I have been trying to log in to a server to grab the authentication cookie (a session cookie), which I can then use for further calls to the server. Every example I have read follows the same pattern:
HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(loginURL) as HttpWebRequest;
var response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;
var cookies = response.Cookies;
This didn't work for me, as the cookies variable ended up empty, and a debug analysis showed response.Cookies was empty. The server is mine, and I can see, through debugging, the cookie is being set. I can also see the cookie in Firefox if I log in to my site with it. So I know the cookie is being set.
After some messing around, I discovered the cookie was being set in the request, not the response. So the code below worked. My question is: Why? Why is the request being populated, but not the response? Is it something to do with being a post, not a get? I am totally baffled.
private void Login()
{
string userName = UserNameText.Text;
string password = PasswordText.Password;
string baseURL = URLText.Text;
string loginURL = baseURL + "/Authentication/LoginAction";
HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(loginURL) as HttpWebRequest;
request.Method = "POST";
string formContent =
"UserName=" + userName +
"&Password=" + password;
var byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(formContent);
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
request.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
request.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
try
{
using (var dataStream = request.GetRequestStream())
{
dataStream.Write(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
using (var response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse)
{
var cookies = request.CookieContainer;
if (cookies.Count != 0)
{
cookies_ = cookies;
}
}
}
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
// don't bother too much
Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
}
The CookieContainer should be considered similar to a browser's cookie cache for a particular site. The idea is that you supply the container as part of the request, and then it's populated by the cookies you receive and you can reuse that container for subsequent requests. When you make a request, the cookies in the container are sent with the request (just like the browser would with stored cookies).
So, for example, if you have a page that uses cookies to store an authentication token, you can pass the cookie container with the login request, and then pass it with subsequent requests which require an authenticated cookie.
As to why you can't simply extract it from the request, I guess Microsoft just didn't want to duplicate things when you can pass in a reference to a mutable cookie container in the request.
Related
I have a CLR function getting data from cookie authorized website. The first request gets a login cookies and the second request gets xml data I need. The problem is in that I am always getting 401 unauthorized on a second request when run it from SQL Server as a function. The testing console app using the same DLL is working fine. Looks like the second request has no cookies but I checked in exception the amount of cookie container of the second request, it is not empty.
String encoded = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(UserName + ":" + Password));
try
{
HttpWebRequest loginrequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(string.Format("{0}", BaseOrdersAddress));
CookieContainer logincookies = new CookieContainer();
loginrequest.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.Authorization, "Basic " + encoded);
loginrequest.AllowAutoRedirect = false;
loginrequest.CookieContainer = logincookies;
loginrequest.Method = WebRequestMethods.Http.Get;
HttpWebResponse loginresponse = (HttpWebResponse)loginrequest.GetResponse();
loginresponse.Close();
if (loginresponse.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.Found)
{
location = loginresponse.Headers[HttpResponseHeader.Location];
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(location);
request.CookieContainer = logincookies;
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Http.Get;
HttpWebResponse response1 = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;
var xresult = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Local_Response));
r = (Local_Response)xresult.Deserialize(response1.GetResponseStream());
}
Solved.
The problem was in using HttpWebRequest.CookieContainer, don't know why but it does not work while running as a CLR function, no cookies are sent. Have to do it manually adding HttpRequestHeader.Cookie to request headers collection.
Don't forget, your SQLCLR code executes in the context of SQL Server. I see you have a username, password in the code - what does that do and where is the username/password retrieved from. My bet is that there is something wrong with this based on what I said earlier.
I'm trying to write a script in c# capable to retrieve some information from a website. These information are protected so I need to login before I can read them. That's what I think should be my procedure:
First of all use a POST request to login into the website. Here my first problem: the page where I find the login form is this https://idp.kk-abcdefg.com/idp/Authn/UserPassword . Should I submit the POST request to this page or should I use a different address?
I've tested the headers using some tools of Firefox or Chrome but I can't understand which is the right procedure. I have noticed that If I open this login page I receive some cookies. If I delete these cookies and try to login by inserting user and password (via browser) I get an error as a response from the website .. it says that I need to activate cookies to be able to login. So it seems like when I open the login page for the first time I receive some cookies and then I need to send them together with the first POST request for login. Does it make sense for any of you?
