HTTP Basic Auth via URL in Firefox does not work?
basic-authentication, functional-testing, selenium, testing
Solution
I have a solution for Firefox and Internet Explorer.
For Firefox, you need to go into about:config and create the integer network.http.phishy-userpass-length with a length of 255. This tells Firefox not to popup an authentication box if the username and password are less than 255 characters. You can now use http://user:pass@domain.com to authenticate.
For Internet Explorer, you must edit the registry. In the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_HTTP_USERNAME_PASSWORD_DISABLE, create the DWORD values iexplore.exe and explorer.exe and make sure their values are 0.
I had to override NTLM authentication aswell. To NTLM authenticate using the HTTP basic authentication syntax in Firefox, simply specify the domains being used in the Firefox config string network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris (accompanying the first config option). This will work in IE with the registy edit alone.
Problem
I know that normally you can login to sites that require HTTP basic authentication with Selenium by passing the username and password in the URL, e.g.: ``` selenium.open("http://myusername:myuserpassword@mydomain.com/mypath"); ``` I've been running a Selenium test with Firefox 2 or 3 and there I still get the "Authentication Required" dialog window? Update: It seems not to be a Selenium problem but rather a Firefox issue. If I enter the URL manually within FF I'll get the authentication dialog, but if I enter the URL in Opera, my page is displayed without showing an authentication dialog.