how to add a base64 encoded authentication string to my webclient in C# ?

[Sergey Gnedin]

Can you please show me how to add a base64 encoded authentication
string to my webclient in C# ? I can't find an example anywhere..

[Alex Fomin]

Don't sure what are you talking about, but assume that you want to use http basic authentication for REST Api. If so, you have no need to encode your login/password by yourself, just set the corresponding values to webclient.Credentials property:

using(var client = new WebClient())
{
    client.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("admin","admin");

    var response =  client.DownloadString("http://localhost/TargetProcess/api/v1/Projects?include=[Name]");
}

The same is applicable for HttpWebRequest:

HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://localhost/TargetProcess/api/v1/Projects?include=[Name]");
request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("admin","admin");


Thanks,
Alex, TP Team

[deejayundoo]

Hi Alex,

I know about the normal authentication with username and password, but
i really want to do it with base64.

Do you have any idea how can that be accomplished ?

Alex

[Alex Fomin]

WebClient will use proper authentication mode in response of HTTP 401 from TargetProcess, so, actually, you do not need to perform manual encoding. But you can use the following code snippet to do it by hands:

string credentials = String.Format("{0}:{1}", username, password);
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(credentials);
string base64 = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
string authorization = String.Concat("basic ", base64);
request.Headers.Add("Authorization", authorization);

Thanks,
Alex TP Team

[deejayundoo]

Ok, thanks a lot!