That's the code I'm using right now:
string formUrl = "https://idp.kk-abcdefg.de/idp/Authn/UserPassword";
string formParams = string.Format("j_username=MyUserName&j_password=MyPassword”);
string cookieHeader;
string pageSource;
WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(formUrl);
req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
req.Method = "POST";
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(formParams);
req.ContentLength = bytes.Length;
using (Stream os = req.GetRequestStream())
{
os.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
}
WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse();
cookieHeader = resp.Headers["Set-cookie"];
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(resp.GetResponseStream()))
{
pageSource = sr.ReadToEnd();
}
And I believe this is working because the result of pageSource changes if I use correct user / pass or I write them wrong. But when user / pass are correct, I'm still not able to login because I get the following error message: "This application requires cookies. Please make sure cookies are enabled in the settings of your browser. Please reload the login page and try logging in again".
This is the same error that I get if I disable cookies in my browser or if I delete cookies that I get when I load the login page for the first time.
Can you help me with all that? My idea is that I need to save the cookies received when I open the login page for the first time and then send them together with following requests but I don't know how to do ..
Thanks a lot!
In Web Application, once the user is logged in successfully a cookie is sent back to the browser to track the user session and to determine if the user is logged in or not during further requests. Furthermore login process of your application requires cookies to be sent from client along with username and password. So when you are trying to perform login without browser it complains about missing cookies.
If you know what cookies and their values need to be sent along with username and password for login, you can send them using cookieContainer in WebRequest as following.
string formUrl = "https://idp.kk-abcdefg.de/idp/Authn/UserPassword";
string formParams = string.Format("j_username=MyUserName&j_password=MyPassword");
string cookieHeader;
string pageSource;
CookieContainer cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
Cookie cookie1 = new Cookie("<<cookiename>>", "<<cookievalue>>","/", "<<yourdomainname>>");
Cookie cookie2 = new Cookie("<<cookiename>>", "<<cookievalue>>", "/", "<<yourdomainname>>");
cookieContainer.Add(cookie1);
cookieContainer.Add(cookie2);
// You can keep adding all required cookies this way.
var req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(formUrl);
req.CookieContainer = cookieContainer;
req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
req.Method = "POST";
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(formParams);
req.ContentLength = bytes.Length;
using (Stream os = req.GetRequestStream())
{
os.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
}
WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse();
cookieHeader = resp.Headers["Set-cookie"];
// You can access the cookies coming as part of response as following.
HttpWebResponse response = resp as HttpWebResponse;
if(response != null)
{
var cookiesCollections = response.Cookies;
}
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(resp.GetResponseStream()))
{
pageSource = sr.ReadToEnd();
}
If you don't know the cookies and you need to get the cookies first by requesting login page before posting username and password then use following.
var loginPageUrl = "<<Your Login Page url>>";
CookieContainer cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
var req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(loginPageUrl);
req.CookieContainer = cookieContainer;
req.Method = "GET";
WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse();
HttpWebResponse response = resp as HttpWebResponse;
CookieCollection cookies;
if (response != null)
{
cookies = response.Cookies; //Use this cookies in above code to send with username and password.
}
You send the request login twice and use single CookieContainer object!
I'm trying to write a utility which will attempt to login to the Microsoft Online Admin website and report back as to whether it is reachable.
Using code mainly from this article, http://odetocode.com/articles/162.aspx and some screen scraping I have pieced together the following. Unfortunately it doesn't work, the final response shows that I am still looking at the login page rather than the target page.
Any help would be terrific. Thanks in advance.
private void LoginToSite()
{
const string LOGIN_URL = "https://admin.microsoftonline.com/Login.aspx";
const string USERNAME = "<username>";
const string PASSWORD = "<password>";
const string TARGET_PAGE_URL = "https://admin.noam.microsoftonline.com/Home/Home.aspx";
// first, request the login form to get the viewstate value
HttpWebRequest webRequest = WebRequest.Create(LOGIN_URL) as HttpWebRequest;
StreamReader responseReader = new StreamReader(
webRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream()
);
string responseData = responseReader.ReadToEnd();
responseReader.Close();
// extract the viewstate value and build out POST data
string viewState = ExtractViewState(responseData);
string postData =
String.Format(
"__VIEWSTATE={0}&AdminCenterLoginControl$UserNameTextBox={1}&AdminCenterLoginControl$PasswordTextbox={2}&__EVENTTARGET=AdminCenterLoginControl_ActionButton",
viewState, USERNAME, PASSWORD
);
// have a cookie container ready to receive the forms auth cookie
CookieContainer cookies = new CookieContainer();
// now post to the login form
