Apache HttpClient (4.1 and newer): how to do basic authentication?

Question

How do I add basic authentication for the default client of the httpClient library? I have seen examples where they use client.getCredentialProvider(), however I think all of this methods are for library version 4.0.1 or 3.x. Is there a new example of how to do this? Thanks a lot.

Solution 1

We do basic authentication with HttpClient, but we do not use CredentialProvider. Here's the code:

HttpClient client = factory.getHttpClient(); //or any method to get a client instance
Credentials credentials = new UsernamePasswordCredentials(username, password);
client.getState().setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, credentials);

UPDATE: A stated in the comments, the HttpClient.getState() methos is available in version 3.x of the API. However, newer versions of the API doesn't support that method.

Solution 2

CredentialsProvider credentialsProvider = new BasicCredentialsProvider();
credentialsProvider.setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, 
    new UsernamePasswordCredentials("username", "password"));
CloseableHttpClient httpClient = 
    HttpClientBuilder.create().setDefaultCredentialsProvider(credentialsProvider).build();

Solution 3

Didn't you download the example from the website?And examples are here: httpcomponents-client-4.1.3\examples\org\apache\http\examples\client

As for https,Just see ClientAuthentication.java:

/*
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 *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 *  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 *  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 *  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 *  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 *  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
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 * <http://www.apache.org/>.
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package org.apache.http.examples.client;

import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.auth.AuthScope;
import org.apache.http.auth.UsernamePasswordCredentials;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;

/**
 * A simple example that uses HttpClient to execute an HTTP request against
 * a target site that requires user authentication.
 */
public class ClientAuthentication {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        try {
            httpclient.getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(
                    new AuthScope("localhost", 443),
                    new UsernamePasswordCredentials("username", "password"));

            HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("https://localhost/protected");

            System.out.println("executing request" + httpget.getRequestLine());
            HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
            HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

            System.out.println("----------------------------------------");
            System.out.println(response.getStatusLine());
            if (entity != null) {
                System.out.println("Response content length: " + entity.getContentLength());
            }
            EntityUtils.consume(entity);
        } finally {
            // When HttpClient instance is no longer needed,
            // shut down the connection manager to ensure
            // immediate deallocation of all system resources
            httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
        }
    }
}

So in short :

DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
httpclient.getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(
                    new AuthScope("localhost", 443),
                    new UsernamePasswordCredentials("username", "password"));

Solution 4

Another modern option for 4.3 is to use the Fluent extension:

Executor executor = Executor.newInstance()
        .auth(new HttpHost("somehost"), "username", "password")
        .auth(new HttpHost("securehost", 443, "https"), "username", "password") // https example
        .auth(new HttpHost("myproxy", 8080), "username", "password")
        .authPreemptive(new HttpHost("myproxy", 8080));

String content = executor.execute(Request.Get("http://somehost/"))
        .returnContent().asString();

Solution 5

DefaultHttpClient has getCredentialsProvider() but HttpClient doesn't. You need to declare DefaultHttpClient client = ... instead of HttpClient client = ...

View more solutions

Comments

[ok2c]

Please see hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/tutorial/html/… hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/examples.html

[Erich]

This is the best example I've found anywhere... way better than the apache documentation : stackoverflow.com/a/4328694/967980

[Spanky Quigman]

That's great, but HttpClient.getState() doesn't exist in the 4.x code. This is only applicable for 3.1 and earlier.

[artbristol]

This is the best answer for v4.3. Just be careful that it will send the credentials preemptively to all URLs.

[artbristol]

DefaultHttpClient is now deprecated in 4.3, despite only being introduced in 4.0!

[Xdg]

DefaultHttpClient is deprecated in 4.x. You can use an example hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/httpclient/examples/o‌​rg/… from hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/examples.html .

[Barett]

To solve for artbristol's concern, change the AuthScope.

[Olivier]

Having struggle a bit to make this work on an https connection, one need no to forget to add port and scheme on HttpHost (new HttpHost("somehost", 443, "https"), as default port and scheme are 80, http.

[Marco Altieri]

DefaultHttpClient has been deprecated only in 4.3. It is not deprecated in 4.1

[Kartik Chugh]

Am I the only one confused as to why this is the accepted answer?

[Robert Reiz]

What is the full import path for Executer? I'm getting an error for .newInstance(). Compiler says that doesn't exist. Which version of JDK are you using?

[Barett]

org.apache.http.client.fluent.Executor hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/fluent-hc/apidocs/org‌​/…

[bmaupin]

@artbristol Only if you have preemptive auth configured, right? "HttpClient does not support preemptive authentication out of the box"

[artbristol]

@bmaupin yes I think you're right. This will send the credentials to any server that demands them, but not otherwise.