Creating an HTTPS Recording

Prerequisites

HTTP(S) recording requires that the website being recorded has a valid SSL certificate. This means that:

  • The certificate has not expired.
  • The certificate is assigned to the host name that is being used when creating the recording. In other words, if the SSL certificate is issued to mysite.com, the recording cannot be created using the IP address or an internal host name.

Self-signed certificates are supported, provided that these two requirements are met.

Steps

In order to create an HTTPS Recording, follow these steps:

How to

  1. Make sure you have a CloudTest Conductor running on the machine with the network traffic you wish to record.
    Note: You can use this for recording unencrypted (HTTP) traffic.
  2. In the Central list, highlight HTTP(S) Message Recordings and then click the New icon in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
  3. The New HTTP(S) Recording page appears. Select the Conductor that was started earlier from the list. Note that the Status should display Connected. If it does not, then it is likely that your Conductor has not been started. To start a Conductor, locate the directory where you installed CloudTest Conductor and start the Conductor application. Use the Recording Name and Save to Folder fields to change the default name and folder locations if desired.
  4. HTTP(S) Recording is the default Recording Method in the Recording Editor. To record HTTP or packet-level traffic instead, click Packet-level Recording and (optionally) Record HTTP Traffic Only. See Creating a Packet-Level Recording for more information. In either case, click the Record button.
  5. You will then be presented with a screen that will display HTTPS messages as they are recorded. The CloudTest Conductor should display a status of Recording (Windows users may need to right-click the tray icon to see this status).To generate HTTPS traffic by bringing up a new browser window. As HTTPS traffic is generated, the Recording screen will display the recorded traffic.
  6. During your recording the status bar at the bottom of the Recording page displays information about the data being recorded. The values displayed are:
    • The elapsed recording time
    • The number of messages recorded
    • The amount of data recorded
  7. When you are done generating HTTPS traffic, click the Stop button on the Player control. The message Finalizing Recording will display in the upper right hand corner of the screen and will then change to Recording Finished. The CloudTest Conductor status should display Finished Recording.

What you should see

Note: Recording HTTPS traffic requires the use of a proxy. This is handled by CloudTest Conductor and does not require special setup. However, some browsers (for example, Firefox) need to be completely shutdown and restarted in order for proxy settings to take effect.