Question

So I am trying to login to a website (in this example myspace) using Apache’s HttpClient v.4 but I am not sure where I am going wrong in the process, when I test this code, the Post Login Cookies are the same as the Initial login cookies, but that shouldn’t be.

I have looked around online to see if anyone else has tried, but I haven’t found a good resource that has worked for me.

I am using this example: apache HttpClient to access facebook ( Facebook)

 try{
        DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();

        HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("http://www.myspace.com/auth/form");

        HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
        HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

        System.out.println("Login form get: " + response.getStatusLine());
        if (entity != null) {
            entity.consumeContent();
        }
        System.out.println("Initial set of cookies:");
        List<Cookie> cookies = httpclient.getCookieStore().getCookies();
        if (cookies.isEmpty()) {
            System.out.println("None");
        } else {
            for (int i = 0; i < cookies.size(); i++) {
                System.out.println("- " + cookies.get(i).toString());
            }
        }

        HttpPost httpost = new HttpPost("http://www.myspace.com/auth/form");

        List <NameValuePair> nvps = new ArrayList <NameValuePair>();
        nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair("email", "someEmail"));
        nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair("password", "somePassword"));

        httpost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvps, HTTP.UTF_8));

        response = httpclient.execute(httpost);
        entity = response.getEntity();
        //System.out.println("Double check we've got right page " + EntityUtils.toString(entity));

        System.out.println("Login form get: " + response.getStatusLine());
        if (entity != null) {
            entity.consumeContent();
        }

        System.out.println("Post logon cookies:");
        cookies = httpclient.getCookieStore().getCookies();
        if (cookies.isEmpty()) {
            System.out.println("None");
        } else {
            for (int i = 0; i < cookies.size(); i++) {
                System.out.println("- " + cookies.get(i).toString());
            }
        }
        httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
    }
    catch(Exception e){e.printStackTrace();}

Example cookie:

    [version: 0][name: MSCOUNTRY][value: US][domain: .myspace.com][path: /][expiry: Tue Jun 12 23:22:15 EDT 2012]
[version: 0][name: MSCulture][value: IP=XXX.XXX.XXXX&IPCulture=en-US&PreferredCulture=en-US&PreferredCulturePending=&Country=VVM=&ForcedExpiration=0&timeZone=0&myStuffDma=&myStuffMarket=&USRLOC=RandomUserLocString==&UserFirstVisit=1][domain: .myspace.com][path: /][expiry: Tue Jun 12 23:22:15 EDT 2012]
[version: 0][name: SessionDDF2][value: RandomStringHere==][domain: .myspace.com][path: /][expiry: Sat Jun 05 23:22:15 EDT 2032]

Answer 1

Why do you think that the initial cookies and the post cookies should be different? The application server side assigns a set of cookies to the client and usually that stays the same throughout the session.

The application server associates a set of attributes associated with the session (using cookies as a lookup), and that is what decides whether the session is ‘logged-in’ or not.