Force the browser to send some HTTP request header - gwt

I need to include some secure (BASIC authentication) application.
when I open the application URL in the browser, the browser asks me to enter your credentials ...
what I know is that:
The browser ask the server to get
some URL -- the url of the app
The server checks the request header
for the Authentication header and
didn't find it
The server sends 401 to the
browser back
The browser interpret this response
code into a message dialog that
shows to me asking me to enter the
username/password to send back to
the server in the Authentication
request header
So far... so good, I can write some page (in JSP) that send this required http request header to the request that is calling this page..
So I'll call this application through my page..
The problem here is, this application (in fact a GWT application) contains a reference to some Javascript and CSS files that is coming from the server that hosts this application. the application page that I import looks like:
<html>
<link href="http://application_host/cssfile.css" />
<link href="http://application_host/javascriptfile.js" />
.....
</html>
So, again I found the application asks me for the authentication crenditals for the css and js files!
I am thinking of many solutions but don't know the applicability of each
One solution is to ask the browser
(via Javascript) to send the request
header (Authentication) when he
asks the server for the js and css
files
please give me your opinions about that... and any other suggestions will be very welcomed.
Thanks.

I think you're running into some weirdness with how your server is configured. Authentication happens in context of a authentication realm. Your assets should either be in the same authentication realm as your page, or (more likely) should not require authentication at all. The browser should be caching credentials for the given realm, and not prompt for them again.
See the protocol example on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication

Judging from your story, something tells me your problem is with the authentication method itsef. Not how to implement it. Why do you want to bother with the request header so much?
As far as i know, you can configure your container (ie Tomcat) to force http authentication for certain urls. Your container will make sure that authentication has taken place. No need to set http headers yourself whatsoever.
Perhaps you can explain a bit better what you are trying to achieve, instead of telling implementation details?

Why css & js files are kept in protected area of server? You need to place files into public area of your server. If you don't have public area, so you nead to prpvide for it. how to do it depends from serverside software architecture & configuration.

Related

User redirection to the application root path in UI5

From an UI5 application I send a request to a server-side via Fetch API and on the server-side I send a response with a redirect to the UI5-app root directory:
import {constants as httpConstants} from "http2";
res.statusCode = httpConstants.HTTP_STATUS_MOVED_PERMANENTLY;
res.header("Location", "/");
The UI5 application gets the response but browser doesn't redirect an user. The only way to redirect an user to the app root is:
sap.m.URLHelper.redirect("/", false);
Is there any way to force a browser to redirect an user to an UI5-app root without using sap.m.URLHelper? I want to make as hard as possible the prevention of redirection, e.g. with a help of browser's DevTools.
UI5 routing is currently using the # part (called fragment or anchor).
This is client side part of the URL and unknown to the server.
You have maybe luck with some backend technologies and browser, but in general this will not work.
As DevTools can manipulate anyways anything… Make sure backend is secure. UI can always be change by the user, no matter what obscure security measurements you make up.
You can try using the HashChanger to route it back to login page!
Once your validation from server is done, use below code!
jQuery.sap.require("sap.ui.core.routing.HashChanger");
sap.ui.core.routing.HashChanger.getInstance().replaceHash("");

Check if Sailjs backend is getting a legit req from the frontend without any authentication system

I do not want my users to authenticate. But I do not anyone to steal my data. So my goal is to only serve the people who make a req from the front end of the app. How can I do this ?
Is there a built in function that I'm missing ? I know that there are session id generated, but not sure how to incorporate the session id to this situation.
Thanks
By using the term "front end" I would assume that you have a client requesting data in the form of JSON/XML or HTML templates. My first suggestion to get your answer is to be much more descriptive in your question. It is very hard to answer without knowing how your client is designed.
Assuming your client is written in html/js and run in a browser then I would suggest that you serve a static file (in the form of a .js file or a <script></script> tag inside an html file) that generates a token. You can pass this token back to your server for validation on every request for data. This means that only your app (front-end) can be the only thing that requests data from your api (back-end).

