183

I am trying to mimic the functionality of this curl command in Java:

curl --basic --user username:password -d "" http://ipaddress/test/login

I wrote the following using Commons HttpClient 3.0 but somehow ended up getting an 500 Internal Server Error from the server. Can someone tell me if I'm doing anything wrong?

public class HttpBasicAuth {

    private static final String ENCODING = "UTF-8";

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        try {

            HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

            client.getState().setCredentials(
                    new AuthScope("ipaddress", 443, "realm"),
                    new UsernamePasswordCredentials("test1", "test1")
                    );

            PostMethod post = new PostMethod(
                    "http://address/test/login");

            post.setDoAuthentication( true );

            try {
                int status = client.executeMethod( post );
                System.out.println(status + "\n" + post.getResponseBodyAsString());
            } finally {
                // release any connection resources used by the method
                post.releaseConnection();
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
   } 

And I later tried a Commons HttpClient 4.0.1 but still the same error:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.auth.AuthScope;
import org.apache.http.auth.UsernamePasswordCredentials;
import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;


public class HttpBasicAuth {

    private static final String ENCODING = "UTF-8";

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        try {
            DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();

            httpclient.getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(
                    new AuthScope(AuthScope.ANY_HOST, AuthScope.ANY_PORT), 
                    new UsernamePasswordCredentials("test1", "test1"));

            HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://host:post/test/login");

            System.out.println("executing request " + httppost.getRequestLine());
            HttpResponse response;
            response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
            HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

            System.out.println("----------------------------------------");
            System.out.println(response.getStatusLine());
            if (entity != null) {
                System.out.println("Response content length: " + entity.getContentLength());
            }
            if (entity != null) {
                entity.consumeContent();
            }

            httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();  
        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
}
3
  • um, whats the error showing up in the server logs? Commented Jul 19, 2010 at 17:30
  • Ah... I don't have access to the server logs :( Commented Jul 19, 2010 at 17:36
  • Most of the time the Authorization key we are using could be wrong. Check dev.tapjoy.com/faq/how-to-find-sender-id-and-api-key-for-gcm to see you are using the correct key or not . I also got confused while selecting API key for firebase We have to use SENDER ID - API KEY pair in Cloud messaging tab under firebase setting. i.e. Go to firebase App--> Go to app setting --> Cloud Messaging there you can find Sender Id <==> API key and this API key you can use to send FCM. Commented Feb 14, 2017 at 9:01

11 Answers 11

234

Have you tried this (using HttpClient version 4):

String encoding = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString((user + ":" + pwd).getBytes());
HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost("http://host:post/test/login");
httpPost.setHeader(HttpHeaders.AUTHORIZATION, "Basic " + encoding);

System.out.println("executing request " + httpPost.getRequestLine());
HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Better to use java.util.Base64 as of Java 8: Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(("test1:test1").getBytes());
I prefer to use javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter to convert from to base64, hex and other conversion. it a part of jdk so no need to include any additional JAR.
This is the version works for me in my use case where the HttpClient is already provided and you can not set the setDefaultCredentialsProvider() on the builder while build the httpclient. Also I like it because it is per call scope. Not on the whole httpclient scope.
129

Ok so this one works. Just in case anybody wants it, here's the version that works for me :)

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.Base64;


public class HttpBasicAuth {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try {
            URL url = new URL ("http://ip:port/login");
            String encoding = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(("test1:test1").getBytes(‌"UTF‌​-8"​));

            HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
            connection.setDoOutput(true);
            connection.setRequestProperty  ("Authorization", "Basic " + encoding);
            InputStream content = (InputStream)connection.getInputStream();
            BufferedReader in   = 
                new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (content));
            String line;
            while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        } catch(Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

}

12 Comments

Cannot find Base64Encoder. Jonas can you please give the full jar? Also whats the fully qualified class name of Base64Encoder?
@Amitabh: For Base64Encoder look here. For Base64 look in commons-codec-1.6.jar in 4.2.5.zip at Apache HttpComponents Downloads, doc, import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
This does not answer the question. The question asks about using HttpClient and this answer does not use HttpClient.
If you are using Java 8, you can use java.util.Base64.
Here's the line for java.util.Base64 String encoding = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString("test1:test1".getBytes("utf-8"));
|
19

