Load image for UIImageView from the net with security

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to load an image into an UIImageView from the internet. This is no problem, but what I want is the image be secured with user credentials. So if you go to the direct link of the image, you get an login popup (secured directory).

How can I pass those user credentials so I can load the image from the net with user credentials?

The problem is that the image may not be accessed directly, but only via the iPhone app. If you have a better idea to maximize the security, let me know ;-)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you are using basic server authentication (which I think you are based on the "popup dialog"), I would recommend using ASIHTTPRequest http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/How-to-use

It makes it very easy to download and make web requests. You can download the image and give the username and password by doing:

NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://user:[email protected]/secret/"];
ASIHTTPRequest *req = [ASIHTTPRequest requestWithURL:url];
[req startSynchronous];
NSError *err = [req error];
if (!err) {
    NSData *response = [req responseData];  
    UIImage* image = [UIImage imageWithData:response];
    // do whatever you want with the image here, like put it into a UIImageView
}

Answer 2

I'm assuming you have access to the server side. Create a simple PHP script that takes in an HTTP POST request with the username and password, validates it and if it's valid, echoes back a JSON/XML/string with the link to the image or else echoes back a null value or something.

Call a POST request from your iphone using urlWithString and when you get a response, check to see if it's null, or if it has a link.

Handle the result accordingly (if null, tell the user that the login credentials are incorrect).

If not null, it's the image - display it. Hope this helps.