I am trying to make an API call to Tracks, but I continue to receive a 401 unauthorized error.  For example, when I execute the following call:

curl -H ‘Accept: application/xml’ -H ‘Content-Type: application/xml’ -u username:password http://tracks.mydomain.com/

I continually receive the 401 error.  I am not an expert in Rails and would appreciate some tips on how to troubleshoot the error.

I assume you are using tracks 1.7?

The url you are requesting is not correct. It needs the resource added, i.e. http://tracks.mydomain.com/todos.xml
see examples at http://tracks.mycomain.com/integrations/rest_api

furthermore I’m not sure it the Accept header is messing with things, but you should be able to leave it out.

Yes, I am using 1.7.  My first post should have included the resource name in the URL.  When I am not logged into Tracks and I attempt to load http://tracks.mydomain.com/todos.xml, I receive a username/password popup prompt.  My credentials, however, do not work.  When I login to Tracks prior to the call, I receive the xml page fine.

When I do a direct call through curl per the integrations page, I receive the 401 error:

401 Unauthorized: You are not authorized to interact with Tracks.

strange. If I use the same curl command as above, using /todos.xml, it works for me

are there any errors in your tracks log?

Here are the errors in my tracks log, although I’m not sure how to interpret them:

Processing TodosController#index (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:20:10) [GET]
  Session ID: 909e064cf9e43eb2b7523041f229626e
Rendering template within layouts/standard
Rendering todos/index
Completed in 1717ms (View: 912, DB: 194) | 200 OK [http://tracks.mydomain.com/]

Processing UnobtrusiveJavascriptController#generate (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:20:12) [GET]
  Session ID: 909e064cf9e43eb2b7523041f229626e
  Parameters: {“page_path”=>[“index.js”]}
Completed in 2ms (View: 0, DB: 21) | 200 OK [http://tracks.mydomain.com/behaviours/index.js]

Processing LoginController#logout (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:20:17) [GET]
  Session ID: 909e064cf9e43eb2b7523041f229626e
  Parameters: {“action”=>“logout”, “controller”=>“login”}
Cookie set: auth_token=; path=/; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
Redirected to /login
Completed in 9ms (DB: 4) | 302 Found [http://tracks.mydomain.com/logout]

Processing LoginController#login (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:20:17) [GET]
  Session ID: 5a0db73bf4e836a27f55a3fdbb71775e
  Parameters: {“action”=>“login”, “controller”=>“login”}
Rendering template within layouts/login
Rendering login/login
Completed in 5ms (View: 4, DB: 1) | 200 OK [http://tracks.mydomain.com/login]

Processing ProjectsController#index to xml (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:24:06) [GET]
  Session ID: 5a0db73bf4e836a27f55a3fdbb71775e
Filter chain halted as [:login_or_feed_token_required] rendered_or_redirected.
Completed in 1ms (View: 0, DB: 2) | 401 Unauthorized [http://tracks.mydomain.com/projects.xml]

Processing ProjectsController#index to xml (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:24:13) [GET]
  Session ID: 5a0db73bf4e836a27f55a3fdbb71775e
Filter chain halted as [:login_or_feed_token_required] rendered_or_redirected.
Completed in 1ms (View: 0, DB: 4) | 401 Unauthorized [http://tracks.mydomain.com/projects.xml]

Processing ProjectsController#index to xml (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:24:20) [GET]
  Session ID: 5a0db73bf4e836a27f55a3fdbb71775e
Filter chain halted as [:login_or_feed_token_required] rendered_or_redirected.
Completed in 1ms (View: 0, DB: 3) | 401 Unauthorized [http://tracks.mydomain.com/projects.xml]

Processing ProjectsController#index to xml (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:24:26) [GET]
  Session ID: 5a0db73bf4e836a27f55a3fdbb71775e
Filter chain halted as [:login_or_feed_token_required] rendered_or_redirected.
Completed in 1ms (View: 0, DB: 2) | 401 Unauthorized [http://tracks.mydomain.com/projects.xml]

Processing ProjectsController#index to xml (for 70.122.255.23 at 2009-06-27 21:24:33) [GET]
  Session ID: 5a0db73bf4e836a27f55a3fdbb71775e
Filter chain halted as [:login_or_feed_token_required] rendered_or_redirected.
Completed in 1ms (View: 0, DB: 3) | 401 Unauthorized [http://tracks.mydomain.com/projects.xml]

these are normal log entries.

I’m just guessing now, but are you using strange characters in username or password that could get lost on the command line?

No special characters.  Just alphanumeric.

When prompted for the username/password when trying to access the projects.xml page, I use the exact credentials that I use to successfully log into Tracks.

Is there additional logging that I can do to pinpoint this problem?  Could this have anything to do with my webserver configuration?

good idea. I remember that proxies could be removing username/password. Are you behind a proxy?

You could try to start tracks from the command line and curl it.

My tracks installation is hosted.  However, I am not behind a proxy.  I have tried both Firefox and IE to ensure it isn’t a browser issue.  I’ve also accessed the login page via curl and I get the appropriate html in return.

can you ssh into your host? so you can try direct curl to the build in webserver?

Solved!

On shared hosts, Apache sometimes doesn‘t pass authentication headers to FCGI instances. I needed to replace the rewriterule in public/.htaccess (replace the plain one) with:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [E=X-HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization},QSA,L]

This should probably be added to the wiki installation instructions for hosted installations.

added to http://www.getontracks.org/wiki/Known-Issues/