python + selenium webdriver : using authenticate method

Basic authentication is pretty easy to work around for automated testing, without having to deal with native alerts/dialogs or other browser differences.

The approach I've used very successfully in the Java world is to set up a Browsermob proxy server in code and register a RequestInterceptor to intercept all incoming requests (that match the host / URL pattern in question). When you have a request that would otherwise need Basic auth, add an Authorization HTTP header with the credentials required ('Basic ' + the Base64-encoded 'user:pass' string. So for 'foo:bar' you'd set the value Basic Zm9vOmJhcg==)

Start the server, set it as a web proxy for Selenium traffic, and when a request is made that requires authentication, the proxy will add the header, the browser will see it, verify the credentials, and not need to pop up the dialog.

Although the technique might seem laborious, by having the header set automatically for every request, you don't have to explicitly add user:pass@ to any URL that might need it, where there are multiple ways into the auth-ed area. Also, unlike user:pass@ users, you don't have to worry about the browser caching (or ceasing to cache, after a certain amount of time) the header, or about crossing HTTP/HTTPS.

That technique works very well, but how to achieve this in Python?

You could use this Python wrapper for Browsermob, which exposes its REST API in Python. This is the REST call you'll need:

POST /proxy/[port]/headers - Set and override HTTP Request headers. For example setting a custom User-Agent. Payload data should be json encoded set of headers (not url-encoded)

So, from the earlier example (pseudocode):

POST localhost:8787/proxy/<proxy_port>/headers '{"Authorization": "Basic Zm9vOmJhcg=="}'

Alternatively, you could see this answer for a custom Python proxy server using Twisted.

Basic authentication is possible in the URL, but you'll have to set a preference:

from selenium import webdriverprofile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()profile.set_preference("network.http.phishy-userpass-length", 255)driver = webdriver.Firefox(profile)driver.get("http://admin:admin@the-internet.herokuapp.com/basic_auth")

If it doesn't work in your case, then it is not basic authentication.