HTTP: How to configure an HTTP Client with Basic Authentication

    HTTP Client: How to create an HTTP Client with Basic Authentication

    The Basic Authentication scheme (RFC2617) requires that each HTTP client must authenticate itself with a User-ID and password for each request he does to a HTTP server.

HTTP server will service the request only if it can validate the user-ID and password for the path included in request.

In the case it cannot authorize the request is responding with HTTP 401 (Unauthorized) and in the case that is a Proxy server with HTTP 407 (Proxy authentication required).

Steps to create the configuration:

Create an HTTP Client Activity.

On the Commands tab   from the HTTP Client activity add a GET Command.

On the Profile option from the GET command select New Profile option.

On the Command Profile Window configure the Profile Name, enable Basic Authentication and configure the user and password to be used in the test.

On my example I used the following:
  Profile Name= BasicAuthentication

  User=usertest

  Password=passwordtest

Notes:

***Profile name can include only a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _ and @ (no space)
***To edit a profile already created click on Edit Profile button from the right-corner from the screen

Verify the results:

Verify results using statistics

The most important statistics per our test are included in the HTTP Client -Per URL view

HTTP Client Request Sent/Successful 
HTTP Request Failed 401 (authorization denied)
HTTP Request Failed 4xx other (includes HTTP 407 responses  if proxy server is used)

  Verify results using IxAnalyzer:

   Making a capture of the traffic will reveal that HTTP client request is including the www-authenticate header which specify the scheme (basic) but also the user and password in clear text.