HTTP Connect via NTLM authenticating proxy server

Question

I am trying to write Connect calls via a NTLM authenticating proxy server. I open a socket to the proxy server and send it a “CONNECT xxx49:80 HTTP/1.1\\r\\n\\r\\n”. I expect this to fail as it is an authenticating proxy server but it fails and also closes my connection to the proxy server. I am using Wireshark to check packet values. I can see “Proxy-Connection: close\\r\\n”. If I do a GET it does not close the connection. My question is if it is correct for a failed Connect call to close my socket connection?

Answer 1

I'm not 100% clear about your question - I would not expect the first CONNECT to fail with an NTLM proxy server, as it should have sent a Proxy-Authenticate: NTLM header back.

In any case, proxy server has the full right to close the client-side connection in a case of failure, so the answer to your question is "yes". It is odd that it does not do the same for GET, however proxies are more limited with what they can do as a response to CONNECT, and this one may decide that it can't support HTTPS for your request.