Trying to use 'Postman' and having trouble setting Basic access authentication Headers

Question

I have an API endpoint that I am trying to test with the google app: 'Postman'. I need to set the headers which use 'Basic authentication'. I am not sure what should go in 'Header: Value'

This is how the admin said the headers should be set: "The head value is the word 'Basic' followed by your org name and your Api key separated by a colon and base64 encoded."

I have tried numerous things but I am not getting it quite right. The error I get is "Message: Token not set".

Solution 1

Your header field should look like this:

Header : Authorization

Value : Basic base64('YourOrgName:YourAPIKEY');

You can get the base64 value of your string here:

https://www.base64encode.org/

For example, for my-org-name:123key4api it should be bXktb3JnLW5hbWU6MTIza2V5NGFwaQ==.

The complete header would look like:

Authorization: Basic bXktb3JnLW5hbWU6MTIza2V5NGFwaQ==

Solution 2

Looks like you are facing trouble in getting the base64 value. Well you can make use of in-built function in Javscript as below.

Simply run below code in any JS runtime, (Simplest would be - open console tab in chrome developer tool)

"username:password!" // Here I used basic Auth string format

// Encode the plain string to base64
btoa("username:password!"); // output: "dXNlcm5hbWU6cGFzc3dvcmQh"


// Decode the base64 to plain string
atob("dXNlcm5hbWU6cGFzc3dvcmQh"); // output: "username:password!"

Solution 3

It's 2019 and with Version 6.5.3 we have a separate tab to use different kind of Authentication techniques.

For basic auth you just have to give username and password after selecting "Basic Auth" under Authentication tab

Solution 4

Putting it all together in a pre-request script (and then use the access_token for oauth).

    var Base64={_keyStr:"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=",encode:function(e){var t="";var n,r,i,s,o,u,a;var f=0;e=Base64._utf8_encode(e);while(f<e.length){n=e.charCodeAt(f++);r=e.charCodeAt(f++);i=e.charCodeAt(f++);s=n>>2;o=(n&3)<<4|r>>4;u=(r&15)<<2|i>>6;a=i&63;if(isNaN(r)){u=a=64}else if(isNaN(i)){a=64}t=t+this._keyStr.charAt(s)+this._keyStr.charAt(o)+this._keyStr.charAt(u)+this._keyStr.charAt(a)}return t},decode:function(e){var t="";var n,r,i;var s,o,u,a;var f=0;e=e.replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9\+\/\=]/g,"");while(f<e.length){s=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));o=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));u=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));a=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));n=s<<2|o>>4;r=(o&15)<<4|u>>2;i=(u&3)<<6|a;t=t+String.fromCharCode(n);if(u!=64){t=t+String.fromCharCode(r)}if(a!=64){t=t+String.fromCharCode(i)}}t=Base64._utf8_decode(t);return t},_utf8_encode:function(e){e=e.replace(/\r\n/g,"\n");var t="";for(var n=0;n<e.length;n++){var r=e.charCodeAt(n);if(r<128){t+=String.fromCharCode(r)}else if(r>127&&r<2048){t+=String.fromCharCode(r>>6|192);t+=String.fromCharCode(r&63|128)}else{t+=String.fromCharCode(r>>12|224);t+=String.fromCharCode(r>>6&63|128);t+=String.fromCharCode(r&63|128)}}return t},_utf8_decode:function(e){var t="";var n=0;var r=c1=c2=0;while(n<e.length){r=e.charCodeAt(n);if(r<128){t+=String.fromCharCode(r);n++}else if(r>191&&r<224){c2=e.charCodeAt(n+1);t+=String.fromCharCode((r&31)<<6|c2&63);n+=2}else{c2=e.charCodeAt(n+1);c3=e.charCodeAt(n+2);t+=String.fromCharCode((r&15)<<12|(c2&63)<<6|c3&63);n+=3}}return t}};

    var userPass = pm.environment.get("oauth_key") + ':' + pm.environment.get("oauth_secret")

    pm.sendRequest({
          url:  pm.environment.get("basepath")+"/oauthpreview/token", 
          method: 'POST',
          header: {
            'Accept': 'application/json',
            'cache-control':"no-cache",
            'Authorization' : 'Basic ' + Base64.encode(userPass),
            'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
          },
          body: {
              mode: 'urlencoded',
              urlencoded: [
                {key: "grant_type", value: "client_credentials", disabled: false}
            ]
          }
      }, function (err, res) {
            pm.environment.set("access_token", res.json().access_token);
      })

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