How to send Basic Authentication (BA) credentials in ruby on rails

This method can be used as follows:

authenticate_with_http_basic do |username, password|
  ——
end

Inside the block you can access the username and password.

But how to send a request with basic auth in rails ?

This is really tricky and I didn’t find any documentation for this. Here I am describing how to send a request with basic auth.

1. Use Faraday library (Faraday is an HTTP client lib)
https://github.com/lostisland/faraday

Create a connection:

connection = Faraday.new(:url => HOST) do |faraday|
      faraday.request  :url_encoded             # form-encode POST params
      faraday.response :logger                  # log requests to STDOUT
      faraday.adapter  Faraday.default_adapter  # make requests with Net::HTTP
      faraday.basic_auth(USERNAME, PASSWORD)
end

parameters = params[‘user’].permit!.to_h

response = connection.get do |req|
      req.url(params[:url])
      req.headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/json'
      req.params.merge!(parameters)
end

response = connection.post do |req|
        req.url(params[:url])
        req.headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/json'
        req.body = parameters
end

render json: response.body

Here,

HOST = 'http://lvh.me:3002'
USERNAME = 'EdcddzrbmET55016'
PASSWORD = 'UXBJnS309S49st3rHqmH5934'
params['url'] = '/users/profile'

We can use Faraday’s (‘faraday.basic_auth’) basic auth method to reach out our solution.

If you are getting any error like follows in post request

NoMethodError (undefined method `bytesize' for {}:ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess):

Don’t forget to convert the ruby hash ‘parameters’ to json by calling ‘to_json’ upon it.

        req.body = parameters.to_json 

In Other way you can use something like this to generate the basic auth header

request.env['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] = ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic.encode_credentials(USERNAME, PASSWORD)

How to use Ruby Rest Client:

require 'rest_client'

headers = {
  :authorization => 'Basic FytxhZGKpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtHUHU'
}

response = RestClient.get 'https://yourdomain.com/api/users.json?activityId=02ddf868-6484-440f-8c39-c7d4fb4e7b33', headers
puts response

Author: Abhilash

Hi, I’m Abhilash! A seasoned web developer with 15 years of experience specializing in Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Since 2010, I’ve built scalable, robust web applications and worked with frameworks like Angular, Sinatra, Laravel, Node.js, Vue and React. Passionate about clean, maintainable code and continuous learning, I share insights, tutorials, and experiences here. Let’s explore the ever-evolving world of web development together! View all posts by Abhilash