This is the code from the accepted answer above, with some changes made regarding the Base64 encoding. The code below compiles.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;

import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;


public class HttpBasicAuth {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try {
            URL url = new URL ("http://ip:port/login");

            Base64 b = new Base64();
            String encoding = b.encodeAsString(new String("test1:test1").getBytes());

            HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
            connection.setDoOutput(true);
            connection.setRequestProperty  ("Authorization", "Basic " + encoding);
            InputStream content = (InputStream)connection.getInputStream();
            BufferedReader in   = 
                new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (content));
            String line;
            while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        } 
        catch(Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Comments

14

A small update - hopefully useful for somebody - it works for me in my project:

  • I use the nice Public Domain class Base64.java from Robert Harder (Thanks Robert - Code availble here: Base64 - download and put it in your package).

  • and make a download of a file (image, doc, etc.) with authentication and write to local disk

Example:

import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;

public class HttpBasicAuth {

public static void downloadFileWithAuth(String urlStr, String user, String pass, String outFilePath) {
    try {
        // URL url = new URL ("http://ip:port/download_url");
        URL url = new URL(urlStr);
        String authStr = user + ":" + pass;
        String authEncoded = Base64.encodeBytes(authStr.getBytes());

        HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
        connection.setDoOutput(true);
        connection.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic " + authEncoded);

        File file = new File(outFilePath);
        InputStream in = (InputStream) connection.getInputStream();
        OutputStream out = new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(file));
        for (int b; (b = in.read()) != -1;) {
            out.write(b);
        }
        out.close();
        in.close();
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}
}

3 Comments

I get The method encodeBytes(byte[]) is undefined for the type Base64
The custom Base64 class can be replaced with import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64; as detailed in this answer on this page
In java 8, you can use: import java.util.Base64;
7

Here are a few points:

  • You could consider upgrading to HttpClient 4 (generally speaking, if you can, I don't think version 3 is still actively supported).

  • A 500 status code is a server error, so it might be useful to see what the server says (any clue in the response body you're printing?). Although it might be caused by your client, the server shouldn't fail this way (a 4xx error code would be more appropriate if the request is incorrect).

  • I think setDoAuthentication(true) is the default (not sure). What could be useful to try is pre-emptive authentication works better:

    client.getParams().setAuthenticationPreemptive(true);
    

Otherwise, the main difference between curl -d "" and what you're doing in Java is that, in addition to Content-Length: 0, curl also sends Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Note that in terms of design, you should probably send an entity with your POST request anyway.

Comments

7

while using Header array

String auth = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(("test1:test1").getBytes());
Header[] headers = {
    new BasicHeader(HTTP.CONTENT_TYPE, ContentType.APPLICATION_JSON.toString()),
    new BasicHeader("Authorization", "Basic " +auth)
};

Comments

6

An easy way to login with a HTTP POST without doing any Base64 specific calls is to use the HTTPClient BasicCredentialsProvider

import java.io.IOException;
import static java.lang.System.out;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.auth.AuthScope;
import org.apache.http.auth.UsernamePasswordCredentials;
import org.apache.http.client.CredentialsProvider;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.BasicCredentialsProvider;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClientBuilder;

//code
CredentialsProvider provider = new BasicCredentialsProvider();
UsernamePasswordCredentials credentials = new UsernamePasswordCredentials(user, password);
provider.setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, credentials);
HttpClient client = HttpClientBuilder.create().setDefaultCredentialsProvider(provider).build();

HttpResponse response = client.execute(new HttpPost("http://address/test/login"));//Replace HttpPost with HttpGet if you need to perform a GET to login
int statusCode = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
out.println("Response Code :"+ statusCode);

