Can't Figure Out How To Login With Curl

[next]

I'm trying to login to a website with curl, but can't figure out how it's supposed to be done.

Here's my code so far:

<?php
$url = 'http://fmpilot.com/Express/Desk/Login.asp';
$login_data = array(
 'txtUserid' => 'my_user_name',
 'txtPassword' => 'my_password_',
);
$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($ch, array(
 CURLOPT_URL => $url,
 CURLOPT_USERAGENT => 'Mozilla/curl',
 CURLOPT_HEADER => false,
 CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
 CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 10,
 CURLOPT_POST => true,
 CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $login_data,
 CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE => 'cookie.txt',
 CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR => 'cookie.txt',
 CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true
 ));

echo curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

//<input class="formfield" name="txtUserid" maxlength="50" value="" type="text">
//<input class="formfield" name="txtPassword" maxlength="50" type="password">
?>

 

How does

 CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $login_data,

work? Did I do it correct here? "form field name" => "user input data" format?

$login_data = array(
 'txtUserid' => 'my_user_name',
 'txtPassword' => 'my_password',
);

[premiso]

Try using the postfields outside the array. 

 

curl_setopt_array($ch, array(
  CURLOPT_URL => $url,
  CURLOPT_USERAGENT => 'Mozilla/curl',
  CURLOPT_HEADER => false,
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 10,
  CURLOPT_POST => true,
  CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE => 'cookie.txt',
  CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR => 'cookie.txt',
  CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true
  ));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $login_data);

 

And see where that gets ya. 

Edited November 27, 2012 by premiso

[next]

Same thing. It just diplays the same login page and I don't see a cookie.txt created in the script directory.

 

Does CURL just submits the form by the use of this option: CURLOPT_POST => true ?

I don't need to click the submit button or anything of sort?

[next]

Actually that did make a difference, before it was giving me BAD REQUEST error.

I slightly modified the code to go to the next page that only logged in users can see and it tells me:

Your session has expired.

Please log in again.

 

<?php
$url = 'http://fmpilot.com/Express/Desk/Login.asp';
$login_data = array(
 'txtUserid' => 'my_user_id_info',
 'txtPassword' => 'my_password_info',
);

   $fp = fopen("cookie.txt", "w");
   fclose($fp);

$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($ch, array(
 CURLOPT_URL => $url,
 CURLOPT_USERAGENT => $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],
 CURLOPT_HEADER => false,
 CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
 CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 10,
 CURLOPT_POST => true,
 CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE => 'cookie.txt',
 CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR => 'cookie.txt',
 CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true
 ));

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $login_data);
curl_exec($ch);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://fmpilot.com/Express/Desk/Reports/ProviderReports.asp');
echo curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
?>

[mrMarcus]

Few things...

 

Are you positive the login credentials are correct? Does the login processing script require a button to be pushed/additional parameter to be sent? E.g.

 

// standard form processing (in PHP)

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
// form has been submitted; do stuff
}

 

If so, you'll need to pass that along in your $login_data array.

 

You do not appear to be using SSL for processing (that I can see from the action URL anyway), and cURL has CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER set to TRUE by default. What that does is attempts to verify the server certificate on connection. Set this to false:

 

CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => FALSE

Edited November 27, 2012 by mrMarcus

[next]

Credentials are definitely correct. I set the SSL option as you suggested, but that didn't help. I'm not really sure regarding what data it needs. Here's the form html code

