BUILD AUTHENTICATION BLOB Command

This command generates a character string containing user authentication data and loads it into a character variable. This variable may be used to supply a value to an Authorization HTTP request-header field in a GET, HEAD, or POST command. This command is only valid within a script that has been defined as MODE HTTP.

This command allows scripts to support Basic, NTLM, and Negotiate client authentication over HTTP. Negotiate client authentication applies to Windows 2000 clients only.

Basic authentication is the simplest user:password scheme, defined in RFC 2617. NTLM is Microsoft's NT Lan Manager, a security package available on all Windows platforms and used for authentication of Windows users.

The Negotiate security package was introduced in Windows 2000 and allows a client and server to negotiate the actual authentication protocol. OpenSTA supports Negotiate authentication only when NTLM is selected as the underlying package.

A character string for use in Basic authentication, may be generated by specifying FOR BASIC and supplying a username, password and, optionally, a domain name.

A character string for use in NTLM authentication, may be generated by specifying FOR NTLM and user authorization data in one of three forms:

• An explicit username, password, and domain name.
• Current user data.
• A value returned in a WWW-Authenticate HTTP response-header field.

The value from a WWW-Authenticate HTTP response-header field may be obtained using the LOAD RESPONSE_INFO HEADER command, like this:

LOAD RESPONSE-INFO HEADER ON 1 INTO Blob-Var, &
	WITH "WWW-Authenticate"

A character string for use with the Negotiate security package, may be generated by specifying FOR NEGOTIATE and user authorization data, as described above for NTLM authentication.

Command Definition:

BUILD AUTHENTICATION BLOB FOR BASIC
	FROM USER username PASSWORD password {DOMAIN domain}
	INTO variable

or

BUILD AUTHENTICATION BLOB FOR [NTLM | NEGOTIATE]
	FROM [CURRENT USER |
	USER username PASSWORD password DOMAIN domain |
	BLOB blob-variable]
	INTO variable

username

A character variable, quoted character string or character expression, containing a username.

password

A character variable, quoted character string or character expression, containing a password.

domain

A character variable, quoted character string or character expression, containing a domain name.

blob-variable

A character variable containing the value returned in a "WWW-Authenticate" HTTP response-header field.

variable

A character variable into which the authentication value is loaded.

Examples:

BUILD AUTHENTICATION BLOB FOR BASIC &
	 FROM USER "Smith" PASSWORD "John" &
	 INTO Auth-Val

BUILD AUTHENTICATION BLOB FOR NTLM &
	 FROM USER "Smith" PASSWORD "John" DOMAIN "Ostadom" &
	 INTO Auth-Val

BUILD AUTHENTICATION BLOB FOR NTLM &
	 FROM CURRENT USER &
	 INTO Auth-Val

BUILD AUTHENTICATION BLOB FOR NTLM &
	 FROM BLOB Auth-Head &
	 INTO Auth-Val