[Wtr-general] This is really close to fixing another access problem I hope Re: [question] access denied OLE error code:80070005

[Chris McMahon]

On 5/8/06, Bret Pettichord <bret at pettichord.com> wrote:
> This might fix your problem depending on the actual code that failed. (Show
> us more of your code if you need more help.)
>
>   class Watir::IE
>     attr_accessor error_checkers
>   end
>   ie.error_checkers = []


I have been struggling mightily to code HTTP Basic Authentication into
Watir, and failing, but this provides a tantalizing :) hint of an
approach I haven't tried yet.

Basic Authentication, in a nutshell, is when the server returns a 401
Authorization Required error to the browser.  The browser throws up a
javascript logon box prompting for username/password.  The combination
user/pass is minimally encoded, and then used for subsequent GETs and
POSTs in the same domain.

However, a client that already knows the encoded user/pass should be
able to bypass the logon box by adding the appropriate "Authorization:
Basic" header to the request  for the frame, link, inline image, or
whatever.  So I hacked watir.rb's goto() method like this:

        def goto(url)
            #@ie.navigate(url)
           @ie.navigate(url,nil,nil,nil,"Authorization: Basic
YFoObAr46bG1ubw==\n")
            wait()
            sleep 0.2
            return @down_load_time
        end

This actually works for the main page, which is very cool.

However, now IE produces a logon popup  box for the iframe on the
page.  If I dismiss that box, I get the logon popup box when I try to
follow the link on the page.  IE doesn't put the right Authorization
headers on subsequent requests.

So I tried hacking a proxy to add the headers whenever IE calls out. 
I add the headers, but I'm doing something wrong, because the server
doesn't recognize them properly, and I still get the popup boxes:

   def handler(req, res)
      add_hash = { "authorization" => "Basic YFoObAr6bG1ubw==" }
        p "----------------Request Headers----------------"
        req.header.merge!(add_hash)
req.header.each { |key,value| puts "#{key} is #{value}" }
etc...
end.

So after that long-winded explanation:  does anyone think that
attr_accessor in something like that code

>   class Watir::IE
>     attr_accessor error_checkers
>   end
>   ie.error_checkers = []

would be capable of adding Basic Auth headers correctly?
-Chris