Rails/Rspec Make tests pass with http basic authentication

Update (2013): Matt Connolly has provided a GIST which also works for request and controller specs: http://gist.github.com/4158961

Another way of doing this if you have many tests to run and don't want to include it everytime (DRYer code):

Create a /spec/support/auth_helper.rb file:

module AuthHelper
  def http_login
    user = 'username'
    pw = 'password'
    request.env['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] = ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic.encode_credentials(user,pw)
  end  
end

In your test spec file:

describe HomeController do
  render_views

  # login to http basic auth
  include AuthHelper
  before(:each) do
    http_login
  end

  describe "GET 'index'" do
    it "should be successful" do
      get 'index'
      response.should be_success
    end
  end

end

Credit here

Sorry I didn't seek enough, the solution seems to be the following:

describe "GET 'index'" do
  it "should be successful" do
    @request.env["HTTP_AUTHORIZATION"] = "Basic " + Base64::encode64("username:password")
    get 'index'
    response.should be_success
  end
end

Some answers suggest to set request.env which is unsafe, because request can be nil and you will end up with private method env' called for nil:NilClass, especially when run single tests with rspec -e

Correct approach will be:

def http_login
  user = 'user'
  password = 'passw'
  {
    HTTP_AUTHORIZATION: ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic.encode_credentials(user,password)
  }
end

get 'index', nil, http_login

post 'index', {data: 'post-data'}, http_login

When using Rspec to test Grape APIs, the following syntax works

        post :create, {:entry => valid_attributes}, valid_session

where valid_session is

{'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION' => credentials}

and

credentials = ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Token.encode_credentials("test_access1")

These are great solutions for controller and request specs.

For feature tests using Capybara, here is a solution to make HTTP Basic authentication work:

spec/support/when_authenticated.rb

RSpec.shared_context 'When authenticated' do
  background do
    authenticate
  end

  def authenticate
    if page.driver.browser.respond_to?(:authorize)
      # When headless
      page.driver.browser.authorize(username, password)
    else
      # When javascript test
      visit "http://#{username}:#{password}@#{host}:#{port}/"     
     end
  end

  def username
    # Your value here. Replace with string or config location
    Rails.application.secrets.http_auth_username
  end

  def password
    # Your value here. Replace with string or config location
    Rails.application.secrets.http_auth_password
  end

  def host
    Capybara.current_session.server.host
  end

  def port
    Capybara.current_session.server.port
  end
end

Then, in your spec:

feature 'User does something' do
  include_context 'When authenticated'

  # test examples
end