NSMutableURLRequest+BasicAuth

An iOS Objective-C category for performing HTTP Basic Access Authentication, aka Basic auth.

Why?

Most solutions for performing Basic auth on iOS involve the use of 3rd party Base64 libraries. Apple has provided native functions within the CFNetworking framework, removing the need for 3rd party libraries. This category wraps the solution into one clean and reusable method.

Installation

• Add the NSMutableURLRequest+BasicAuth folder into your project
• Import NSMutableURLRequest+BasicAuth.h into your class(es).
• Import Apple's CFNetworking framework.

Usage

• Create an NSMutableURLRequest and make sure to set the following properties:
  • URL
  • HTTPMethod
• Then, call the basicAuthForRequest:withUsername:andPassword method with your request.
• Afterwards, initialize your NSURLConnection and load your Basic auth request.

Interface

+ (void)basicAuthForRequest:(NSMutableURLRequest *)request withUsername:(NSString *)username andPassword:(NSString *)password;

Implementation

    // Cast username and password as CFStringRefs via Toll-Free Bridging
    CFStringRef usernameRef = (__bridge CFStringRef)username;
    CFStringRef passwordRef = (__bridge CFStringRef)password;
    
    // Reference properties of the NSMutableURLRequest
    CFHTTPMessageRef authoriztionMessageRef = CFHTTPMessageCreateRequest(kCFAllocatorDefault, (__bridge CFStringRef)[request HTTPMethod], (__bridge CFURLRef)[request URL], kCFHTTPVersion1_1);
    
    // Encodes usernameRef and passwordRef in Base64
    CFHTTPMessageAddAuthentication(authoriztionMessageRef, nil, usernameRef, passwordRef, kCFHTTPAuthenticationSchemeBasic, FALSE);
    
    // Creates the 'Basic - <encoded_username_and_password>' string for the HTTP header
    CFStringRef authorizationStringRef = CFHTTPMessageCopyHeaderFieldValue(authoriztionMessageRef, CFSTR("Authorization"));
    
    // Add authorizationStringRef as value for 'Authorization' HTTP header
    [request setValue:(__bridge NSString *)authorizationStringRef forHTTPHeaderField:@"Authorization"];
    
    // Cleanup
    CFRelease(authorizationStringRef);
    CFRelease(authoriztionMessageRef);

Credit

Created by Arthur Ariel Sabintsev for ID.me, Inc.