What's the best way to troubleshoot Akamai headers these days?

Question

Traditionally, I would inspect the Akamai headers by installing a Firefox extension called akamaiheaders.xpi. Unfortunately, I think the last version of Firefox to support this was 3.

As I understand it, this plugin would add special headers to all HTTP requests that Firefox made, which would prompt Akamai to add a bunch of headers to the response (telling me whether the file was cached, where it got it from, etc.). Then, using a tool like HTTPFox or Firebug, I could easily see which assets were cached and which ones were not.

I've searched all over, but I can't find anything as simple and easy to use as that. Does anyone know of anything out there that allows me to track all the Akamai headers for all the assets my browser loads that works in either FF, Chrome, or Safari?

Answer 1

If you can find the akamaiheader.xpi file, you can just open it and change the maxVersion in install.rdf to 9.*

.xpi files are just ZIP files, and on most machines you can just add .zip to the filename and doubleclick on it.

Answer 2

You can use curl and/or wget for this:

curl -H "Pragma: akamai-x-cache-on, akamai-x-cache-remote-on, akamai-x-check-cacheable, akamai-x-get-cache-key, akamai-x-get-extracted-values, akamai-x-get-nonces, akamai-x-get-ssl-client-session-id, akamai-x-get-true-cache-key, akamai-x-serial-no" -IXGET http://www.oxfordpress.com/

or

wget -S -O /dev/null --header="Pragma: akamai-x-cache-on, akamai-x-cache-remote-on, akamai-x-check-cacheable, akamai-x-get-cache-key, akamai-x-get-extracted-values, akamai-x-get-nonces, akamai-x-get-ssl-client-session-id, akamai-x-get-true-cache-key, akamai-x-serial-no" http://www.oxfordpress.com/

If you want to test staging environment, you need to remember to send Host header, eg:

curl -H "Host: www.oxfordpress.com" -H "Pragma: ..." -IXGET http://oxfordpress.com.edgesuite-staging.net/

This way or another, it's always about sending proper Pragma headers and then reading response headers.

List of Pragma headers as well as explanations for X-Cache response header can be found here: http://webspherehelp.blogspot.com/2009/07/understanding-akamai-headers-to-debug.html.

Answer 3

I know this question is old, but since I came across it in my search today I thought I'd add an answer for the next person who comes along.

There are a couple of extensions in the Chrome store for this now:

• Akamai debug headers which just adds headers to your net panel in web inspector
• Exceda Akamai Headers Extension which seems to also work for purging cache.

Akamai debug headers is the one I chose and it's working well so far.

Answer 4

You can use a local proxy (e.g. Fiddler or Charles Proxy, my personal favorite) and add the following header to outgoing requests:

Pragma: akamai-x-cache-on, akamai-x-cache-remote-on, akamai-x-check-cacheable, akamai-x-get-cache-key, akamai-x-get-extracted-values, akamai-x-get-nonces, akamai-x-get-ssl-client-session-id, akamai-x-get-true-cache-key, akamai-x-serial-no

Answer 5

If you're using Chrome or Chromium, you can use the extensions Header Hacker or Pragma Header. With either one, you will be have to add Pragmas manually.

Answer 6

To debug akamai headers, for the Chrome browser, try this extension: CDN Headers & Cookies - Chrome Web Store https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cdn-headers-cookies/obldlamadkihjlkdjblncejeblbogmnb

Note: Enable 'Load Akamai Headers' in the settings (click the 'Lego minifig Head' icon, click the gear, and check on 'Load Akamai Headers').

It has been suggested on the Akamai community. https://community.akamai.com/community/web-performance/blog/2015/03/31/using-akamai-pragma-headers-to-investigate-or-troubleshoot-akamai-content-delivery

Answer 7

They have a new version of the XPI out which you can download in Luna. There's also another Plugin which adds a 'content source' pane into Firebug for a quick reference of what on the page was Akamaised.

As I say, to download both plugins you need to login to Luna and look under 'Support' > 'More Tools' > 'Browser Extensions'. The XPI isn't publicly accessible.

YMMV but as far as I recall being told by colleagues the Exceda plugin duplicated HTTP requests which can be a bit messy whilst debugging.

For Chrome I find ModHeader + Setting up a profile where the Pragma headers are sent works fine.