Connect to password protected sites

[Marton Istvan]

hi all!

I want to connect some sites with username and password. I have been looking for the solution a few days but I can't find it. I found some useful information, but i can't solve the problem.

Here is one example, the others are similar. (with other sites)

There is one forum : logintest.forumotion.com
and a topic protected by username and password : http://logintest.forumotion.net/your-first-forum-f1/testtopic-1-t2.htm

If you have an account (you're a member), you can see the topic. I have registered, i have an account. (I'm the admin in that forum, I made it)
Here is the code which I'm trying

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

public class Test {  
    public static void main(String[] args) {  
        try {  
            Authenticator.setDefault(new BasicAuthenticator("User1","valamivalami"));  
            URL url = new URL("http://logintest.forumotion.net/your-first-forum-f1/testtopic-1-t2.htm");  
      
            HttpURLConnection httpConnection = (HttpURLConnection)url.openConnection(); 
            //httpConnection.addRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)");
            httpConnection.connect();  
              
            BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(httpConnection.getInputStream()));  
            String line;  
            while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {  
                System.out.println(line);  
            }  
            in.close();  
            httpConnection.disconnect();  
        } catch (Exception e) {  
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }  
    }  
}  
class BasicAuthenticator extends Authenticator {  
    private String username;  
    private String password;  
    public BasicAuthenticator(String username, String password) {  
        super();  
        this.username = username;  
        this.password = password;  
    }  
    public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {     
        return new PasswordAuthentication(username,password.toCharArray());  
    }  
}

Every time when I try it, I can't get the source of the topic. I get a login page source. What's the problem with it?

[Ulf Dittmer]

Welcome to JavaRanch.

That page doesn't use Basic Authentication (which is what your code does), it uses form authentication. You'll need to post the account info to the proper URL, after which a cookie will probably be set which must then be sent in all subsequent page accesses.

I recommend to use a library like jWebUnit (or HtmlUnit) for programmatic access to web sites; that's generally simpler than using the URL and URLConnection classes.

[Marton Istvan]

thanks! I'll try it!