Using Cookie Authentication with CouchDB-Python

[shead....@gmail.com]

I've been using CouchDB-Python extensively to implement server-side
functionality using CouchDB external processes, and it works great,
many thanks! The only problem I'm having is that I'm not clear on how
to get CouchDB-Python to use cookie authentication. The optional
"session" parameter in the couchdb.Server() constructor seems like the
right idea, but I haven't seen any examples of how to use it ... could
someone give me a pointer?

Many thanks,
Tim Shead

[shead....@gmail.com]

The following seems to work, it would be good to know whether
"Server.resource" is an internal implementation detail or something I
can count on in the future:

request = # Incoming request object, as described by
http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/ExternalProcesses
server = couchdb.Server("http://" + request["headers"]["Host"])
server.resource.headers["Cookie"] = request["headers"]["Cookie"] # Use
the client's authentication token for server-side processing
# Do stuff with the server here

Cheers,
Tim Shead

[Dirkjan Ochtman]

Good to hear you figured it out. :) Server.resource is definitely part
of the public API, so while I won't promise it won't disappear or
change someday, something like it will always be available (I really
have no plans to muck with it, at all).

Cheers,

Dirkjan

[Paul Okstad]

For retrieving the cookie initially, this little code snippet works:
c = couchdb.Server()
code,message,data = c.resource.post('_session',headers={'Content-Type':'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'},body="name=URLENCODED_USERNAME&password=URLENCODED_PASSWORD")
message.get('Set-Cookie') # returns a string that needs parsing to get the 'AuthSession' value

[Michael Hines]

A more complete example for googlers:


from couchdb import Server
s = Server("https://user:pass...@example.com:6984")

# Request the cookie: url encoded above and below, of course

# You have to put the credentials twice to get started with the first cookie
# Both in the Server() constructor as well as the _session POST body


code, message, obj = s.resource.post('_session',headers={'Content-Type' : 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}, body="name=user&password=password")
assert(code == 200)

# Now you have received a cookie, extract it

cookie = message["Set-Cookie"].split(";", 1)[0].strip()

# exit python and restart

# Request a server object, but without the username and password this time
s = Server("https://example.com:6984")

s.resource.headers["Cookie"] = cookie

# Yay, no password.
db = s["database"]

Optionally set the "persistent" cookie option on the server side to make the cookie last longer.

- Michael