheme (RSA) based on the SSL Certificate that is digitally signed.

In this process the browser checks the certificate authenticity before communicating.

Once this trust between client & server has been established, the client now can encrypt the headers in a way the server can decrypt. It proceeds to make the HTTP request inside the SSL Tunnel.

The server decrypts the message, serves the request and encrypts it in a way that that particular client can decrypt.

The browser then decrypts the response, reads the headers and makes decisions about how to proceed from there.

This has been an overview of an HTTPS connection event. :D

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The string containing https: that you typed in the browser is what the browser uses. That is not encrypted,

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Probably more than you'd ever want or need to know about the The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection I'd go into more detail explaining stuff if your username wasn't student, and this wasn't likely homework.