a simple way for inspecting TCP traffic (HTTP, SOAP, XMLRPC)

Apaches Java SOAP implementation library contains some valueable utilities. in particular, two TCP tunneling tools are quite useful, even for general purposes. they are implemented in java, so a java runtime installation is enaugh for testing. the first runs without a GUI and simply tunnels TCP Traffic. As parameters you have to specify listening port, serverhostname and port. e.g. with 8889 wsrv 8080 as actual parameters the tunneling tool listens on port 8889 to redirect traffic to and from server "wsrv" on port 8080. the second version of the tool has offers request and response content via a simple gui in separated windows. this sniffer allows to have a look on soap or html request-response content.

to install, download the latest edition of the apache soap implementation. (for doing soap, apache axis is a followup framework). latest version of soap.jar is 2.3.1.

Download from http://ws.apache.org/soap/ , then unzip and have a look into directory lib. only jar file in there is soap.jar. within you can use org.apache.soap.util.net.TcpTunnelGui and org.apache.soap.util.net.TcpTunnel as a standalone java app from the commandline.
to invoke use:

java -cp ./soap.jar org.apache.soap.util.net.TcpTunnelGui 8099 localhost 8080

if your webserver or servlet container listens on port 8080, a request to localhost:8099 is done via this java app. request and response contents are logged in separate windows.