PHPStorm REST Client - Basic Authentication

I have written my own API which requires basic authentication, such as:
user:james
pass:1111
I can call resources using urls such as:
http://api.james.com/myapi/orders/get
I wish to be able to use the REST client in PHPStorm but I cannot work out how to send my authentication details. Does anyone know how to do this? Do you have to setup a Proxy server, or can you pass the authentication somehow in the URI above?
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards
James
For usage Basic Auth you will need send header 'Authorization', for example:
Authorization: Basic amFuc29uQG1haWwucnU6MTIzNDU2
Value of this header you can get from debug console of your browser (firebug in FireFox or developer tools in Chrome). Start GET request from your browser, when you will need authorize - do it. Than open debug console 'network' tab and try this request one more time.
Now you will find in headers new one 'Authorization', that formed by browser when you was authorized.
Just copy content of this header and use it in PhpStorm REST-client.

MVC 2 how to go to url without redirecting?

Is there a way to go to a url without redirecting to it? Basically I want to call a url from within my application in the background so it can logout a reliant party.
Appreciate the help.
What you are trying to do does not compete us to answer as it's directly related to your own Authentication implementation.
A normal ASP.NET Authentication based in Forms Authentication you will need always to lunch the url from a browser as it is there that relies the Authentication given.
You can give yourself a try by opening your website and log in into it, after that, open other browser brand (not browser window) into your application url... you will see that you also need to login again as the Authentication is hook up into the first browser.
It's Up to you as Application Architect to make this by implementing another way of authentication, normally in this kind'a cases, this happend when consuming web services where you need a authentication code first (given by calling a Login method) and that code is always needed to be appended to the body or header of any call to the system.
This way you can easily remove the authentication code and all procedure calls will fail.
As said, this is not up to us, it's up to you to create the correct Authentication Layer.
from your comment
it's as simple as using WebClient object
WebClient client = new WebClient ();
string reply = client.DownloadString (address);
If you wish to transfer to a new url request you can still use
Server.TransferRequest()
The problem with this is that by not using a redirect the browsers address bar will not reflect the fact that you have moved their request to another URL.
To have the client visit a given URL in the background you should either make an AJAX call to it or possibly have an image with an src of your logout url (though you'd have to make sure that you return a FileResult of your image too). This is how most analytics packages call to their relevant urls in the background.
The problem here though is that neither is 100% reliable, turn off javascript or images on your browser and these results fail.
From what you've said I think what you're after is for a user to continue to any of a variety of pages rather than a specific logout page. If this is indeed the case your best solution is in fact a double redirect.
Have your application redirect to your logout url but before hand put the url of the page you want them to go to into tempdata. Then in the actionresult for the logout page you can do your logging out as required and return a redirect to the url from tempdata.

Why does Fiddler break my site's redirects?

Why does using Fiddler break my site sometimes on page transitions.
After a server side redirect -- in the http response (as found in Fiddler) I get this:
Object moved
Object moved to here.
The site is an ASP.NET 1.1 / VB.NET 1.1 [sic] site.
Why doesnt Fiddler just go there for me? i dont get it.
I'm fine with this issue when developing but I'm worried that other proxy servers might cause this issue for 'real customers'. Im not even clear exactly what is going on.
That's actually what Response.Redirect does. It sends a 302 - Object moved response to the user-agent. The user-agent then automatically goes to the URL specified in the 302 response. If you need a real server-side redirect without round-tripping to the client, try Server.Transfer.
If you merely constructed the request using the request builder, you're not going to see Fiddler automatically follow the returned redirect.
In contrast, if you are using IE or another browser, it will generally check the redirect header and follow it.
For IE specifically, I believe there's a timing corner case where the browser will fail to follow the redirect in obscure situations. You can often fix this by clicking Tools / Fiddler Options, and enabling both the "Server" and "Client" socket reuse settings.
Thanks user15310, it works with Server.Transfer
Server.Transfer("newpage.aspx", true);
Firstly, transferring to another page using Server.Transfer conserves server resources. Instead of telling the browser to redirect, it simply changes the "focus" on the Web server and transfers the request. This means you don't get quite as many HTTP requests coming through, which therefore eases the pressure on your Web server and makes your applications run faster.
But watch out: because the "transfer" process can work on only those sites running on the server, you can't use Server.Transfer to send the user to an external site. Only Response.Redirect can do that.
Secondly, Server.Transfer maintains the original URL in the browser. This can really help streamline data entry techniques, although it may make for confusion when debugging.
That's not all: The Server.Transfer method also has a second parameter—"preserveForm". If you set this to True, using a statement such as Server.Transfer("WebForm2.aspx", True), the existing query string and any form variables will still be available to the page you are transferring to.
Read more here:
http://www.developer.com/net/asp/article.php/3299641/ServerTransfer-Vs-ResponseRedirect.htm