Question

I am trying to authenticate inside integration test by calling FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(“someUser”, false);
After that I do need to call WebAPI and not receive unauthorized exception because I have authorized attribute applied.
I am using this code to create auth cookie :

var cookie = FormsAuthentication.GetAuthCookie(name, rememberMe);
    var ticket = FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(cookie.Value);

    var newTicket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(ticket.Version, ticket.Name, ticket.IssueDate, ticket.Expiration,
        ticket.IsPersistent, userData.ToJson(), ticket.CookiePath);
    var encTicket = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(newTicket);

    /// Use existing cookie. Could create new one but would have to copy settings over...
    cookie.Value = encTicket;

Now I want to add this cookie to HttpRequestMessage inside new HttpClient and send this with my regular request in integration test.

I don’t know how to add that auth cookie to HttpRequestMessage ?

Answer 1

For manipulating cookies, you need to use WebRequestHandler along with HttpClient. For example,

 var handler = new WebRequestHandler();
 var client = new HttpClient(handler);
 // use handler to configure request such as add cookies to send to server

CookieContainer property will allow to access cookies collection.

On different note, I doubt if creating FormsAuthentication cookie on client will work. A same encryption key would be needed on both client/server. The best approach would be to replay the login request for actual web API – most probably, it would be a POST to login page with user credentials. Observe the same over browser using tool such as Fiddler and construct the same request within your http client.