[Django]-Using Basic HTTP access authentication in Django testing framework

In your Django TestCase you can update the client defaults to contain your HTTP basic auth credentials.

import base64
from django.test import TestCase

class TestMyStuff(TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        credentials = base64.b64encode('username:password')
        self.client.defaults['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] = 'Basic ' + credentials

For python3, you can base64-encode your username:password string:

base64.b64encode(b'username:password')

This returns bytes, so you need to transfer it into an ASCII string with .decode('ascii'):

Complete example:

import base64

from django.test import TestCase

class TestClass(TestCase):
   def test_authorized(self):
       headers = {
           'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION': 'Basic ' + 
                base64.b64encode(b'username:password').decode("ascii")
       }
       response = self.client.get('/', **headers)
       self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)

Assuming I have a login form, I use the following technique to login through the test framework:

    client = Client()
    client.post('/login/', {'username': 'john.smith', 'password': 'secret'})

I then carry the client around in my other tests since it’s already authenticated. What is your question to this post?

(python3) I’m using this in a test:

credentials_string = '%s:%s' % ('invalid', 'invalid')
credentials = base64.b64encode(credentials_string.encode())
self.client.defaults['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] = 'Basic ' + credentials.decode()

and the following in a view:

import base64
[...]
type, auth = request.META['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'].split(' ', 1)
auth = base64.b64decode(auth.strip()).decode()

Another way to do it is to bypass the Django Client() and use Requests instead.

class MyTest(TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        AUTH = requests.auth.HTTPBasicAuth("username", "password")

    def some_test(self):
        resp = requests.get(BASE_URL + 'endpoint/', auth=AUTH)
        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 200)