Nothing new this time around, but I thought I’ll post an entry anyway, more as a reminder for myself in case I need it again.
Every now and then, you would need to invoke a web service end point using basic authentication. I am sure modern frameworks, such as JAX-WS (MKyong 2010), can do this easily.
However, in the unfortunate case you ever find that you would need to manually do this, the formula is to add a header entry as follows (Wikipedia 2012).
| Header | Value |
Authorization |
Basic (followed by username + ‘:’ + password, encoded in base64) |
Assuming that the end point service you would like to invoke has the credentials of username being adumbledore and password being Sherbet Lemon (if you don’t understand, suggest read Harry Potter), then first thing you would want to do is to structure it like this:
adumbledore:Sherbet Lemon
Then, use base64 encoder to encode it. For example, google would suggest this.
Then all you need to do is to add the Authorization header. See the image below.
References:
MKyong, 2010, Application Authentication with JAX-WS, accessed 14 May 2012.
Opinionatedgeek.com, 2012, Base 64 encoder, accessed 14 May 2012.
Wikipedia, 2012, Basic access authentication, accessed 14 May 2012.
dwuysan 