IEDriver & Entrust Client Authentication

[Marc Guillemot]

Hi,

I have a client who performs user authentication of internal apps using
smart cards with a solution from Entrust [1].

When trying to automate IE for such an app, Entrust password dialog pops
up correctly but then IEDriver doesn't see anything:
WebDriver.getSource() returns an empty string, same thing for
getCurrentUrl() and no element can be found in the page. This means that
it is currently not possible to automate IE there with WebDriver :(

It gives me the impression that IEDriver sees the "empty state" of the
page as it is at the time where the client credentials are retrieved and
then it doesn't see that the conversation goes on.

It works just fine using HtmlUnitDriver (customizing the SSL factory).

Any idea?

Cheers,
Marc.

[1] http://www.entrust.com/

[Marc Guillemot]

Any idea what the problem could be?

Some hint on what I could look for to debug/fix the IE driver are
welcome as well.

Cheers,
Marc.

Marc Guillemot a écrit :

[Simon Stewart]

That's correct. You need to automate the entrust password dialog
somehow in order for the test to proceed.

Since you're on Windows, I'd suggest looking at something like
white[1] --- it's great when you need to automate Windows.

Simon

[1] http://white.codeplex.com

[Marc Guillemot]

Simon,

automating Entrust dialog is not a problem. The problem is that IEDriver
doesn't see that the page gets loaded once the Entrust dialog has been
filled.

Cheers,
Marc.

Simon Stewart a écrit :

[Simon Stewart]

Ohhh... that's strange. I read the explanation of the problem as "the
dialog opens and then we can't do anything". Having never used Entrust
before, this is going to be tricky to debug.

Question: I take it that someone on-site has VS? Specifically, access
to "spy++"? If so, it might be enlightening to find out whether the
HWND of the IE window before and after authentication is the same, or
whether it's different.

Simon

[Marc Guillemot]

Simon Stewart a écrit :

> Ohhh... that's strange. I read the explanation of the problem as "the
> dialog opens and then we can't do anything". Having never used Entrust
> before, this is going to be tricky to debug.
>
> Question: I take it that someone on-site has VS? Specifically, access
> to "spy++"? If so, it might be enlightening to find out whether the
> HWND of the IE window before and after authentication is the same, or
> whether it's different.

I've feared this response ;-)
They use mainly java and I've never seen any VS there. I'll ask.

Cheers,
Marc.

[aidy lewis]

An alternative

http://www.windows-spy.com/

Aidy


2009/10/29 Marc Guillemot <mguil...@yahoo.fr>:

[Marc Guillemot]

Hi Simon,

I could investigate it yesterday: according to what we could see in
windows-spy, the HWND of the IE window is the same before and after
authentication.

Cheers,
Marc

Simon Stewart a écrit :

[Eran M.]

Hi Marc,

Can you give some more details about the flow you're trying to automate?

I'm especially curious about:

1. How does Entrust identify it should pop up for authentication?

2. Once you authenticate via Entrust, what exactly happens on the page?

Generally, how do you plan to automate the stage of authentication via Entrust?

Eran

2009/11/13 Marc Guillemot <mguil...@yahoo.fr>

[Marc Guillemot]

Hi Eran,

in this case the problem occurs with Entrust but I guess that it is more
general and will occur as well with "normal" client side certificates.

To your questions:
1) I don't know exactly at which stage it happens. Perhaps in the SSL
initialization?
2) After the authentication the page just appears normally in the IE
window. This is the case when done manually as well as when using
IEDriver. The page gets loaded... but the IEDriver doesn't "see"
anything: no url, no content.

When working with HtmlUnit we are able to preselect the credentials that
have to be used and then to fill the password prompt automatically with
a small script looking regularly at the opened windows. How to do this
while automating with IEDriver is a good question. Sending arrow and
enter keys would be a solution (but not really reliable). Nevertheless
as long as IEDriver isn't able to "see" the page, this discussion is not
very important.

Cheers,
Marc.

Eran M. a écrit :

> Hi Marc,
>
> Can you give some more details about the flow you're trying to automate?
> I'm especially curious about:
> 1. How does Entrust identify it should pop up for authentication?
> 2. Once you authenticate via Entrust, what exactly happens on the page?
>
> Generally, how do you plan to automate the stage of authentication via
> Entrust?
>
> Eran
>

> 2009/11/13 Marc Guillemot <mguil...@yahoo.fr <mailto:mguil...@yahoo.fr>>