5 Comments

This is not working for me. The call works but no authentication header is present.
Strange, is your provider properly set?
Also try update the version of your library. This worked for me
For Basic Authentication File download it worked for me, but instead of HttpPost i used HttpGet. Thank you.
I have the same issue, HttpGet works with UsernamePasswordCredentials but HttpPost doesn't. When I use Base64 to manually add Authorization header it works without any issue.
5

Thanks for all answers above, but for me, I can not find Base64Encoder class, so I sort out my way anyway.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
        DefaultHttpClient Client = new DefaultHttpClient();

        HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet("https://httpbin.org/basic-auth/user/passwd");
        String encoding = DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary("user:passwd".getBytes("UTF-8"));
        httpGet.setHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + encoding);

        HttpResponse response = Client.execute(httpGet);

        System.out.println("response = " + response);

        BufferedReader breader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(response.getEntity().getContent()));
        StringBuilder responseString = new StringBuilder();
        String line = "";
        while ((line = breader.readLine()) != null) {
            responseString.append(line);
        }
        breader.close();
        String repsonseStr = responseString.toString();

        System.out.println("repsonseStr = " + repsonseStr);

    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

}

One more thing, I also tried

Base64.encodeBase64String("user:passwd".getBytes());

It does NOT work due to it return a string almost same with

DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary()

but end with "\r\n", then server will return "bad request".

Also following code is working as well, actually I sort out this first, but for some reason, it does NOT work in some cloud environment (sae.sina.com.cn if you want to know, it is a chinese cloud service). so have to use the http header instead of HttpClient credentials.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
        DefaultHttpClient Client = new DefaultHttpClient();
        Client.getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(
                AuthScope.ANY,
                new UsernamePasswordCredentials("user", "passwd")
        );

        HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet("https://httpbin.org/basic-auth/user/passwd");
        HttpResponse response = Client.execute(httpGet);

        System.out.println("response = " + response);

        BufferedReader breader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(response.getEntity().getContent()));
        StringBuilder responseString = new StringBuilder();
        String line = "";
        while ((line = breader.readLine()) != null) {
            responseString.append(line);
        }
        breader.close();
        String responseStr = responseString.toString();
        System.out.println("responseStr = " + responseStr);

    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

1 Comment

Base64.encodeBase64String("user:passwd".getBytes()); worked for me. DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary() also worked for me. It could be that you made a mistake in the message body in earlier case and that caused a bad request. Or maybe it depends on server.
3

for HttpClient always use HttpRequestInterceptor for example

httclient.addRequestInterceptor(new HttpRequestInterceptor() {
    public void process(HttpRequest arg0, HttpContext context) throws HttpException, IOException {
        AuthState state = (AuthState) context.getAttribute(ClientContext.TARGET_AUTH_STATE);
        if (state.getAuthScheme() == null) {
            BasicScheme scheme = new BasicScheme();
            CredentialsProvider credentialsProvider = (CredentialsProvider) context.getAttribute(ClientContext.CREDS_PROVIDER);
            Credentials credentials = credentialsProvider.getCredentials(AuthScope.ANY);
            if (credentials == null) {
                System.out.println("Credential >>" + credentials);
                throw new HttpException();
            }
            state.setAuthScope(AuthScope.ANY);
            state.setAuthScheme(scheme);
            state.setCredentials(credentials);
        }
    }
}, 0);

Comments

3

HttpBasicAuth works for me with smaller changes

  1. I use maven dependency

    <dependency>
        <groupId>net.iharder</groupId>
        <artifactId>base64</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.8</version>
    </dependency>
    
  2. Smaller change

    String encoding = Base64.encodeBytes ((user + ":" + passwd).getBytes());
    

Comments

0

Here is a more simpler code where HttpHeader itself has the method setBasicAuth which will take username, password and perform the base64 encoding.

import org.springframework.http.*;
        
HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.setAccept(Collections.singletonList(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON));
headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
headers.setBasicAuth("", this.azurePatToken, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
HttpEntity<String> entity = new HttpEntity<>(null, headers);
ResponseEntity<String> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, entity, String.class);
if (response.getStatusCode() == HttpStatus.OK) {
    return extractObjectId(response.getBody());
}

Comments

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.