Curl –User
What does ‘–user’ mean with curl – Stack Overflow
I’m working with an API and I have to send a POST request. I know how to set a header (-H) and (-d) is the body, but what is “–user”.
If I submit this with Postman, or in a text editor with axios or just regular XMLRequest, where do I add this?
The docs say it is for regular auth.
curl -X POST -H “Content-Type: application/json” \
–user “
-d ‘{“grant_type”: “client_credentials”, “scope”: “public”}’ \…
asked Mar 29 ’16 at 18:34
5
Late to the party, but here goes…
You can use curl with the -v (verbose) parameter to see the headers sent. You will then see that the information provided with –user is transformed into a header, such as:
Authorization: Basic YWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuc2VzYW1l
The text after the Basic keyword is a base64 encoded text string of the username:password combination provided with the –user parameter
To manually generate the base64 encoded credentials on Linux, you can simply call:
echo -n “username:password” | base64 -w0
For windows, save the “username:password” to a file, then use to create a base64 encoded file:
certutil -encode
To test this end to end, you can remove –user username:password and substitute with –header Authorization: Basic YWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuc2VzYW1l and it will still authenticate just fine.
In summary, to do this manually without curl, you would need to base64 encode username:password combination. You would then need to set the HTTP Authorization header with the type as Basic along with the base64 encoded string.
answered Jul 18 ’20 at 12:37
JahmicJahmic9, 8519 gold badges55 silver badges71 bronze badges
–user parameter in curl used for server authentication. So if you don’t define authentication type via other parameters like –digest or –negotiate, it means USER parameter for basic authentication, it also could be combined with:PASSWORD chunk to set a password as well. The full answer on your question depends on what kind authentication is used behind API you are sending request to, and maybe curl would not be enough for it, as it support a limited set of authentication schemes…
answered Mar 29 ’16 at 19:59
–user (or -u) in curl provides a basic auth to your request.
In Postman you can achieve the same result with a choice in Authorization tab.
–user “
Type: Basic Auth
Username: client_id
Password: client_secret
answered Apr 1 ’20 at 10:01
Davide PedronDavide Pedron4331 gold badge4 silver badges12 bronze badges
Specify the user name and password to use for server authentication. If you simply specify the user name, curl will prompt for a password.
If your curl request does not have any — user, then
server that requires authentication sends back a 401 response code and an associated WWW-Authenticate: header that lists all the authentication methods that the server supports.
< HTTP/1. 1 401
< WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="oauth2/client"
Then you will know the server is using Basic authentication
You can add --basic to explicitly tell it is Basic authentication
Please refer to HTTP authentication for more information
answered Mar 27 '18 at 5:15
sendon1982sendon19827, 67246 silver badges38 bronze badges
Sometimes (depending on server implementation) the --user will negotiate a digest authenticated session. The headers for digest users are a one-time use. I believe a request to the server will first fail with a 401, but include a WWW-Authenticate response, including the digest realm, and the nonce secret. With these, a second request can be made with a new header Authorization value.
example:
Authorization: Digest username="LXAIQKBC", realm="MMS Public API", nonce="rE3sYnLXEhVMbh72JyUK7kfLIb+bAbKj", uri="/api/atlas/v1. 0/groups", cnonce="YTVhM4YwMDB3ZjZjMTkxbCNiODA1ODnxZDFjOGMyMzE=", nc=00000001, qop=auth, response="7a5fcb8e4f92a665315bf62cdd87a67d", algorithm="MD5"
answered Sep 20 at 23:47
barrypickerbarrypicker8, 4647 gold badges58 silver badges71 bronze badges
As an addition to Jahmic's answer, Nodejs programmers can do this to convert to base64 string:
const cryptoJS = require("crypto-js");
const base64Str = ((`${username}:${password}`))
answered Feb 25 at 6:54
1
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged authentication post curl or ask your own question.
What does ‘–user’ mean with curl – Stack Overflow
I’m working with an API and I have to send a POST request. I know how to set a header (-H) and (-d) is the body, but what is “–user”.
If I submit this with Postman, or in a text editor with axios or just regular XMLRequest, where do I add this?
The docs say it is for regular auth.
curl -X POST -H “Content-Type: application/json” \
–user “
-d ‘{“grant_type”: “client_credentials”, “scope”: “public”}’ \…
asked Mar 29 ’16 at 18:34
5
Late to the party, but here goes…
You can use curl with the -v (verbose) parameter to see the headers sent. You will then see that the information provided with –user is transformed into a header, such as:
Authorization: Basic YWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuc2VzYW1l
The text after the Basic keyword is a base64 encoded text string of the username:password combination provided with the –user parameter
To manually generate the base64 encoded credentials on Linux, you can simply call:
echo -n “username:password” | base64 -w0
For windows, save the “username:password” to a file, then use to create a base64 encoded file:
certutil -encode
To test this end to end, you can remove –user username:password and substitute with –header Authorization: Basic YWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuc2VzYW1l and it will still authenticate just fine.
