Session variable in powershell version 2 - net.httpWebRequest

Question

I am currently working on automating a REST call with powershell. I have a REST API which i was calling with my powershell script with Invoke-WebRequest as below.

For logging in:-

Invoke-WebRequest -Method Post -uri $loginUri -ContentType application/x-www-form-urlencoded -Body $loginBody -Headers @{"Accept" = "application/xml"} -SessionVariable CookieSession -UseBasicParsing

In the above the URL is something like Server/_Login and in the body, my credentials are passed as

$loginBody = "username=$username&password=$password"

I was getting the cookie (JSESSIONID) from this call and then parse the same to all other calls. For example

My Logout looks like this:-

Invoke-WebRequest -Method Post -uri $logOutUri -ContentType application/xml -Headers @{"Accept" = "application/xml"} -WebSession $SessionVariable -UseBasicParsing

where urL is Server/_Logout and using -WebSession i am parsing the cookie

The problem is, i have to make this compatible with powershell version 2 and hence has to use [System.Net.HttpWebRequest]

So i need a function to first login which will return me the sessioncookie and then i have to parse that cookie for all other calls.

Below is what i started with but dont know what further:-

function Http-Web-Request([string]$method,[string]$Accept,[string]$contentType, [string]$path,[string]$post)
{



    $url = "$global:restUri/$path"

    $CookieContainer = New-Object System.Net.CookieContainer

    $postData = $post

    $buffer = [text.encoding]::ascii.getbytes($postData)

    [System.Net.HttpWebRequest] $req = [System.Net.HttpWebRequest] [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($url)
    $req.method = "$method"
    $req.Accept = "$Accept"
    $req.AllowAutoRedirect = $false
    $req.ContentType = "$contentType"
    $req.ContentLength = $buffer.length
    $req.CookieContainer = $CookieContainer
    $req.TimeOut = 50000
    $req.KeepAlive = $true
    $req.Headers.Add("Keep-Alive: 300");
    $reqst = $req.getRequestStream()
    $reqst.write($buffer, 0, $buffer.length)


        try
        {
            [System.Net.HttpWebResponse] $response = $req.GetResponse()  
            $sr = New-Object System.IO.StreamReader($response.GetResponseStream())

            $txt = $sr.ReadToEnd() 
                if ($response.ContentType.StartsWith("text/xml"))
                {
                    ## NOTE: comment out the next line if you don't want this function to print to the terminal
                    Format-XML($txt)
                }



            return $txt


        }

        catch [Net.WebException] 
        { 
            [System.Net.HttpWebResponse] $resp = [System.Net.HttpWebResponse] $_.Exception.Response  
            ## Return the error to the caller
            Throw $resp.StatusDescription
        }

}

Ranadip Dutta · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-22 15:47:12Z

1

So after doing a lot of investigation, i found out a way.

The problem what i was having was that the cookie container was getting lost between my calls. The cookie container in .net is stored in $CookieContainer

All I had to do was while creating the cookie container, I had to make it Global

$global:CookieContainer = New-Object System.Net.CookieContainer

Then During my first call which is to Login, assign the same as the cookie container

$req.CookieContainer = $CookieContainer

So, during the login, when the same is succeeded, your variable $cookiecontainer is stored with the value and all the following calls to the Rest has the same cookie container

$req.CookieContainer = $CookieContainer

You can simply keep using this till you close your session.

edited Feb 22, 2017 at 15:47

Ranadip Dutta

9,5493 gold badges33 silver badges48 bronze badges

answered Feb 22, 2017 at 13:43

Vineeth Chandran

517 bronze badges

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1 Comment

Ranadip Dutta Over a year ago

Thats pretty nice way. A little bit of modification on the answer keeping the context same.

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