In FinalBuilder, how do I use the HTTP Get File action with Windows Authentication?

Question

I have a FinalBuilder project where I deploy an ASP.Net website to a remote folder, configured as a website in IIS. As part of my build script, I want to use the FinalBuilder action HTTP Get File to help determine whether my deployment was succesful.

I'm having difficulty, because the website is configured (under IIS 6) to use Integrated Windows Authentication, and anonymous access is not enabled.

Now the HTTP Get File action, has only a handful of properties, one of which is a security section, containing a UserName and Password. Great I thought! I can just put some valid credentials in there, which FinalBuilder will impersonate, whilst retrieving my file. It turns out I was mistaken. I receive the following error:

Error retrieving url : Socket Error # 10061 Connection refused.

If I run the action without setting the Security Username and Password, I get the following error:

Error retrieving url : HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized Response Code : 401

Here are some facts to help with the context of my problem. I'm running FinalBuilder 6 Professional, upon a Windows Server 2003 installation, and deploying my ASP.Net website to a remote IIS6 server within our corporate LAN. If I configure IIS on the remote server to allow Anonymous access, I can run the HTTP Get File action without error. However, running this particular site with anon access is not acceptable in our situation.

Can anyone help suggest a workaround?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

For a definitive answer, I think the Finalbuilder Forum is probably your best bet.

My guess, though, is that the HTTP library used by FB doesn't support Windows authentication, and is failing because no common authentication method can be negotiated. Since HTTPS isn't supported either by the 'HTTP Get File action', the possible workaround of allowing basic authentication on your site isn't a good idea, as you would be passing credentials over the network in plain text.

The only remaining workaround I can think of (other than waiting for a future FB release), is creating your own FB action to retrieve the file. Using the .NET Framework System.Net.WebClient, that should be trivial. Just start with a standalone EXE to make sure everything works, then refactor it into a 'real' action using FinalBuilder Action Studio (if that's even required: spawning an external EXE may work just fine in your case).