Script that generates an html file that will log a credentialled user into iTunesU (obvs you supply your own credentials)

iTunesU.py

#!/usr/bin/python
import urllib
import urllib2
import time
import hashlib
import hmac

# I was fixing iTunesU.py as per
# http://www.maclearning.org/articles/40/fixing-apple-s-i-tunes-u-python-s
# and I decided to try to make it a tiny bit more pythonic, as in
# no semi-colons terminating lines and removing the antipythonic main() method
# no, really

# Define your site's information. Replace these
# values with ones appropriate for your site.
siteurl = "https://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/example.edu"
debugsuffix = "/abc123"
sharedsecret = "STRINGOFTHIRTYTWOLETTERSORDIGITS"
administratorcredential = "Administrator@urn:mace:itunesu.com:sites:example.edu"

# Define the user information. Replace the credentials with the
# credentials you want to grant to that user, and the optional
# identity information with the identity of the current user.
# For initial testing and site setup, use the singe administrator
# credential defined when your iTunes U site was created. Once
# you have access to your iTunes U site, you will be able to define
# additional credentials and the iTunes U access they provide.

credentialarray = [administratorcredential]
displayname = "Jane Doe"
emailaddress = "janedoe@example.edu"
username = "jdoe"
useridentifier = "42"

# Append your site's debug suffix to the destination if you
# want to receive an HTML page providing information about
# the transmission of credentials and identity between this
# program and iTunes U. Remove this code after initial
# testing to instead receive the destination page requested.

# uncomment the line below to access debug information from the
# iTunes U server.
# siteurl = siteurl + debugsuffix



def get_identity_string(displayname, emailaddress, username, useridentifier):
    # Combine user identity information into an appropriately formatted string.
    # take the arguments passed into the function copy them to variables
    return '"%s" <%s> (%s) [%s]' % (displayname, emailaddress, username, useridentifier)

def get_credentials_string(credentialarray):
    # Combine individual credentials into a semicolon delimited string
    credentialString = ""
    i = 0
    while(i < len(credentialarray)):
        if (i == 0):
            credentialString = credentialarray[i]
        else:
            credentialString = "%s;%s" %  (credentialString,credentialarray[i])
        i += 1
    return credentialString


def get_authorization_token(identity, credentials, currenttime, sharedsecret):
    # create the token that contains the necessary elements to authorize the user
    # signature = "";
    # buffer = ""

    dict = {"credentials" : credentials,
            "identity" : identity,
            "time" : currenttime
    }

    encoded_parms = urllib.urlencode(dict)

    h = hmac.new(sharedsecret, encoded_parms, hashlib.sha256)

    dict['signature'] = h.hexdigest()
    return urllib.urlencode(dict)

def invoke_action(siteurl, token, username):
    # create the request and pass it to the iTunes U server.
    req = urllib2.Request(siteurl, token)
    req.add_data(token)
    handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)
    the_page = handle.read()
    filename = 'openITU-' + username + '.html'
    f = open( filename , 'w' )
    f.write("Content-type: text/html\n\n")
    f.write(the_page)
    f.close()

identity = get_identity_string(displayname, emailaddress, username, useridentifier)
credentials = get_credentials_string(credentialarray)
# time.time() returns a float, so we cast to an int
currenttime = int(time.time())
token = get_authorization_token(identity, credentials, currenttime, sharedsecret)

invoke_action(siteurl, token, username)