Incorporating username/password in http URL OR GET ??

[Edward Spodick, HKUST Library, 2358-6743]

At 8:54 PM 29/2/96, Albert Lunde wrote:
>Of the predefined schemes listed (http, ftp, news, nntp, telnet, gopher
>wais, mailto, file, prospero), only ftp: and telnet: URLs use the login
>form, which allows for a password. http: uses only hostport.
>
>So the syntax in the spec doesn't allow for what you want. See:

Yeah - I was afraid I understood that correctly.  Darn.


>While you could write a custom client that would do a GET with a username
>and password by sending the right headers with the request, trying to use
>the generic URL syntax to do this is not going to work.

It looks like that is what I will have to do - or try to modify something
out there to my purposes.


>(Also note: While the spec for telnet URLs  allows for a username and
>password, you are unlikely to find this implemented.)

Yes - we found this to be the case as well, and have written several
'wrapper' programs to get around it.

Thanks for your help!  If anyone has already written such a custom cgi
which we could modify (or use straight off), please let me know.

- - - - -
Edward F Spodick, Systems Librarian - lbspodic at usthk.ust.hk or @uxmail.ust.hk
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Library
tel:  852-2358-6743    fax:  852-2358-1043