NSURLConnection and Basic HTTP Authentication in iOS

user_119382 0
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I need to invoke an initial GET HTTP request with Basic Authentication. This would be the first time the request is sent to the server and I already have the username & password so there's no need for a challenge from the server for authorization.

First question:

  1. Does NSURLConnection have to be set as synchronous to do Basic Auth? According to the answer on this post, it seems that you can't do Basic Auth if you opt for the async route.

  2. Anyone know of any some sample code that illustrates Basic Auth on a GET request without the need for a challenge response? Apple's documentation shows an example but only after the server has issued the challenge request to the client.

I'm kind of new the networking portion of the SDK and I'm not sure which of the other classes I should use to get this working. (I see the NSURLCredential class but it seems that it is used only with NSURLAuthenticationChallenge after the client has requested for an authorized resource from the server).

nsurlconnection objective-c iphone ios
8 Answers

I'm using an asynchronous connection with MGTwitterEngine and it sets the authorization in the NSMutableURLRequest (theRequest) like so:

NSString *authStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@:%@", [self username], [self password]];
NSData *authData = [authStr dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSString *authValue = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Basic %@", [authData base64EncodingWithLineLength:80]];
[theRequest setValue:authValue forHTTPHeaderField:@"Authorization"];

I don't believe this method requires going through the challenge loop but I could be wrong

user_957410

If you are using GTMHTTPFetcher for your connection, basic authentication is fairly easy as well. You simply need to provide the credential to the fetcher before beginning the fetch.

NSString * urlString = @"http://www.testurl.com/";
NSURL * url = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString];
NSMutableURLRequest * request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];

NSURLCredential * credential = [NSURLCredential credentialWithUser:@"username" password:@"password" persistence:NSURLCredentialPersistenceForSession];

GTMHTTPFetcher * gFetcher = [GTMHTTPFetcher fetcherWithRequest:request];
gFetcher.credential = credential;

[gFetcher beginFetchWithDelegate:self didFinishSelector:@selector(fetchCompleted:withData:andError:)];
John_Knox_45540

You can use AFNetworking (it is opensource), here is code that worked for me. This code sends file with basic authentication. Just change url, email and password.

NSString *serverUrl = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://www.yoursite.com/uploadlink", profile.host];
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[AFHTTPRequestSerializer serializer] requestWithMethod:@"POST" URLString:serverUrl parameters:nil error:nil];


NSURLSessionConfiguration *configuration = [NSURLSessionConfiguration defaultSessionConfiguration];
AFURLSessionManager *manager = [[AFURLSessionManager alloc] initWithSessionConfiguration:configuration];

// Forming string with credentials 'myusername:mypassword'
NSString *authStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@:%@", email, emailPassword];
// Getting data from it
NSData *authData = [authStr dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
// Encoding data with base64 and converting back to NSString
NSString* authStrData = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:[authData base64EncodedDataWithOptions:NSDataBase64EncodingEndLineWithLineFeed] encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
// Forming Basic Authorization string Header
NSString *authValue = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Basic %@", authStrData];
// Assigning it to request
[request setValue:authValue forHTTPHeaderField:@"Authorization"];

manager.responseSerializer = [AFHTTPResponseSerializer serializer];

NSURL *filePath = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[url path]];
NSURLSessionUploadTask *uploadTask = [manager uploadTaskWithRequest:request fromFile:filePath progress:^(NSProgress * _Nonnull uploadProgress) {
// This is not called back on the main queue.
// You are responsible for dispatching to the main queue for UI updates
     dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
                //Update the progress view
                LLog(@"progres increase... %@ , fraction: %f", uploadProgress.debugDescription, uploadProgress.fractionCompleted);
            });
        } completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response, id responseObject, NSError *error) {
            if (error) {
                NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);
            } else {
                NSLog(@"Success: %@ %@", response, responseObject);
            }
        }];
[uploadTask resume];
user_103199880
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