netx

You type a URL. A webpage appears. But what happened in between?

netx is a small tool I built to answer that question. It traces the steps: DNS lookup, TCP handshake, TLS negotiation, HTTP request, and shows you what’s happening under the hood.

I built this mostly for myself, to understand networking fundamentals in a hands-on way. Turns out it’s also useful for debugging connectivity issues and understanding latency bottlenecks.

Right now, netx is really just a playground for anyone who wants to look into the networks secotr and just learn. But for v2, I’m planning to update it, shifting the focus toward helping developers tackle real-world prod headaches with more features. ON WE GO!

I’ve also written about how I approach the documentation for tools like this in my Thoughts page.

Tech: Python, socket programming, DNS resolution, HTTP/HTTPS