RSS Feed Permissions/Authentication problem

Torben_Nehmer · October 17, 2007, 8:10am

Hello everybody,

is there a way to load the RSS feeds of RT within a RSS Reader without having to use the form based authentication beforehand?

In my case here I have tried adding a Ticket Feed to the Outlook of my boss, which can’t load the feed because of missing authentication (obviously). Other RSS Readers could have the same problem, I’d suspect.

Greetings,
Torben.

Torben_Nehmer · November 19, 2007, 7:54am

Hello everybody,

does anybody have any idea here, would it be possible to move the RSS streams to HTTP Basic Authentication?

Old post:

| Is there a way to load the RSS feeds of RT within a RSS Reader without
| having to use the form based authentication beforehand?
|
| In my case here I have tried adding a Ticket Feed to the Outlook of my
| boss, which can’t load the feed because of missing authentication
| (obviously). Other RSS Readers could have the same problem, I’d suspect.

Greetings,
Torben.

Andreas_Schamanek · November 19, 2007, 8:28am

Hi there,On Mon, 19 Nov 2007, Torben Nehmer wrote:

does anybody have any idea here, would it be possible to move the
RSS streams to HTTP Basic Authentication?

In advance, I apologize for not having tested this myself with RT. The
following is just wild guessing but it’s probably the way I’d try to
go if I had to (and I actually do so in other frameworks):

You could try to retrieve the RSS data “off-line” by means of some
command-line tool. Then let your WWW server do the authentication.
I am using a method called screen scraping by means of Perl’s
WWW::Mechanize. WWW::Mechanize is old but still does a good job.
http://www.google.com/search?q=WWW%3A%3AMechanize+Screen+scraping

HTH,

– Andreas

Jesse_Vincent · November 19, 2007, 1:02pm

Torben Nehmer wrote:

Hello everybody,

does anybody have any idea here, would it be possible to move the RSS streams to HTTP Basic Authentication?

Sure. RT supports HTTP Auth out of the box. Have a look ing the config
file for the configuration options.
-Jesse

Torben_Nehmer · November 21, 2007, 7:48am

Hi there,

does anybody have any idea here, would it be possible to move the
RSS streams to HTTP Basic Authentication?

In advance, I apologize for not having tested this myself with RT. The
following is just wild guessing but it’s probably the way I’d try to
go if I had to (and I actually do so in other frameworks):

You could try to retrieve the RSS data “off-line” by means of some
command-line tool. Then let your WWW server do the authentication.
I am using a method called screen scraping by means of Perl’s
WWW::Mechanize. WWW::Mechanize is old but still does a good job.
http://www.google.com/search?q=WWW%3A%3AMechanize+Screen+scraping

This is an interesting idea, I will think about this.

Nevertheless I would prefer it, if RT would support HTTP Basic Auth for RSS Feeds out of the box, it shouldn’t be that hard to implement (if one knows RT and Perl that is ;-)). I doubt, that the RSS feeds are useable within the average RSS client across the board, except perhaps the browser-integrated ones where you explicitly authenticate yourself beforehand. But then, if I have to go to the RT site to use the RSS feeds in the first place, many of the RSS advantages are gone. Let alone the usability problems for the average management guy…

Yours,
Torben Nehmer

Torben Nehmer
Diplom Informatiker (FH)
Business System Developer

CANCOM Deutschland GmbH
Messerschmittstr. 20
89343 Scheppach
Germany

Tel.: +49 (0)8225 - 996-1118
Fax: +49 (0)8225 - 996-41118
torben.nehmer@cancom.de

CANCOM Deutschland GmbH
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Jettingen-Scheppach
HRB 10653 Memmingen
Geschäftsführer: Paul Holdschik, Christian Linder

Diese E-Mail und alle mitgesendeten Dateien sind vertraulich und ausschließlich für den Gebrauch durch den Empfänger bestimmt!
This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential intended solely for the use of the addressee!

Jesse_Vincent · November 23, 2007, 4:53pm

Hi there,

does anybody have any idea here, would it be possible to move the
RSS streams to HTTP Basic Authentication?

In advance, I apologize for not having tested this myself with RT. The
following is just wild guessing but it’s probably the way I’d try to
go if I had to (and I actually do so in other frameworks):

You could try to retrieve the RSS data “off-line” by means of some
command-line tool. Then let your WWW server do the authentication.
I am using a method called screen scraping by means of Perl’s
WWW::Mechanize. WWW::Mechanize is old but still does a good job.
http://www.google.com/search?q=WWW%3A%3AMechanize+Screen+scraping

This is an interesting idea, I will think about this.

Nevertheless I would prefer it, if RT would support HTTP Basic Auth for RSS Feeds out of the box, it shouldn’t be that hard to implement (if one knows RT and Perl that is ;-)).

Actually, Apache prevents CGI/FastCGI scripts from doing their own HTTP Basic Auth. To enable it, you need to recompile apache. (It’s not at all configurable.) We did this for RT 1.0 and I vowed never again

-j

Torben_Nehmer · November 26, 2007, 7:46am

Hi Jesse,

Actually, Apache prevents CGI/FastCGI scripts from doing their
own HTTP Basic Auth. To enable it, you need to recompile apache.
(It’s not at all configurable.) We did this for RT 1.0 and I
vowed never again

Ah great, I can understand that. Could Apache itself authenticate against RT so that the scripts could pick up the credencials from Apache?

Greetings,
Torben Nehmer