Basic Authentication — HTTP Protocol

HTTP has a feature called basic authentication. It works as follows.

When you visit a specific page or site that requires authentication, you'll see an authorization window. The window is rendered by the browser and requires you to enter a name and password. I haven't seen any ways to influence the design of this window.

Usually, if you enter incorrect data, the browser will request them again. And if you click Cancel, then you'll get an error 401. Any attempt to access a page that requires basic authorization will get a 401 response. However, there's no difference between sending a form with incorrect data and clicking Cancel.

As a result, the browser renders this form when it encounters a 401 error. It works very simply: either you send the correct header (correct data), or you get a 401 error. No magic, no ways to get around it.

Let's see what data is required for such an interaction:

HTTP/1.1 401 Access Denied
WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="My Server"
Content-Length: 0

You can't log in, and you'll see Access Denied and the following header from the WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="My Server". There is a key in this header, whose value is displayed in the dialog box. It isn't used anywhere else.

After entering your username and password, the following headers will be sent:

GET /securefiles/ HTTP/1.1
Host: www.httpwatch.com
Authorization: Basic aHR0cHdhdGNoDmY=

Firstly, these are standard headers for HTTP 1.1. Secondly (and this is the most important part), the Authorization, header, which has the mandatory word Basic and an encoded phrase after the space. This phrase consists of a username and password — <username>:<password>, encoded in base64.

That's all that's needed. After sending the correct data, authentication takes place, and you can enter the site or page you have accessed.

Recommended materials

1. Basic access authentication

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