Simple example of NSURLSession with authentication - nsurlsession

Question

I have written a REST service that serves up some data. It is passcode protected.
I am trying to write a background process that will grab the data and stuff it into a sqlLite db I have in the app.
I did this initially without authentication using :
- (void) callWebService {
dispatch_sync(kBgQueue, ^{
NSData* data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:
scoularDirectoryURL];
[self performSelectorOnMainThread:#selector(fetchedData:) withObject:data waitUntilDone:YES];
});
}
This worked fine but I don't think I can add authentication to that. If I can I would just use that.
What I am looking for is a nice, simple explanation of NSURLSession using user/password authentication.

Answer 1

I think your question is vague and underspecified. That said, here's one solution, from here:
-(void)URLSession:(NSURLSession *)session didReceiveChallenge:(NSURLAuthenticationChallenge *)challenge completionHandler:(void (^)( NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition disposition, NSURLCredential *credential))completionHandler
{
if (_sessionFailureCount == 0) {
NSURLCredential *cred = [NSURLCredential credentialWithUser:self.userName password:self.password persistence:NSURLCredentialPersistenceNone];
completionHandler(NSURLSessionAuthChallengeUseCredential, cred);
} else {
completionHandler(NSURLSessionAuthChallengeCancelAuthenticationChallenge, nil);
}
_sessionFailureCount++;
}
I strongly recommend that you read and re-read the Apple docs on this.

Answer 2

For me the following code works:
NSString *userName=#"user:";
NSString *userPassword=#"password";
NSString *authStr= [userName stringByAppendingString:userPassword];
NSString *url=#"http://000.00.0.0:0000/service.json";
NSData *authData = [authStr dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *authValue = [NSString stringWithFormat: #"Basic %#",[authData base64EncodedStringWithOptions:0]];
NSMutableURLRequest* request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:url]];
[request setValue:authValue forHTTPHeaderField:#"Authorization"];
[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request
queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue]
completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response,
NSData *data, NSError *connectionError)
NSDictionary *theDictionary = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data
options:0
error:NULL];
NSDictionary *host = [theDictionary objectForKey : #"host"];
// json nested
self.label.text = [host objectForKey:#"key1"];
self.label.text = [host objectForKey:#"key2"];
regards