Using HttpClient with the RightScale API

Question

I'm trying to use the WCF Rest Starter Kit with the RightScale's Login API which seems fairly simple to use.

Edit - Here's a blog entry I wrote on using Powershell to consume the API.

Edit - Created a generic .NET wrapper for the RightScale API - NRightAPI

It's exactly as simple as it looks while using CURL. In order for me to obtain a login cookie all I need to do is:

curl -v -c rightcookie -u username:password "https://my.rightscale.com/api/acct/accountid/login?api_version=1.0"

And I receive the following cookie:

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Fri, 25
Dec 2009 12:29:24 GMT Server: Mongrel 1.1.3 Status: 204 No Content X-Runtime: 0.06121
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 0
Cache-Control: no-cache
Added cookie _session_id="488a8d9493579b9473fbcfb94b3a7b8e5e3" for domain my.rightscale.com, path /, expire 0
Set-Cookie: _session_id=488a8d9493579b9473fbcfb94b3a7b8e5e3; path=/; secure Vary: Accept-Encoding

However, when I use the following C# code:

HttpClient http = new HttpClient("https://my.rightscale.com/api/accountid/login?api_version=1.0");
http.TransportSettings.UseDefaultCredentials = false;
http.TransportSettings.MaximumAutomaticRedirections = 0;
http.TransportSettings.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("username", "password");
Console.WriteLine(http.Get().Content.ReadAsString());

Instead of a HTTP 204, I get a redirect:

You are being <a> href="https://my.rightscale.com/dashboard">redirected <a>

How do I get the WCF REST starter kit working with the RighScale API ?

Answer 1

I needed to add a "Authorization: Basic " header to my request.

In additional to the initial code I had posted:

HttpClient http = new HttpClient("https://my.rightscale.com/api/acct/accountid/login?api_version=1.0");
http.TransportSettings.UseDefaultCredentials = false;
http.TransportSettings.MaximumAutomaticRedirections = 0;
http.TransportSettings.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("username", "password");

I need to add the Authorization header along with the REST request with the username/password as follows:

byte[] authbytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(string.Concat("username",":", "password"));
string base64 = Convert.ToBase64String(authbytes);
string authorization = string.Concat("Authorization: Basic ", base64);
http.DefaultHeaders.Add(authorization);

And then when I made the request:

Console.WriteLine(http.Get().Content.ReadAsString());

I received the HTTP 204 along with the session cookie I was looking for. What can I say, Fiddler is awesome :) !