Http Basic Authentication in Java using HttpClient?

Question

Have you tried this (using HttpClient version 4):

String encoding = Base64Encoder.encode(user + ":" + pwd);
HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost("http://host:post/test/login");
httpPost.setHeader(HttpHeaders.AUTHORIZATION, "Basic " + encoding);

System.out.println("executing request " + httpPost.getRequestLine());
HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

Ok so this one works. Just in case anybody wants it, here's the version that works for me :)

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.Base64;


public class HttpBasicAuth {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try {
            URL url = new URL ("http://ip:port/login");
            String encoding = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(("test1:test1").getBytes(‌"UTF‌​-8"​));

            HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
            connection.setDoOutput(true);
            connection.setRequestProperty  ("Authorization", "Basic " + encoding);
            InputStream content = (InputStream)connection.getInputStream();
            BufferedReader in   = 
                new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (content));
            String line;
            while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        } catch(Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

}

This is the code from the accepted answer above, with some changes made regarding the Base64 encoding. The code below compiles.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;

import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;


public class HttpBasicAuth {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try {
            URL url = new URL ("http://ip:port/login");

            Base64 b = new Base64();
            String encoding = b.encodeAsString(new String("test1:test1").getBytes());

            HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
            connection.setDoOutput(true);
            connection.setRequestProperty  ("Authorization", "Basic " + encoding);
            InputStream content = (InputStream)connection.getInputStream();
            BufferedReader in   = 
                new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (content));
            String line;
            while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        } 
        catch(Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

A small update - hopefully useful for somebody - it works for me in my project:

• I use the nice Public Domain class Base64.java from Robert Harder (Thanks Robert - Code availble here: Base64 - download and put it in your package).

• and make a download of a file (image, doc, etc.) with authentication and write to local disk

Example:

import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;

public class HttpBasicAuth {

public static void downloadFileWithAuth(String urlStr, String user, String pass, String outFilePath) {
    try {
        // URL url = new URL ("http://ip:port/download_url");
        URL url = new URL(urlStr);
        String authStr = user + ":" + pass;
        String authEncoded = Base64.encodeBytes(authStr.getBytes());

        HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
        connection.setDoOutput(true);
        connection.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic " + authEncoded);

        File file = new File(outFilePath);
        InputStream in = (InputStream) connection.getInputStream();
        OutputStream out = new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(file));
        for (int b; (b = in.read()) != -1;) {
            out.write(b);
        }
        out.close();
        in.close();
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}
}

Here are a few points:

• You could consider upgrading to HttpClient 4 (generally speaking, if you can, I don't think version 3 is still actively supported).

• A 500 status code is a server error, so it might be useful to see what the server says (any clue in the response body you're printing?). Although it might be caused by your client, the server shouldn't fail this way (a 4xx error code would be more appropriate if the request is incorrect).

• I think setDoAuthentication(true) is the default (not sure). What could be useful to try is pre-emptive authentication works better:

  client.getParams().setAuthenticationPreemptive(true);
  

Otherwise, the main difference between curl -d "" and what you're doing in Java is that, in addition to Content-Length: 0, curl also sends Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Note that in terms of design, you should probably send an entity with your POST request anyway.

while using Header array

String auth = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(("test1:test1").getBytes());
Header[] headers = {
    new BasicHeader(HTTP.CONTENT_TYPE, ContentType.APPLICATION_JSON.toString()),
    new BasicHeader("Authorization", "Basic " +auth)
};