<input name="hReturnUrl" value="/Express/ServiceDesk.asp" type="hidden">
<input name="timezoneoffset" value="300" type="hidden">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
 <tbody><tr>
 <td colspan="2" height="10"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/transpix.gif" height="10"></td></tr>
 <tr>
 <td colspan="2" class="errmsg">Please enter a user name and password.</td></tr>
 <tr>
 <td colspan="2" height="10"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/transpix.gif" height="10"></td></tr>
 <tr>
 <td class="formheader" align="left" nowrap="" width="100"><a class="FormHeader" href="" style="text-decoration:none" onmouseout="javascript:clearInfo();" onmouseover="javascript:writeInfo('Enter your<BR>user name.');">User Name:</a>  </td>
 <td class="Content" align="left" width="100%"><input class="formfield" name="txtUserid" maxlength="50" value="" type="text"></td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td class="formheader" align="left" width="100"><a class="FormHeader" href="" style="text-decoration:none" onmouseout="javascript:clearInfo();" onmouseover="javascript:writeInfo('Enter your<BR>password.');">Password:</a>  </td>
 <td class="Content" align="left" width="100%"><input class="formfield" name="txtPassword" maxlength="50" type="password"></td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td> </td>
 <td align="left"><br>
 <a href="javascript:document.frmServiceDesk.submit();"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/Max5Style/btn_login.gif" border="0"></a>
 <a href="javascript:document.frmServiceDesk.reset();"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/Max5Style/btn_clear.gif" border="0"></a>
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td colspan="2"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/transpix.gif" height="15"></td></tr>
 <tr>
 <td> </td>
 <td align="left"><a href="/Express/Desk/RetPass.asp"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/Max5Style/btn_retrievepassword.gif" border="0"></a></td>
 </tr>

 <tr>
 <td colspan="2" height="10"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/transpix.gif" height="10"></td></tr>
 <tr>
 <td colspan="2"><font class="ErrMsg">This web site is optimized for Internet Explorer 6.0 and above.
 Please note this web site may not operate correctly with other browsers.</font></td>
 </tr>

 <tr>
 <td colspan="2" height="10"><img src="/Express/Desk/images/transpix.gif" height="10"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>

 

This is what submits the form:

javascript:document.frmServiceDesk.submit()

Edited November 27, 2012 by next

[mrMarcus]

At this point, for all I know, there is something in the processing script that is not allowing this.

 

And what is the reasoning behind the following?

 

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://fmpilot.com/Express/Desk/Reports/ProviderReports.asp');
echo curl_exec($ch);

 

At the end of your code.

[next]

That page is accessible only by logged on users. I redirected curl to it after I passed login info.

[Muddy_Funster]

you have 2 hidden input fields at the top, do they post information as well?

[next]

I don't have access to how that website works on the backend.

I interact with it on regular basis and was hoping to automate a bunch of things.

 

So what causes the data to post when using curl?

CURLOPT_POST => true

is this basically a submit button action?

[Muddy_Funster]

nope, this is basicly telling the curl function that the sata being passed is sing the post method, rather than get

[next]

ok so changing the way I passed login data fixed my problem:

$login_data = 'txtUserid=my_username&txtPassword=my_password';

 

I'm examining a function that I found online:

function login($url,$data) {
   $fp = fopen("cookie.txt", "w");
   fclose($fp);
   $login = curl_init();
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookie.txt");
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt");
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 40000);
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);
   curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

ob_start();
   return curl_exec ($login);

ob_end_clean();
   curl_close ($login);
unset($login);
}		

 

Is the function written wrong or does "return" not end functions, and they go until the closing brace?

Like in this part

ob_start();
   return curl_exec ($login);

ob_end_clean();
   curl_close ($login);
unset($login);

wouldn't the function stop and return value at "return"?

[Christian F.]

Yes it would, and the output buffer wouldn't end/clear until the PHP script dies or your met another (lone) ob_end/clean () call.

Whomever wrote the code above clearly didn't know what, exactly, they were doing.

[DavidAM]

Furthermore, there is no need for the ob*() calls in that code. The RETURNTRANSFER option of curl will return to content and nothing will be output, except possibly errors. The end of that function should be something like this:

 

 $data = curl_exec ($login);
 curl_close ($login);
 unset($login);
 return $data;
}

 

Although the unset() is completely unnecessary, since the variable immediately falls out of scope.

[next]

Makes more sense now. Thank you.