Cookie gets changed when hit comes from a referrer

[Roy Smith]

In article <5255eb3c$0$29984$c3e8da3$5496439d at news.astraweb.com>,
 Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:

> So, for the benefit of anyone, not just Nikos, who wants to learn about 
> how browsers connect to web sites and how to run a web server, does 
> anyone have any recommendation for tutorials, mailing lists, web forums 
> or books which are suitable? Preferably things you have used yourself, 
> and can personally vouch for being useful.

In the way of tools, tcpdump (or wireshark, or whatever packet sniffer 
you have handy) is invaluable for seeing what's really going on.  Also, 
curl is an amazing tool for sending arbitrary requests to a HTTP server.  
It's got a zillion options.  You'll want to learn what most of them do.  
The combination of curl and tcpdump is a pretty potent weapon for poking 
at servers.

An interesting alternative to tcpdump/curl is Google Chrome.  Open up 
the developer tools (Command-Option-I on the Mac), click the network 
tab, and type a request into the address bar.  It will capture the 
outgoing request and the response you get back, and let you dig into 
them in as much detail as you want.  Very handy, at least for GET 
requests.  I imagine any decent browser has similar functionality.


For general background, I would start with 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http and keep following links from there 
until you have read the whole wiki or gotten tired, whichever comes 
first.

stackoverflow has become a really good forum for asking all sorts of 
programming-related questions (although, its sister site, serverfault, 
is more appropriate for networking questions).  I find the U/I 
confusing, and often find the rules (i.e. what's allowed and what's not) 
kind of silly, but a lot of really smart people hang out there.  If you 
want a question answered, go where the smart people are.

> I'm pretty sure that *somebody* here has been in the position of needing 
> to learn about running a website, and can point Nikos in the right 
> direction (away from here).

I guarantee the folks on either stackoverflow or serverfault won't put 
up with the kind of bullcrap that has been pervading this group as of 
late.

If I was using a program, foo, and had a problem, the first thing I 
would do is google for "foo mailing list" and see if I can find one.  
You don't always find one, and sometimes the list is dead, but it's a 
good place to start.

> How did you learn? 

Run.  Fall down.  Get up.  Start running again.  Repeat as needed.