scrape.py

#!/usr/bin/python

import urllib, urllib2
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup

def __main__():
  opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor())
  urllib2.install_opener(opener)

  url = "http://rails-app.example.com/" # this is the url of the rails app
  
  request = opener.open(url + "login") # login page
  soup = BeautifulSoup(request.read())
  request.close()
  form = soup.find(id='new_user_session') #this is the id of the login form
  auth_hash = form.find(attrs={'name':'authenticity_token'})['value']

  action_url = form['action']
  user_name = "my_user_name"
  password = "my_password"
  data = {'user_session[username]': user_name, 'user_session[password]': password, 'authenticity_token':auth_hash}

  # Login:
  request = opener.open(action_url, urllib.urlencode(data))
  request.read()
  request.close()

  # Private Page:
  request = opener.open(url + "/messages") # private page
  soup = BeautifulSoup(request.read())
  request.close()
  print soup.find(id="messages") # do something with your private data...

__main__()
exit()