[PLUG] command line http authentication

[Vaibhav Kulkarni]

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Mayuresh <mayuresh at acm.org> wrote:
>
> 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?
>

Are you using Reliance?
My cousin also uses Reliance and faced the same issue you mentioned
(the connection getting automatically getting dropped in few hours,
which caused problems during unattended large torrents).

I wrote a python script for him to do the http authentication
automatically... attaching here the same (hope attachments work here).
It periodically checks for authentication status, and logs in if
disconnected.

On a side note, it was observed that Reliance deliberately disconnects
the connection every 6 hours (seems to be their policy), so running
this script was a MUST for overnight torrents.

Regards,
Vaibhav