Apache HttpClient Digest authentication

Question

Basically what I need to do is to perform digest authentication. First thing I tried is the official example available here. But when I try to execute it(with some small changes, Post instead of the the Get method) I get a

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org.apache.http.auth.MalformedChallengeException: missing nonce in challange
at org.apache.http.impl.auth.DigestScheme.processChallenge(DigestScheme.java:132)

When this failed I tried using:

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DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
client.getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(new AuthScope(null, -1, null), new UsernamePasswordCredentials("<username>", "<password>"));

HttpPost post = new HttpPost(URI.create("http://<someaddress>"));
        List<NameValuePair> nvps = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair("domain", "<username>"));
post.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvps, HTTP.UTF_8));

DigestScheme digestAuth = new DigestScheme();
digestAuth.overrideParamter("algorithm", "MD5");
digestAuth.overrideParamter("realm", "http://<someaddress>");
digestAuth.overrideParamter("nonce", Long.toString(new Random().nextLong(), 36));
digestAuth.overrideParamter("qop", "auth");
digestAuth.overrideParamter("nc", "0");
digestAuth.overrideParamter("cnonce", DigestScheme.createCnonce());

Header auth = digestAuth.authenticate(new
      UsernamePasswordCredentials("<username>", "<password>"), post);
System.out.println(auth.getName());
System.out.println(auth.getValue());
post.setHeader(auth);


HttpResponse ret = client.execute(post);
ByteArrayOutputStream v2 = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
ret.getEntity().writeTo(v2);
System.out.println("----------------------------------------");
System.out.println(v2.toString());
System.out.println("----------------------------------------");
System.out.println(ret.getStatusLine().getReasonPhrase());
System.out.println(ret.getStatusLine().getStatusCode());

At first I have only overridden "realm" and "nonce" DigestScheme parameters. But it turned out that PHP script running on the server requires all other params, but no matter if I specify them or not DigestScheme doesn't generate them in the Authorization RequestPreperty when I call its authenticate() method. And PHP script returns HTTP response code 200 with a message that PHP script requires cnonce, nc and qop parameters.

I've been struggling with this for two days, and no luck. Based on everything I think that the cause of the problem is the PHP script. It looks to me that it doesn't send a challenge when app tries to access it unauthorized.

Any ideas anyone?

Edit: One more thing, I've tried connecting with cURL and it works.

Answer 1

This code snippet worked for me. You have to provide the realm which you can get by looking at the 401 response header you get from the host.

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val credsProvider = new BasicCredentialsProvider();
credsProvider.setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY,
  new UsernamePasswordCredentials(user, password));
val authCache = new BasicAuthCache();
val digestScheme = new DigestScheme();

digestScheme.overrideParamter("realm", "**Name of the Realm**");
// Nonce value
digestScheme.overrideParamter("nonce", "whatever");

authCache.put(targetHost, digestScheme);

context.setCredentialsProvider(credsProvider);
context.setAuthCache(authCache);

val httpget = new HttpGet(url);

val response = httpClient.execute(targetHost, httpget, context);

Answer 2

I managed to do a Digest login using digestScheme after verifying the code.

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digestAuth.processChallenge(null);

Forces the previous input parameters to be interpreted. The null parameter is a header, based on the header sent, if any.

Now qop/nc is used and digestScheme works as required. Running it on android

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digestAuth.overrideParamter("algorithm", "MD5");
digestAuth.overrideParamter("realm", serverRealm);
digestAuth.overrideParamter("nonce", Long.toString(new Random().nextLong(), 36));
digestAuth.overrideParamter("qop", "auth");//   not effective 
digestAuth.overrideParamter("nc",""+sequence);//nt effective 
digestAuth.overrideParamter("cnonce", DigestScheme.createCnonce());
digestAuth.overrideParamter("opaque","ba897c2f0f3de9c6f52d");
String err;
try
{
    digestAuth.processChallenge(null);
    //force  qop in use  chalange  on return header ????!!!!
}
catch (Exception e)
{ 
    err=e.getLocalizedMessage();
}