how to use Digest authentication in android?

Question

I am creating an Android app where I am authenticating username/password through a server.Initially server was implementing Basic authentication so my code was working fine but now server has changed to Digest authentication so my old code is not working.

What changes should do make for using Digest authentication?

My code is as follows:

private boolean authenticateUser() 

{

   try 
   {
        String url_str = "http://serverweb.com/checkauthentication.php"; 

        HttpPost post = new HttpPost(url_str);

        Log.v("AUTHENTICATION URL = ", url_str);
        post.addHeader("Authorization","Basic "+getCredentials());
        ResponseHandler<String> responseHandler=new BasicResponseHandler();
        String response_body = client.execute(post, responseHandler);

        Log.v("SERVER RESPONSE DATA = ", response_body);

        XMLDataParser.parseXML(XMLDataParser.USER_INFORMATION_PARSER_CODE, response_body);

        List<Cookie> cookies = client.getCookieStore().getCookies();
        if (!cookies.isEmpty()) 
        {
         for (int i = 0; i < cookies.size(); i++) 
         {
           XMLData.cookie = cookies.get(i);
         }
        }

        return true;
    }
    catch (MalformedURLException mue) 
    { 
      Log.i("MalformedURLException", " "+mue.getMessage());
      displayDialog("User Does Not exist");
      return false;
    } 
    catch (IOException ioe) 
    { 
       Log.i("IOException", " "+ioe.getMessage());
       displayDialog("User Does Not exist");
       return false;
    }
    catch (Exception e) 
    { 
       Log.i("Exception", " "+e.getMessage());
       displayDialog("Error");
       return false;
    }
}
private String getCredentials()
{
    String u=edit_username.getText().toString();
    String p=edit_password.getText().toString();

    Log.v("USER NAME = ",u);
    Log.v("PASSWORD = ",p);
    return(Base64.encodeBytes((u+":"+p).getBytes()));
}

Answer 1

You need to create a HttpHost and HttpContext object with required credentials and give it to execute method.

This is a sample code where your authentication is independent of backend auth. http client of android will take care of converting it to appropriate format. Check this sample code, this is only for your reference and not to be used directly in your code. :)

This code is in your activity:

@Override
public void onResume(){
    super.onResume();
    AsyncTask<String, Void, Void> httpTask = new TestHttpThread();
    httpTask.execute("test_url","test_user","test_password");
}

Sample AsyncActivity:

private class TestHttpThread extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Void>{

    @Override
    protected Void doInBackground(String... params) {
       if(params.length > 0){
            String url = params[0];
            String username = params[1];
            String password = params[2];

            try {
                AndroidHttpClient httpClient = AndroidHttpClient.newInstance("test user agent");

                URL urlObj = new URL(url);
                HttpHost host = new HttpHost(urlObj.getHost(), urlObj.getPort(), urlObj.getProtocol());
                AuthScope scope = new AuthScope(urlObj.getHost(), urlObj.getPort());
                UsernamePasswordCredentials creds = new UsernamePasswordCredentials(username, password);

                CredentialsProvider cp = new BasicCredentialsProvider();
                cp.setCredentials(scope, creds);
                HttpContext credContext = new BasicHttpContext();
                credContext.setAttribute(ClientContext.CREDS_PROVIDER, cp);

                HttpGet job = new HttpGet(url);
                HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(host,job,credContext);
                StatusLine status = response.getStatusLine();
                Log.d(TestActivity.TEST_TAG, status.toString());
                httpClient.close();
            }
            catch(Exception e){
                e.printStackTrace();
            }

        }
        return null;
    }
}