webRequest = WebRequest.Create(LOGIN_URL) as HttpWebRequest;
webRequest.Method = "POST";
webRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
webRequest.CookieContainer = cookies;
// write the form values into the request message
StreamWriter requestWriter = new StreamWriter(webRequest.GetRequestStream());
requestWriter.Write(postData);
requestWriter.Close();
// we don't need the contents of the response, just the cookie it issues
webRequest.GetResponse().Close();
// now we can send out cookie along with a request for the protected page
webRequest = WebRequest.Create(TARGET_PAGE_URL) as HttpWebRequest;
webRequest.CookieContainer = cookies;
responseReader = new StreamReader(webRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());
// and read the response
responseData = responseReader.ReadToEnd();
responseReader.Close();
MessageBox.Show(responseData);
}
private string ExtractViewState(string s)
{
string viewStateNameDelimiter = "__VIEWSTATE";
string valueDelimiter = "value=\"";
int viewStateNamePosition = s.IndexOf(viewStateNameDelimiter);
int viewStateValuePosition = s.IndexOf(
valueDelimiter, viewStateNamePosition
);
int viewStateStartPosition = viewStateValuePosition +
valueDelimiter.Length;
int viewStateEndPosition = s.IndexOf("\"", viewStateStartPosition);
return HttpUtility.UrlEncodeUnicode(
s.Substring(
viewStateStartPosition,
viewStateEndPosition - viewStateStartPosition
)
);
}
edit
private void LoginToSite()
{
const string LOGIN_URL = "https://admin.microsoftonline.com/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fDefault.aspx";
const string USERNAME = "<username>";
const string PASSWORD = "<password>";
// Request the login form to get the viewstate value
HttpWebRequest webRequest = WebRequest.Create(LOGIN_URL) as HttpWebRequest;
string response1 = new StreamReader(webRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd();
// Extract the viewstate value and build our POST data
string viewState = ExtractViewState(response1);
string postData = String.Format(
"__VIEWSTATE={0}&AdminCenterLoginControl$UserNameTextBox={1}&AdminCenterLoginControl$PasswordTextbox={2}&__EVENTTARGET=AdminCenterLoginControl_ActionButton",
viewState, USERNAME, PASSWORD);
// Set up the Request properties
webRequest = WebRequest.Create(LOGIN_URL) as HttpWebRequest;
webRequest.Method = "POST";
webRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
CookieContainer cookies = new CookieContainer();
webRequest.CookieContainer = cookies;
// Post back to the form
using (StreamWriter requestWriter = new StreamWriter(webRequest.GetRequestStream()))
{
requestWriter.Write(postData);
}
// Read response
string response2 = new StreamReader(webRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd();
MessageBox.Show(response2);
}
It would appear that MicrosoftOnline.com does not use Windows Live IDs (aka Passport) for login. This is a shame, since there are libraries available that make logging into LiveID pretty simple for client apps.
Your code hits the login page first, scraps cookies from the response, then attempts to navigate to the target page. This doesn't match the normal flow of user behavior. Normally, the user clicks on a link to go to a target page and the web site redirects the request to the login page if the user is not logged in. After logging in, the login page redirects back to the originally requested target page.
You can see this by looking at the login URL when you visit admin.microsoftonline.com in the browser. You are immediately redirected to the login page, but the full URL on the login page is: https://admin.microsoftonline.com/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fDefault.aspx
Note the ReturnUrl query param at the end. This tells the login page what page to redirect back to when the login is completed.
I don't know if redirect is required by the login page, but since this is the primary path for actual end user interaction (that works) and not the path your code is taking, it's something to consider. Among other things, the redirect to login/ redirect back to target technique will take care of setting the browser cookies for the target domain automatically.
p.s. I notice also that the email administration portion of Microsoft Online services uses a different login URL. From this page (http://www.microsoft.com/online/signin.aspx) clicking on the Exchange Hosted Services Administrative Center link takes you to http:admin.messaging.microsoft.com, which immediately redirects to a login url of https://sts.messaging.microsoft.com/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fDefault.aspx%3fwa%3dwsignin1.0%26wtrealm%3dhttps%253a%252f%252fadmin.messaging.microsoft.com%26wctx%3drm%253d0%2526id%253dpassive%2526ru%253d%25252f%26wct%3d2010-10-27T17%253a11%253a50Z&wa=wsignin1.0&wtrealm=https%3a%2f%2fadmin.messaging.microsoft.com&wctx=rm%3d0%26id%3dpassive%26ru%3d%252f&wct=2010-10-27T17%3a11%3a50Z
The domain name sts.messaging.microsoft.com suggests that the Exchange Hosted Services portion of Microsoft Online Services is using a Security Token Service, which suggests that this login system is capable of federated single sign on between different services. You might be able to connect to this using something like the Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) client components. Will that work with the rest of Microsoft Online Services? I don't know.
> // now we can send out cookie along with a request for the protected page
> webRequest = WebRequest.Create(TARGET_PAGE_URL) as
> HttpWebRequest;
> webRequest.CookieContainer = cookies;
> responseReader = new StreamReader(webRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());
Aren't you setting WebRequest.CookieContainer equal to the blank cookie container that you generated earlier?
