httpx with -follow-redirects does not return data if redirect is inaccessible

[bhutch]

If httpx is run with -follow-redirects, no data is returned if the redirect is inaccessible at a network level.

Example

• localhost:443 is LISTENing and redirects to http://localhost
• There is no web service/listener on http / TCP 80

Without -follow-redirects, we see the 301.

C:\home\kali> httpx -u https://localhost -debug-resp 

    __    __  __       _  __
   / /_  / /_/ /_____ | |/ /
  / __ \/ __/ __/ __ \|   /
 / / / / /_/ /_/ /_/ /   |
/_/ /_/\__/\__/ .___/_/|_|
             /_/

                projectdiscovery.io

[INF] Current httpx version v1.6.9 (latest)
[WRN] UI Dashboard is disabled, Use -dashboard option to enable
[INF] Dumped HTTP response for https://localhost

HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently
Connection: close
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2025 16:40:14 GMT
Location: http://localhost
Server: SimpleHTTP/0.6 Python/3.10.16

https://localhost

With -follow-redirects, we don't see anything returned.

C:\home\kali> httpx -follow-redirects -u https://localhost -debug-resp   

    __    __  __       _  __
   / /_  / /_/ /_____ | |/ /
  / __ \/ __/ __/ __ \|   /
 / / / / /_/ /_/ /_/ /   |
/_/ /_/\__/\__/ .___/_/|_|
             /_/

                projectdiscovery.io

[INF] Current httpx version v1.6.9 (latest)
[WRN] UI Dashboard is disabled, Use -dashboard option to enable
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
C:\home\kali> 

C:\home\kali> httpx -json -follow-redirects -u https://localhost            

    __    __  __       _  __
   / /_  / /_/ /_____ | |/ /
  / __ \/ __/ __/ __ \|   /
 / / / / /_/ /_/ /_/ /   |
/_/ /_/\__/\__/ .___/_/|_|
             /_/

                projectdiscovery.io

[INF] Current httpx version v1.6.9 (latest)
[WRN] UI Dashboard is disabled, Use -dashboard option to enable
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
C:\home\kali> 

With -debug and -follow-redirects, we see the timeout trying to reach the redirect.

C:\home\kali> httpx -debug -follow-redirects -u https://localhost -debug-resp

    __    __  __       _  __
   / /_  / /_/ /_____ | |/ /
  / __ \/ __/ __/ __ \|   /
 / / / / /_/ /_/ /_/ /   |
/_/ /_/\__/\__/ .___/_/|_|
             /_/

                projectdiscovery.io

[INF] Current httpx version v1.6.9 (latest)
[WRN] UI Dashboard is disabled, Use -dashboard option to enable
[INF] Dumped HTTP request for https://localhost

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Accept-Charset: utf-8
Accept-Encoding: gzip

[DBG] Failed 'https://localhost': Get "http://localhost": errKind=network-permanent-error [address=localhost:80] port closed or filtered; connection refused

Intended behavior

I'd like httpx with -json -follow-redirects -include-chain -include-response (or other reasonable combinations) to output the 301 and somehow indicate failure following the direct. Otherwise, I have to run httpx with and without -follow-redirects to capture this information.

I don't know what's best for "somehow indicate failure". There isn't a status code to capture; perhaps "000" or some other designated value makes sense.