Access https content after login in android

Question

I need to access to the content of an external website that goes over https protocol. This website shows your classes schedule, and I want to parse this information to adapt it in my app.

Well, I was thinking about making a connection to the login page, using httpPost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs)); where I put the username and password. And then, making another connection to the schedule page, as I should be logged in. But the second response shows the html from the login page, so I guess this won't work this way, and I will need to have some cookies that I'll have to pass through the second request to be able to access.

Here is the code I'm using:

public class ConexionIntranet extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String>  {
private String sUserName = "username...";
private String sPassword = "password...";

protected String doInBackground(String... urls) {
    try {
        InputStream is = null;
        HostnameVerifier hostnameVerifier = org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory.ALLOW_ALL_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER;

        DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();

        SchemeRegistry registry = new SchemeRegistry();
        SSLSocketFactory socketFactory = SSLSocketFactory.getSocketFactory();
        socketFactory.setHostnameVerifier((X509HostnameVerifier) hostnameVerifier);
        registry.register(new Scheme("https", socketFactory, 443));
        SingleClientConnManager mgr = new SingleClientConnManager(client.getParams(), registry);
        DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(mgr, client.getParams());

        // Set verifier      
        HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultHostnameVerifier(hostnameVerifier);

        // Example send http request
        final String url = urls[0];
        HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
        HttpPost httpPost2 = new HttpPost("https://url...");
        List<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>(2);
        nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("user", sUserName));
        nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("pass", sPassword));
        try {
            httpPost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
            httpPost2.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));

        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e1) {
            Log.d("datos", "Error: "+e1.getMessage());
        }
        HttpResponse res;
        String result;
        try {
            res = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
            Log.d("datos", "Respuesta post: "+res.toString());

            res = httpClient.execute(httpPost2);
            is=res.getEntity().getContent();

            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is,"iso-8859-1"),8);
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            String line = null;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                sb.append(line + "\n");
            }
            is.close();
            result=sb.toString();
            Log.d("datos", "Respuesta: "+result);
        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            Log.d("datos", "Error: "+e.getMessage());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.d("datos", "Error: "+e.getMessage());
        }           
        return null;
    } catch (Exception e) {
        Log.d("datos", "Error: "+e.getMessage());
        return null;
    }
}}

Any idea about how to solve this? Maybe it's possible to access the content and log in at the same time in just one request?

Thank you in advance for your time!

Cheers.

Have you checked if the login really works (e.g. if session-cookies are returned in the response)? — Robert, Dec 05 '12 at 13:38
The html response you received must have meant that there is an error on the page you requested the data from. Try and extract the response value so you can know what to do next to fix the problem. — kabuto178, Dec 05 '12 at 13:42
mmm, I'm looking at the response I get for the first request (to the login page) and it's just the html from the login page, I'm gonna try to see if I'm receiving any cookie at all. I'm really a newbie in this kind of connection stuff, so I'm not completely sure if I'm in the right way to solve it. — ivanhoe_gg, Dec 05 '12 at 13:50
I had great difficulty using the `HttpClient` to login to an https site. In the end I used an `HttpsUrlConnection` instead. Have a look at my [question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4221420/httppost-works-in-java-project-not-in-android) for an example where I read out the cookies from the login response so that they can be used later when requesting secure resources. — dave.c, Dec 05 '12 at 14:02
I will have a look at it and post results. Thank you very much! — ivanhoe_gg, Dec 05 '12 at 14:16
Mmm, I'm looking at the question you asked and how you solved it but I don't totally get how HttpsUrlConnection works, so I am not being able to use it properly. — ivanhoe_gg, Dec 05 '12 at 16:38

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 05 '12 at 13:52

You need to use a HttpContext and reuse it on subsequent http calls. The context will store the cookies at a cookie store (see javadoc for CookieStore), and will have them available for the next calls.

First, define the HttpContext:

DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
CookieStore cookieStore = new BasicCookieStore();
HttpContext httpContext = new BasicHttpContext();
httpContext.setAttribute(ClientContext.COOKIE_STORE, cookieStore);

Then, use it at your calls:

    HttpResponse res;
    String result;
    try {
        res = httpClient.execute(httpPost, httpContext);
        Log.d("datos", "Respuesta post: "+res.toString());

        res = httpClient.execute(httpPost2, httpContext);
        is=res.getEntity().getContent();

        /* rest of the code */

    } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        Log.d("datos", "Error: "+e.getMessage());
    } catch (IOException e) {
        Log.d("datos", "Error: "+e.getMessage());
    }

Thanks for your help. When I print the second response, it is still showing the login page : S — ivanhoe_gg, Dec 05 '12 at 14:03

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 06 '12 at 18:19

Well, I finnally got a right solution using HttpsURLConnection. HttpClient seems to be deprecated:

