net

Issue HTTP/HTTPS requests using Chromium’s native networking library

Process: Main

The net module is a client-side API for issuing HTTP(S) requests. It is similar to the HTTP and HTTPS modules of Node.js but uses Chromium’s native networking library instead of the Node.js implementation, offering better support for web proxies.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of why you may consider using the net module instead of the native Node.js modules:

• Automatic management of system proxy configuration, support of the wpad protocol and proxy pac configuration files.
• Automatic tunneling of HTTPS requests.
• Support for authenticating proxies using basic, digest, NTLM, Kerberos or negotiate authentication schemes.
• Support for traffic monitoring proxies: Fiddler-like proxies used for access control and monitoring.

The net module API has been specifically designed to mimic, as closely as possible, the familiar Node.js API. The API components including classes, methods, properties and event names are similar to those commonly used in Node.js.

For instance, the following example quickly shows how the net API might be used:

const {app} = require('electron')
app.on('ready', () => {
  const {net} = require('electron')
  const request = net.request('https://github.com')
  request.on('response', (response) => {
    console.log(`STATUS: ${response.statusCode}`)
    console.log(`HEADERS: ${JSON.stringify(response.headers)}`)
    response.on('data', (chunk) => {
      console.log(`BODY: ${chunk}`)
    })
    response.on('end', () => {
      console.log('No more data in response.')
    })
  })
  request.end()
})

By the way, it is almost identical to how you would normally use the HTTP/HTTPS modules of Node.js

The net API can be used only after the application emits the ready event. Trying to use the module before the ready event will throw an error.

Methods

The net module has the following methods:

net.request(options)

• options (Object | String) - The ClientRequest constructor options.

Returns ClientRequest

Creates a ClientRequest instance using the provided options which are directly forwarded to the ClientRequest constructor. The net.request method would be used to issue both secure and insecure HTTP requests according to the specified protocol scheme in the options object.