Use basic auth with selenium

README.md

This java class provides a simple way to achieve basic auth in recent versions of selenium (current version 3.x) with recent versions of google chrome (current year 2020). It dynamically generates a tiny extension that will add the Authorization header for you.

How to use it:

    // Add basic auth header with a chrome extension on every request
    File authExtension = new SeleniumChromeAuthExtensionBuilder()
        .withBasicAuth("Ali Baba", "Open sesame")
        .withBaseUrl("https://example.org/*")
        .build();

    try {
        ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
        chromeOptions = chromeOptions.addExtensions(authExtension);
        webDriver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions);
    } finally {
        authExtension.delete();
    }

SeleniumChromeAuthExtensionBuilder.java

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringEscapeUtils;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.util.Base64;
import java.util.zip.ZipEntry;
import java.util.zip.ZipOutputStream;

/**
 * This class can be used to generate a minimal browser extension that
 * will force Chrome to send out an Authorize header on every request.
 *
 * This is the only reliable way that has worked for me with Selenium 3
 * to use basic auth.
 *
 * Alternatives to this approach:
 * - Add the basic auth credentials to the url (does not work in recent versions of FF and Chrome)
 * - Using a proxy that adds the header (LittleProxy). This should probably work,
 *   but https with proxies can be a pain in the ass. Also the last release of LittleProxy is from 2017.
 *   Launching an extra server for every test would also unnecessarily increase the complexity of tests.
 * - Using selenium as the user would by filling out the username, password text boxes and clicking on the login button.
 *   This works, but with login forms adding captcha and other deterrents to stop bots can be unreliable.
 * - Use a cookie for authentication and add that to the selenium browser. This works great if you can get
 *   a valid session cookie.
 *
 * Useful links:
 * - https://stackoverflow.com/a/35293026
 * - https://devopsqa.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/handle-basic-authentication-in-selenium-for-chrome-browser/
 * - https://stackoverflow.com/a/27936481
 * - https://sqa.stackexchange.com/questions/12892/how-to-send-basic-authentication-headers-in-selenium
 */
public class SeleniumChromeAuthExtensionBuilder {
    private String headerJsCode = "";
    private String baseUrl = "<all_urls>";

    /**
     * Add a header to every request.
     *
     * @param name The name of the header to add.
     * @param value The value of the header.
     */
    public SeleniumChromeAuthExtensionBuilder withStaticHeader(String name, String value) {
        String nameEscaped  = StringEscapeUtils.escapeEcmaScript(name);
        String valueEscaped  = StringEscapeUtils.escapeEcmaScript(value);
        headerJsCode += "headers.push({name: \"" + nameEscaped + "\", value: \"" + valueEscaped + "\"});\n";
        return this;
    }

    /**
     * Add basic auth credentials to every requests.
     *
     * @param username The username for authentication
     * @param password The password for authentication
     */
    public SeleniumChromeAuthExtensionBuilder withBasicAuth(String username, String password) {
        String encodeUserPass = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString((username + ":" + password).getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
        return withStaticHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + encodeUserPass);
    }

    /**
     * If you set a base url only requests to urls starting with this base url will be modified.
     * Can contain wildcards (*). The special value <all_urls> matches all urls (default).
     */
    public SeleniumChromeAuthExtensionBuilder withBaseUrl(String baseUrl) {
        this.baseUrl = baseUrl;
        return this;
    }

    /**
     * Builds the extension as a zip archive.
     * Please delete this file after installing it.
     *
     * @return The generated zip file
     */
    public File build() throws Exception {
        File tempFile = File.createTempFile("selenium-chrome-auth-", ".tmp.zip");
        ZipOutputStream out = new ZipOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(tempFile));

        // Add manifest.json
        {
            ZipEntry e = new ZipEntry("manifest.json");
            out.putNextEntry(e);
            out.write(generateManifestJson().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
            out.closeEntry();
        }

        // Add background.js
        {
            ZipEntry e = new ZipEntry("background.js");
            out.putNextEntry(e);
            out.write(generateBackroundJs().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
            out.closeEntry();
        }

        out.close();

        return tempFile;
    }

    private String generateBackroundJs() {
        return  "chrome.webRequest.onBeforeSendHeaders.addListener(\n" +
                "    function(e) {\n" +
                "        var headers = e.requestHeaders;\n" +
                headerJsCode +
                "        return { requestHeaders: headers };\n" +
                "    },\n" +
                "    {urls: [\"" + StringEscapeUtils.escapeEcmaScript(baseUrl) + "\"]},\n" +
                "    ['blocking', 'requestHeaders' , 'extraHeaders']\n" +
                ");";
    }

    private String generateManifestJson() {
        return "{\n" +
                "    \"manifest_version\": 2,\n" +
                "    \"name\": \"Authentication for selenium tests\",\n" +
                "    \"version\": \"1.0.0\",\n" +
                "    \"permissions\": [\"<all_urls>\", \"webRequest\", \"webRequestBlocking\"],\n" +
                "    \"background\": {\n" +
                "      \"scripts\": [\"background.js\"]\n" +
                "    }\n" +
                "  }";
    }
}

Hi @jenspettersson68. I assume you tried the obvious:

 File authExtension = new SeleniumChromeAuthExtensionBuilder()
      .withBasicAuth("usrname@domain", "password")
      .withBaseUrl("https://example.org/*")
      .build();

This should work. Tough I haven't tried it myself.

I don't suppose you have any advice for converting this to C#?