mccutchen
go-httpbin
Go

A reasonably complete and well-tested golang port of httpbin, with zero dependencies outside the go stdlib.

Last updated Jul 7, 2026
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README

go-httpbin

A reasonably complete and well-tested golang port of [Kenneth Reitz][kr]'s [httpbin][httpbin-org] service, with zero dependencies outside the go stdlib.

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Usage

Docker/OCI images

Prebuilt images for the linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 architectures are automatically published to these public registries for every tagged release:

  • [ghcr.io/mccutchen/go-httpbin][ghcr] (recommended)
  • [mccutchen/go-httpbin][docker-hub]
$ docker run -P ghcr.io/mccutchen/go-httpbin

[!NOTE]
Prebuilt image versions >= 2.19.0 run as a non-root user by default. See
Configuring non-root docker images
below for details.

Kubernetes

$ kubectl apply -k github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/kustomize

See ./kustomize directory for further information

Standalone binary

Follow the Installation instructions to install go-httpbin as a standalone binary, or use go run to install it on demand:

Examples:

# Run http server
$ go run github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2/cmd/go-httpbin@latest -host 127.0.0.1 -port 8081

Run https server

$ openssl genrsa -out server.key 2048 $ openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out server.key $ openssl req -new -x509 -sha256 -key server.key -out server.crt -days 3650 $ go run github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2/cmd/go-httpbin@latest -host 127.0.0.1 -port 8081 -https-cert-file ./server.crt -https-key-file ./server.key

Unit testing helper library

The github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/httpbin/v2 package can also be used as a library for testing an application's interactions with an upstream HTTP service, like so:

package httpbin_test

import ( "net/http" "net/http/httptest" "os" "testing" "time"

"github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2/httpbin" )

func TestSlowResponse(t *testing.T) { app := httpbin.New() testServer := httptest.NewServer(app) defer testServer.Close()

client := http.Client{ Timeout: time.Duration(1 * time.Second), }

_, err := client.Get(testServer.URL + "/delay/10") if !os.IsTimeout(err) { t.Fatalf("expected timeout error, got %s", err) } }

GitHub Actions/Workflows

The 3rd-party [lfreleng-actions/go-httpbin-action][] action is an easy way to make a local instance of go-httpbin available to other steps in a GitHub Actions workflow.

Configuration

go-httpbin can be configured via either command line arguments or environment variables (or a combination of the two):

| Argument| Env var | Documentation | Default | | - | - | - | - | | -allowed-redirect-domains | ALLOWEDREDIRECTDOMAINS | Comma-separated list of domains the /redirect-to endpoint will allow | | | -exclude-headers | EXCLUDE_HEADERS | Drop platform-specific headers. Comma-separated list of headers key to drop, supporting wildcard suffix matching. For example: "foo,bar,x-fc-*" | - | | -host | HOST | Host to listen on | 0.0.0.0 | | -https-cert-file | HTTPSCERTFILE | HTTPS Server certificate file | | | -https-key-file | HTTPSKEYFILE | HTTPS Server private key file | | | -log-format | LOG_FORMAT | Log format (text or json) | text | | -log-level | LOG_LEVEL | Logging level (DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, OFF) | INFO | | -max-body-size | MAXBODYSIZE | Maximum size of request or response, in bytes | 1048576 | | -max-duration | MAX_DURATION | Maximum duration a response may take | 10s | | -port | PORT | Port to listen on | 8080 | | -prefix | PREFIX | Prefix of path to listen on (must start with slash and does not end with slash) | | | -srv-max-header-bytes | SRVMAXHEADER_BYTES | Value to use for the http.Server's MaxHeaderBytes option | 16384 | | -srv-read-header-timeout | SRVREADHEADER_TIMEOUT | Value to use for the http.Server's ReadHeaderTimeout option | 1s | | -srv-read-timeout | SRVREADTIMEOUT | Value to use for the http.Server's ReadTimeout option | 5s | | -use-full-version | USEFULLVERSION | Expose full version details (release, commit, build date, Go runtime) via the /version endpoint (default: service name only) | false | | -use-real-hostname | USEREALHOSTNAME | Expose real hostname as reported by os.Hostname() in the /hostname endpoint | false | | -version | | Print version and exit | |

[!WARNING]
These configuration options are dangerous and/or deprecated and should be
avoided unless backwards compatibility is absolutely required.

| Argument| Env var | Documentation | Default | | - | - | - | - | | -unsafe-allow-dangerous-responses | UNSAFEALLOWDANGEROUS_RESPONSES | Allow endpoints to return unescaped HTML when clients control response Content-Type (enables XSS attacks) | false |

Notes:

  • Command line arguments take precedence over environment variables.
  • See [Production considerations] for recommendations around safe configuration
of public instances of go-httpbin

Configuring non-root docker images

Prebuilt image versions >= 2.19.0 run as a non-root user by default to improve container security at the cost of additional complexity for some non-standard deployments:

