Question

I have a site which is protected using the http basic authentication.

I wish to code a ruby snippet which allows me to pass the http basic authentication and read the contents of the web page.

I have used a way in java to send the key and other details set in HTTP header and thus read the contents of the web page. But couldn’t able to find the same in ruby.

edit:

The code I use is here:

   def express
    http_basic_authenticate_with :name => "dhh", :password => "secret"
   end

which gives me the error:

undefined method `http_basic_authenticate_with' for #<ServiceController:0x7f9bd73e5448>

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I think it is what you are looking for:

 class SecretController < ApplicationController
   http_basic_authenticate_with :name => "frodo", :password => "thering"
   def index
     ...
   end
 end

You can also pass an exception for any particular action:

 http_basic_authenticate_with :name => "dhh", :password => "secret", :except => :index

There is also a RailsCasts about it.

EDIT – if your version of rails is prior to 3.1, you can create your own method:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
USER, PASSWORD = 'dhh', 'secret'

before_filter :authentication_check, :except => :index

...

 private
  def authentication_check
   authenticate_or_request_with_http_basic do |user, password|
    user == USER && password == PASSWORD
   end
  end
end