How do I add basic authentication to a Python REST request?

Question

I have the following simple Python code that makes a simple post request to a REST service -

params= { "param1" : param1,
          "param2" : param2,
          "param3" : param3 }
xmlResults = urllib.urlopen(MY_APP_PATH, urllib.urlencode(params)).read()
results = MyResponseParser.parse(xmlResults)

The problem is that the url used to call the REST service will now require basic authentication (username and password). How can I incorporate a username and password / basic authentication into this code, as simply as possible?

Wouldn't it serve to pass the required parameters as part of the params dictionary? Or does your target service require you to make another explicit call to authenticate? — Manoj Govindan
– Manoj Govindan, Commented Sep 13, 2010 at 16:31

leoluk · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-02 21:19:10Z

7

If basic authentication = HTTP authentication, use this:

import urllib
import urllib2

username = 'foo'
password = 'bar'

passman = urllib2.HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm()
passman.add_password(None, MY_APP_PATH, username, password)
authhandler = urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler(passman)
opener = urllib2.build_opener(authhandler)
urllib2.install_opener(opener)

params= { "param1" : param1,
          "param2" : param2,
          "param3" : param3 }

xmlResults = urllib2.urlopen(MY_APP_PATH, urllib.urlencode(params)).read()
results = MyResponseParser.parse(xmlResults)

If not, use mechanize or cookielib to make an additional request for logging in. But if the service you access has an XML API, this API surely includes auth too.

2016 edit: By all means, use the requests library! It provides all of the above in a single call.

edited Feb 2, 2016 at 21:19

answered Sep 13, 2010 at 16:32

leoluk

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Daenyth · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-13 20:48:14Z

1

You may want a library to abstract out some of the details. I've used restkit to great effect before. It handles HTTP auth.

answered Sep 13, 2010 at 20:48

Daenyth

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