Testing http basic authentication with Cucumber and RSpec in Rails 3.2.3

Question

I want to test the build-in basic http authentication mechanism in Rails 3.2.3. I have tried to test the http authentication in both RSpec and Cucumber but with a failing step in both tools. In Cucumber I get the following message on running my Feature:

When I perform HTTP authentication as "admin" with "test" # features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:1
  undefined method `env' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
  ./features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:3:in `/^I perform HTTP authentication as "([^\"]*)" with "([^\"]*)"$/'
  features/sign_in_http.feature:4:in `When I perform HTTP authentication as "admin" with "test"'

Here is my ApplicationController class:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  protect_from_forgery

  http_basic_authenticate_with :name => "admin", :password => "test"
end

The step definition in Cucumber:

When /^I perform HTTP authentication as "([^\"]*)" with "([^\"]*)"$/ do |username, password|
  @request.env["HTTP_AUTHORIZATION"] = "Basic " + Base64::encode64("username:password")
  visit '/'
end

The cucumber feature:

Feature: Signing in via http

Scenario: HTTP sign-in
  When I perform HTTP authentication as "admin" with "test"
  Then I should see "Welcome to the app."

In RSpec the http authentication step seems to pass but I get the message from the subsequent step, that it couldn't find the expected content on the page because "Access was denied":

1) ApplicationController sign in via http should be successful
 Failure/Error: page.should have_content("Welcome to the app.")
   expected there to be content "Welcome to the app." in "HTTP Basic: Access denied.\n"
 # ./spec/controllers/application_controller_spec.rb:12:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

Here is my associated spec:

require 'spec_helper'

describe ApplicationController do

  describe "sign in via http" do
    it "should be successful" do
      @request.env["HTTP_AUTHORIZATION"] = "Basic " + Base64::encode64("admin:test")
      visit '/'
      response.should be_success
      page.should have_content("Welcome to the app.")
    end
  end
end

I have also tried to visit the root path before the http authorization line in the cucumber step but this gave me the same message about the NilClass for @request. Login via the browser with the defined "admin:test" credentials is no problem and I can see the root page of my app.

I would be thankful for any suggestions.

JESii · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-29 14:41:33Z

Here's how I got it to work. The key is to run your authentication step before you visit any pages, else you've already failed the authentication.

In my Feature I put:

Background:
    Given I perform HTTP authentication as "<id>/<password>"
    When I go to the homepage
    Then I should see "Text-that-you-should-see-on-your-home-page"

The step definition for the HTTP authentication is as follows (I found this code elsewhere and added the puts statements to see what was going on).

Given /^I perform HTTP authentication as "([^\"]*)\/([^\"]*)"$/ do |username, password|
    puts "id/pswd: #{username}/#{password}"
    ### Following works ONLY if performed first before even going to a page!!!
    if page.driver.respond_to?(:basic_auth)
        puts 'Responds to basic_auth'
        page.driver.basic_auth(username, password)
    elsif page.driver.respond_to?(:basic_authorize)
        puts 'Responds to basic_authorize'
        page.driver.basic_authorize(username, password)
    elsif page.driver.respond_to?(:browser) && page.driver.browser.respond_to?(:basic_authorize)
        puts 'Responds to browser_basic_authorize'
        page.driver.browser.basic_authorize(username, password)
    else
        raise "I don't know how to log in!"
    end
end

mark · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-23 14:22:06Z

0

There's a much simpler solution now. I don't know when it was implemented, but Cucumber now has a method basic_authorize that takes care of this. Here's the step that I used:

Given /^I perform basic HTTP authentication with username "([^"]*)" and password "([^"]*)"$/ do |username, password|
  basic_authorize(username, password)
end

And here's an example use case:

Given I perform basic HTTP authentication with username "cool_user" and password "hunter22"

As with JESii's answer, you need to perform this step before you visit any pages.

I hope this saves someone else some time, I spent way to long on this.

answered Jun 23, 2020 at 14:22

mark

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