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Template Fuzzer

The TemplateFuzzer can be used to fuzz non-OpenAPI endpoints using the cats fuzz sub-command. If the target API does not have an OpenAPI spec available, you can use a request template to run a limited set of payloads. The syntax for running the TemplateFuzzer is very similar to curl:

cats template -H header=value -X POST -d '{"field1":"value1","field2":"value2","field3":"value3"}' -t "field1,field2,header" -i "2XX,4XX" http://service-url
tip

For nested objects you must supply fully qualified names: field.subfield.

The command will:

  • send a POST (-X argument) request to http://service-url
  • use the {"field1":"value1","field2":"value2","field3":"value3"} (-d argument) as a template
  • iteratively replace each of the field1,field2,header elements (-t argument) with fuzz data and send each request to the service endpoint
  • ignore 2XX,4XX response codes (-i argument) and report an error when the received response code is not in this list
info

It was a deliberate choice to limit the fields for which the TemplateFuzzer will run by supplying them using the -t argument.

The TemplateFuzzer will send the following type of data:

  • null values
  • empty values
  • zalgo text
  • abugidas characters
  • large random unicode data
  • very large strings (80k characters)
  • single and multi code point emojis
  • unicode control characters
  • unicode separators
  • unicode whitespaces

For a full list of arguments run cats fuzz -h.

note

You can also supply your own dictionary of data using the -w file argument.

info

HTTP methods with bodies will only be fuzzed at the request payload and headers level. HTTP methods without bodies will be fuzzed at path and query parameters and headers level. In this case you don't need to supply a -d argument.

This is an example for a GET request:

cats template -X GET -t "path1,query1" -i "2XX,4XX" http://service-url/paths1?query1=test&query2

TemplateFuzzer with continuous fuzzing

You can also run the TemplateFuzzer in continuous mode using the --random argument. It will run similarly to the Continuous Fuzzing Mode based on the registered mutators. You must either provide a match condition using the --matchXXX arguments, a ignore condition using the --ignoreXXX arguments or a filtering condition using the --filterXXX arguments.

cats template -X GET -t "path1,query1" -i "2XX,4XX" http://service-url/paths1?query1=test&query2 --random