In summary, to do this manually without curl, you would need to base64 encode username:password combination. You would then need to set the HTTP Authorization header with the type as Basic along with the base64 encoded string.
answered Jul 18 ’20 at 12:37
JahmicJahmic9, 8519 gold badges55 silver badges71 bronze badges
–user parameter in curl used for server authentication. So if you don’t define authentication type via other parameters like –digest or –negotiate, it means USER parameter for basic authentication, it also could be combined with:PASSWORD chunk to set a password as well. The full answer on your question depends on what kind authentication is used behind API you are sending request to, and maybe curl would not be enough for it, as it support a limited set of authentication schemes…
answered Mar 29 ’16 at 19:59
–user (or -u) in curl provides a basic auth to your request.
In Postman you can achieve the same result with a choice in Authorization tab.
–user “
Type: Basic Auth
Username: client_id
Password: client_secret
answered Apr 1 ’20 at 10:01
Davide PedronDavide Pedron4331 gold badge4 silver badges12 bronze badges
Specify the user name and password to use for server authentication. If you simply specify the user name, curl will prompt for a password.
If your curl request does not have any — user, then
server that requires authentication sends back a 401 response code and an associated WWW-Authenticate: header that lists all the authentication methods that the server supports.
< HTTP/1. 1 401
< WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="oauth2/client"
Then you will know the server is using Basic authentication
You can add --basic to explicitly tell it is Basic authentication
Please refer to HTTP authentication for more information
answered Mar 27 '18 at 5:15
sendon1982sendon19827, 67246 silver badges38 bronze badges
Sometimes (depending on server implementation) the --user will negotiate a digest authenticated session. The headers for digest users are a one-time use. I believe a request to the server will first fail with a 401, but include a WWW-Authenticate response, including the digest realm, and the nonce secret. With these, a second request can be made with a new header Authorization value.
example:
Authorization: Digest username="LXAIQKBC", realm="MMS Public API", nonce="rE3sYnLXEhVMbh72JyUK7kfLIb+bAbKj", uri="/api/atlas/v1. 0/groups", cnonce="YTVhM4YwMDB3ZjZjMTkxbCNiODA1ODnxZDFjOGMyMzE=", nc=00000001, qop=auth, response="7a5fcb8e4f92a665315bf62cdd87a67d", algorithm="MD5"
answered Sep 20 at 23:47
barrypickerbarrypicker8, 4647 gold badges58 silver badges71 bronze badges
As an addition to Jahmic's answer, Nodejs programmers can do this to convert to base64 string:
const cryptoJS = require("crypto-js");
const base64Str = ((`${username}:${password}`))
answered Feb 25 at 6:54
1
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged authentication post curl or ask your own question.
HTTP request equivalent of `curl –user` parameter? – Stack …
I am retrieving events data from the Mailgun API. I am able to run this on the command line and get data back:
curl -s –user ‘api:key-xxxx’
Now I want to script this with Python and requests. I know that it is possible to make a request using Basic-Auth to get the data via a URL. However, Mailgun says that API keys should be treated like a password, so I’d prefer not to expose API keys directly in the URLs if possible.
Is there any way I can do the equivalent of curl –user in requests, to supply the parameter but without exposing it in the URL?
Alternatively, would it be better to try to use curl directly inside Python?
asked Oct 28 ’16 at 16:26
1
just add the auth=(‘user’, ‘passwd’) argument to the get method, it has to be a tuple with 2 strings.
my_req = (”, auth=(‘user’, ‘pass’)
answered Oct 28 ’16 at 16:37
DalvenjiaDalvenjia1, 6851 gold badge10 silver badges15 bronze badges
Not the answer you’re looking for? Browse other questions tagged python curl get or ask your own question.
Frequently Asked Questions about curl –user
What does curl — user do?
–user (or -u ) in curl provides a basic auth to your request. In Postman you can achieve the same result with a choice in Authorization tab. Specify the user name and password to use for server authentication. If you simply specify the user name, curl will prompt for a password.Mar 30, 2016
How do I pass my username on curl?
For example, if a website has protected content curl allows you to pass authentication credentials. To do so use the following syntax: curl –user “USERNAME:PASSWORD” https://www.domain.com . “USERNAME” must be replaced with your actual username in quotes.May 5, 2019
How do I login to my curl account?
Get a cURL command to log into server:Load login page for website and open Network pane of Developer Tools. … Go to login form, enter username, password and log in.After you have logged in, go back to Network pane and scroll to the top to find the POST entry.Feb 4, 2017