I'll leave the code here, maybe it helps someone having the same issue:

public class ConexionIntranet extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String>  {
    private String sUserName = "user";
    private String sPassword = "password";
    private String urlLogin = "https://web.com/login";
    private String urlSchedule = "https://web.com/service";
    private String urlHost = "https://web.com/";
    private String resultado = "";

    protected String doInBackground(String... urls) {
        try {
            // Recuperamos los parámetros relativos a las urls así como user y pass introducidos por el usuario
            for(int i=0; i<urls.length; i++){
                if(i==0) urlLogin = urls[i];
                if(i==1) urlSchedule = urls[i];
                if(i==2) sUserName = urls[i];
                if(i==3) sPassword = urls[i];
                if(i==4) urlHost = urls[i];
            }
            HttpsURLConnection urlc = null;  
            DataOutputStream dataout = null;
            BufferedReader in = null;

            // Generamos el primer request, de tipo GET a la web de la intranet
            // En esta petición definimos que no siga redirecciones. Esto es debido a que al no tener cookie
            // la conexión lo toma como si no aceptara cookies y entrará en un bucle de dirección
            // saltando una excepción por exceder el número de redirecciones.
            // De esta forma, guardamos la cookie que nos asigna el response header y es la que emplearemos
            // en las sucesivas peticiones.
            URL urlPreLog = new URL(urlHost);
            HttpsURLConnection.setFollowRedirects(false);
            urlc = (HttpsURLConnection) urlPreLog.openConnection();
            // DoOutput a false para indicar que no es tipo POST
            urlc.setDoOutput(false);
            urlc.setRequestMethod("GET");
            // Imprimimos el código de respuesta recibido
            Log.d("datos", "Codigo respuesta: "+urlc.getResponseCode());
            // Obtenemos la cookie que nos han asignado.
            Map<String, List<String>> mapa = urlc.getHeaderFields();
            String newCookie = "";
            if(mapa!=null){
                Log.d("datos", "Recupera el mapa");
                List<String> list = mapa.get("Set-Cookie");         
                if((list != null)&&(list.size()>0)){
                    Log.d("datos", "Recupera la lista");
                    newCookie = list.get(0).substring(0,list.get(0).indexOf("path")).trim();
                }
            } 
            Log.d("datos", "Cookie: "+newCookie);
            //Desconectamos
            urlc.disconnect();




            // Generamos un segundo request, de tipo POST, a la página de login de la intranet.
            // Es aquí donde realizamos el login, por medio de los datos de output que se envían a la conexión
            // https establecida.
            // La cookie empleada es la recuperada anteriormente.
            URL urlLog = new URL(urlLogin);
            // Volvemos a habilitar la redirección
            HttpsURLConnection.setFollowRedirects(true);
            urlc = (HttpsURLConnection) urlLog.openConnection();
            urlc.setRequestMethod("POST");
            urlc.setDoOutput(true);
            urlc.setDoInput(true);
            urlc.setUseCaches(false);
            urlc.setAllowUserInteraction(false);
            urlc.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
            urlc.setRequestProperty("Cookie",newCookie);
            urlc.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Chrome");
            // Escribimos los datos de output que llevan entre otros el usuario y la contraseña
            String output = "accion="+URLEncoder.encode("validar", HTTP.UTF_8)+"&user="+URLEncoder.encode(sUserName, HTTP.UTF_8)
                    +"&pass="+ URLEncoder.encode(sPassword, HTTP.UTF_8)+"&conectar="+URLEncoder.encode("Conectar", HTTP.UTF_8);
            dataout = new DataOutputStream(urlc.getOutputStream());
            // Al hacer el writeBytes se produce la operación POST
            dataout.writeBytes(output);
            // Imprimimos el código de respuesta obtenido
            Log.d("datos", "Codigo respuesta: "+urlc.getResponseCode());
            // Desconectamos
            urlc.disconnect();




            // Generamos la última petición, de tipo GET a la página del horario de la intranet.
            URL urlSche = new URL(urlSchedule);
            urlc = (HttpsURLConnection) urlSche.openConnection();
            urlc.setRequestMethod("GET");
            urlc.setDoInput(true);
            urlc.setUseCaches(false);
            urlc.setAllowUserInteraction(false);
            urlc.setRequestProperty("Cookie", newCookie);
            urlc.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Chrome");
            in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(urlc.getInputStream(), Charset.forName("ISO-8859-15")),8096);
            // Imprimimos el código de respuesta obtenido
            Log.d("datos", "Codigo respuesta: "+urlc.getResponseCode());
            String response;
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            // Se guarda el código html de la respuesta
            while ((response = in.readLine()) != null) {
                sb.append(response + "\n");
                Log.d("datos", response); 
            }
            resultado = sb.toString();
            //Desconectamos y cerramos el stream de entrada
            urlc.disconnect();
            in.close();
        } catch (ProtocolException e) {
            Log.d("datos", "Error de protocolo: "+e.getMessage());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.d("datos", "Error de E/S: "+e.getMessage());
        } catch (Exception e){
            Log.d("datos", "Excepcion: "+e.getMessage());
        }
        return resultado;
    }
}

Access https content after login in android

2 Answers2