  • To run the go-httpbin image a) on a privileged port (i.e. below 1024) and
b) using the Docker host network, you may need to run the container as root in order to enable the CAPNETBIND_SERVICE capability:
$ docker run \
    --network host \
    --user root \
    --cap-drop ALL \
    --cap-add CAPNETBIND_SERVICE \
    ghcr.io/mccutchen/go-httpbin \
    /bin/go-httpbin -port=80
  • If you enable HTTPS directly in the image, make sure that the certificate
and private key files are readable by the user running the process:
$ chmod 644 /tmp/server.crt
  $ chmod 640 /tmp/server.key
  # GID 65532: primary group of the nonroot user in distroless/static:nonroot.
  $ chown root:65532 /tmp/server.crt /tmp/server.key

Installation

To add go-httpbin as a dependency to an existing golang project (e.g. for use in unit tests):

go get -u github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2

To install the go-httpbin binary:

go install github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2/cmd/go-httpbin@latest

Production considerations

Before deploying an instance of go-httpbin on your own infrastructure on the public internet, consider tuning it appropriately:

  • **Restrict the domains to which the /redirect-to endpoint will send
traffic to avoid the security issues of an open redirect**

Use the -allowed-redirect-domains CLI argument or the ALLOWEDREDIRECTDOMAINS env var to configure an appropriate allowlist.

  • Tune per-request limits
Because go-httpbin allows clients send arbitrary data in request bodies and control the duration some requests (e.g. /delay/60s), it's important to properly tune limits to prevent misbehaving or malicious clients from taking too many resources.

Use the -max-body-size/MAXBODYSIZE and -max-duration/MAX_DURATION CLI arguments or env vars to enforce appropriate limits on each request.

  • Decide whether to expose real hostnames in the /hostname endpoint
By default, the /hostname endpoint serves a dummy hostname value, but it can be configured to serve the real underlying hostname (according to os.Hostname()) using the -use-real-hostname CLI argument or the USEREALHOSTNAME env var to enable this functionality.

Before enabling this, ensure that your hostnames do not reveal too much about your underlying infrastructure.

  • Add custom instrumentation
By default, go-httpbin logs basic information about each request. To add more detailed instrumentation (metrics, structured logging, request tracing), you'll need to wrap this package in your own code, which you can then instrument as you would any net/http server. Some examples:

- [examples/custom-instrumentation] instruments every request using DataDog, based on the built-in [Observer] mechanism.

- [mccutchen/httpbingo.org] is the code that powers the public instance of go-httpbin deployed to [httpbingo.org], which adds customized structured logging using [zerolog] and further hardens the HTTP server against malicious clients by tuning lower-level timeouts and limits.

  • Prevent leaking sensitive headers
By default, go-httpbin will return any request headers sent by the client (and any intermediate proxies) in the response. If go-httpbin is deployed into an environment where some incoming request headers might reveal sensitive information, use the -exclude-headers CLI argument or EXCLUDE_HEADERS env var to configure a denylist of sensitive header keys.

For example, the Alibaba Cloud Function Compute platform adds [a variety of x-fc-* headers][alibaba-headers] to each incoming request, some of which might be sensitive. To have go-httpbin filter all of these headers in its own responses, set:

EXCLUDE_HEADERS="x-fc-*"

To have go-httpbin filter only specific headers, you can get more specific:

EXCLUDE_HEADERS="x-fc-access-key-*,x-fc-security-token,x-fc-region"

Development

See [DEVELOPMENT.md][].

Security

See [SECURITY.md][].

Motivation & prior art

I've been a longtime user of [Kenneith Reitz][kr]'s original [httpbin.org][httpbin-org], and wanted to write a golang port for fun and to see how far I could get using only the stdlib.

When I started this project, there were a handful of existing and incomplete golang ports, with the most promising being [ahmetb/go-httpbin][ahmet]. This project showed me how useful it might be to have an httpbin library available for testing golang applications.

Known differences from other httpbin versions

Compared to [the original][httpbin-org]: - No /brotli endpoint (due to lack of support in Go's stdlib) - The ?show_env=1 query param is ignored (i.e. no special handling of runtime environment headers) - Response values which may be encoded as either a string or a list of strings will always be encoded as a list of strings (e.g. request headers, query params, form values)

Compared to [ahmetb/go-httpbin][ahmet]: - No dependencies on 3rd party packages - More complete implementation of endpoints

[ahmet]: https://github.com/ahmetb/go-httpbin [alibaba-headers]: https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/fc/user-guide/specification-details#section-3f8-5y1-i77 [DEVELOPMENT.md]: ./DEVELOPMENT.md [docker-hub]: https://hub.docker.com/r/mccutchen/go-httpbin/ [examples/custom-instrumentation]: ./examples/custom-instrumentation/ [ghcr]: https://github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/pkgs/container/go-httpbin [httpbin-org]: https://httpbin.org/ [httpbin-repo]: https://github.com/kennethreitz/httpbin [httpbingo.org]: https://httpbingo.org/ [kr]: https://github.com/kennethreitz [mccutchen/httpbingo.org]: https://github.com/mccutchen/httpbingo.org [Observer]: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/mccutchen/go-httpbin/v2/httpbin#Observer [Production considerations]: #production-considerations [SECURITY.md]: ./SECURITY.md [zerolog]: https://github.com/rs/zerolog [lfreleng-actions/go-httpbin-action]: https://github.com/lfreleng-actions/go-httpbin-action/

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