Rails 2.x provide meaningful error message with http basic authentication
- by randombits
I'm using basic http authentication in my rails app via the following code:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
helper :all # include all helpers, all the time
before_filter :authenticate
private
def authenticate
authenticate_or_request_with_http_basic do |username, password|
if username.nil? || password.nil?
render :inline => %(xml.instruct! :xml, :version => "1.0", :encoding => "UTF-8"
xml.errors do
xml.error('Could not authenticate you.')
end), :type => :builder, :status => 401
end
end
end
end
The problem is, if you do a curl http://127.0.0.1:3000/foo/1.xml without providing the -u username:password flag, you get a dead beat response like this:
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
Cache-Control: no-cache
WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Foo"
X-Runtime: 1
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 27
Server: WEBrick/1.3.1 (Ruby/1.9.1/2010-01-10)
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:09:18 GMT
Connection: Keep-Alive
HTTP Basic: Access denied.
Is it possible at all to render the inline XML I have above in the event a username and password is not provided by the user?
