Using cURL with a username and password?

Question

I want to access a URL which requires a username/password. I'd like to try accessing it with curl. Right now I'm doing something like:

curl http://api.somesite.com/test/blah?something=123 

I get an error. I guess I need to specify a username and password along with the above command.

How can I do that?

Answer 1

Use the -u flag to include a username, and curl will prompt for a password:

curl -u username http://example.com 

You can also include the password in the command, but then your password will be visible in bash history:

curl -u username:password http://example.com 

Answer 2

It is safer to do:

curl --netrc-file my-password-file http://example.com 

...as passing a plain user/password string on the command line, is a bad idea.

The format of the password file is (as per man curl):

machine <example.com> login <username> password <password> 

Note:

1. Machine name must not include https:// or similar! Just the hostname.
2. The words 'machine', 'login', and 'password' are just keywords; the actual information is the stuff after those keywords.