[PLUG] command line http authentication

[Mayuresh]

My ISP uses http authentication. So user has to go to a certain https URL and 
login with username password etc.

This forces me to use a browser to start my internet connection.

Is there any way to do above https interaction using (say) a command line 
tool - basically non interactively rather than command line vs gui?

One reason to look for this is to generally avoid having to launch the browser 
just for authentication when you might not actually need it otherwise.

Another, more compelling reason is, if you leave a large download unattended 
for hours and if the connection gets broken (let's bash ISP on some other 
thread for that ;-) it does not get reconnected automatically. There is no 
mechanism to keep retrying till the connection is re-established. (This used 
to happen so when I had a pppoe based connection.)

Mayuresh.