Server returned HTTP response code: 401 for URL: https

Question

I'm using Java to access a HTTPS site which returns the display in an XML format. I pass the login credentials in the URL itself. Here is the code snippet:

DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
requestURL = "https://Administrator:Password@localhost:8443/abcd";

try { 
    InputStream is = null;
    URL url = new URL(requestURL);
    InputStream xmlInputStream =new URL(requestURL).openConnection().getInputStream();
    byte[] testByteArr = new byte[xmlInputStream.available()];
    xmlInputStream.read(testByteArr);
    System.out.println(new String(testByteArr));
    Document doc = db.parse(xmlInputStream);
    System.out.println("DOC="+doc);
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
} 

I'm creating a trust manager in the program which does not validate signed/unsigned certificates. But, on running the above program, I get the error Server returned HTTP response code: 401 for URL: https://Administrator:Password@localhost:8443/abcd

I can use the same url on my browser and it displays the xml correctly. Kindly let me know how to make this work within the Java program.

Answer 1

401 means "Unauthorized", so there must be something with your credentials.

I think that java URL does not support the syntax you are showing. You could use an Authenticator instead.

Authenticator.setDefault(new Authenticator() {

    @Override
    protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {          
        return new PasswordAuthentication(login, password.toCharArray());
    }
});

and then simply invoking the regular url, without the credentials.

The other option is to provide the credentials in a Header:

String loginPassword = login+ ":" + password;
String encoded = new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder().encode (loginPassword.getBytes());
URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
conn.setRequestProperty ("Authorization", "Basic " + encoded);

PS: It is not recommended to use that Base64Encoder but this is only to show a quick solution. If you want to keep that solution, look for a library that does. There are plenty.