Shouldn't you be doing something like:
// we don't need the contents of the response, just the cookie it issues
WebResponse response = webRequest.GetResponse();
cookies = response.cookies;
response.Close();
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string userName = textBox1.Text;
string password = textBox2.Text;
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://www.youmint.com/LoginVerification.php?name="+userName+"&pass="+password+"&agreement=true&checkvalue=true");
request.Method = "GET";
request.KeepAlive = true;
request.Headers.Add("Keep-Alive: 300");
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
Stream dataStream = response.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataStream);
string responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd();
if (responseFromServer.Equals(""))
MessageBox.Show("Successfully logged in!!");
else if (responseFromServer.Equals("1"))
MessageBox.Show("Login failed!");
request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://www.youmint.com/FreeSms.html");
response = request.GetResponse();
dataStream = response.GetResponseStream();
reader = new StreamReader(dataStream);
responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd();
/*secret code :P */
reader.Close();
dataStream.Close();
response.Close();
}
So, that's my code... The first webrequest logs into the website. It works fine in the browser and returns 1 if the login is not correct. Then the second one is a normal webrequest to a webpage of the same website. But the login is already gone and the response I get is what I get if I'm not logged in! Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong? How do I keep it alive? Do I have to use an invisible webbroswer control or something like that?
This has nothing to do with "keep alive".
You need to preserve session cookie between requests. For that you first need to enable cookies for your login request (read HttpWebRequest docs - it is a bit unobvious). Then you need to pass that cookie with all the following reuests.
Also please make use of the using()
#liho1eye is correct. Here's some more info from the HttpWebRequest page:
For security reasons, cookies are
disabled by default. If you want to
use cookies, use the CookieContainer
property to enable cookies.
You'll need to reference the HttpWebResponse.Cookies property to get the initial session token cookie.
Edit:
Here's a quick and dirty sample of making a request to a page, and transferring response cookies to the next request. Didn't do much testing or validation (so beware!) - just to give you the idea of the approach.
//this only has login/password info, you may need other parameters to trigger the appropriate action:
const string Parameters = "Login1$username=pfadmin&Login1$Password=password";
System.Net.HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)System.Net.WebRequest.Create("http://[WebApp]/Login.aspx");
req.Method = "GET";
req.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
System.Net.HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse();
//Create POST request and transfer session cookies from initial request
req = (HttpWebRequest)System.Net.WebRequest.Create("http://localhost/AdminWeb/Login.aspx");
req.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
foreach (Cookie c in resp.Cookies)
{
req.CookieContainer.Add(c);
}
req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
//...continue on with your form POST
I am running in a stupid problem. I have an method which returns initialized request resposible for loggin in on some external web site.
protected HttpWebRequest GetLoginRequest()
{
const string url = "https://someurl.com/login";
var queryParams = new ArrayList
{
String.Format("{0}={1}", "email", Email),
String.Format("{0}={1}", "password", DecryptedPassword)
};
var parameters = String.Join("&", (String[])queryParams.ToArray(typeof(String)));
var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
request.ContentLength = parameters.Length;
request.Timeout = 10000;
var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream());
streamWriter.Write(parameters);
streamWriter.Close();
return request;
}
I'm calling this method from two places in my code. First call looks like that:
var request = GetLoginRequest();
var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
And the second one has CookieContainer assigned to request:
var cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
var request = GetLoginRequest();
request.CookieContainer = cookieContainer;
var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
because I need to store CookieContainer.
The thing is that the logon is performed only in second case. In the first case i'm getting response from the login page. I've checked all the cases and both resulting requests seem identic. I would suggest that it is target site secific, but still I don't see any reason for that.
Can you please explain what is the reason, because this behavior seems pretty unobvious to me.
When you set the CookieContainer property on your request, the response is populating that CookieContainer instance with the cookies received from the executed request.
Most login mechanisms use a cookie to store the state related to the established login. I.e. in the case of Forms authentication the cookie is the container for the forms authentication ticket. The ticket is passed as the value of the forms authentication cookie with each request and is used by forms authentication, on the server, to identify an authenticated user.
In short you need a CookieContainer for each request after you login, and it needs to contain the forms authentication cookie that you received when you logged in.
Edit to clarify comment - from MSDN:
CookieContainer is null by default.
You must assign a CookieContainer
object to the property to have cookies
returned in the Cookies property of
the HttpWebResponse returned by the
GetResponse method.
For security reasons, cookies are disabled by default. If you want to
use cookies, use the CookieContainer
property to enable cookies.