including login credentials with a WebRequest

Question

I am trying to \"behind the scenes\" log myself into a website, from the VB code behind my ASP.NET website. But I am dumbfounded as to how to do this.

As far as I k

Answer 1

If the client site uses basic authentication you can add credentials like this:

WebRequest myReq = WebRequest.Create(url);
CredentialCache mycache = new CredentialCache();
mycache.Add(new Uri(url), "Basic", new NetworkCredential(username, password));   
myReq.Credentials = mycache;

If it uses form login, you can use Fiddler to sniff the data posted on a login, and perform the same request from a HttpWebRequest object. You might want to handle cookies as well if you have to perform multiple requests with the logged in user.

Reference:

• Cookies: Automatic Cookie Handling C#/.NET HttpWebRequest+HttpWebResponse
• Cookies and POST: HttpWebRequest POST and Cookies
• Download class: Characters in string changed after downloading HTML from the internet