HttpClient Basic Authentication

Basic Authentication With the API

CredentialsProvider provider = new BasicCredentialsProvider();
UsernamePasswordCredentials credentials
 = new UsernamePasswordCredentials("user1", "user1Pass");
provider.setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, credentials);
HttpClient client = HttpClientBuilder.create()
  .setDefaultCredentialsProvider(provider)
  .build();
HttpResponse response = client.execute(
  new HttpGet(URL_SECURED_BY_BASIC_AUTHENTICATION));
int statusCode = response.getStatusLine()
  .getStatusCode();
assertThat(statusCode, equalTo(HttpStatus.SC_OK));

The entire Client-Server communication is now clear:

  • the Client sends the HTTP Request with no credentials

  • the Server sends back a challenge

  • the Client negotiates and identifies the right authentication scheme

  • the Client sends a second Request, this time with credentials

Preemptive Basic Authentication

Out of the box, the HttpClient doesn’t do preemptive authentication. Instead, this has to be an explicit decision made by the client.

First, we need to create the HttpContext – pre-populating it with an authentication cache with the right type of authentication scheme pre-selected. This will mean that the negotiation from the previous example is no longer necessary – Basic Authentication is already chosen:

HttpHost targetHost = new HttpHost("localhost", 8082, "http");
CredentialsProvider credsProvider = new BasicCredentialsProvider();
credsProvider.setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, 
  new UsernamePasswordCredentials(DEFAULT_USER, DEFAULT_PASS));
AuthCache authCache = new BasicAuthCache();
authCache.put(targetHost, new BasicScheme());
// Add AuthCache to the execution context
HttpClientContext context = HttpClientContext.create();
context.setCredentialsProvider(credsProvider);
context.setAuthCache(authCache);

Now we can use the client with the new context and send the pre-authentication request:

HttpClient client = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
response = client.execute(
  new HttpGet(URL_SECURED_BY_BASIC_AUTHENTICATION), context);
int statusCode = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
assertThat(statusCode, equalTo(HttpStatus.SC_OK));

Everything looks OK:

  • the “Basic Authentication” scheme is pre-selected

  • the Request is sent with the Authorization header

  • the Server responds with a 200 OK

  • Authentication succeeds

Basic Auth With Raw HTTP Headers

we can take control of this header and construct it by hand:

HttpGet request = new HttpGet(URL_SECURED_BY_BASIC_AUTHENTICATION);
String auth = DEFAULT_USER + ":" + DEFAULT_PASS;
byte[] encodedAuth = Base64.encodeBase64(
  auth.getBytes(StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1));
String authHeader = "Basic " + new String(encodedAuth);
request.setHeader(HttpHeaders.AUTHORIZATION, authHeader);
HttpClient client = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
HttpResponse response = client.execute(request);
int statusCode = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
assertThat(statusCode, equalTo(HttpStatus.SC_OK));

Results

  • HttpClientBasicAuthenticationTest

References