Python request with authentication (access_token)

Question

I am trying to use an API query in Python. From the command line I can use curl like so:

curl --header "Authorization:access_token myToken" https://website.example/id

This gives some JSON output. myToken is a hexadecimal variable that remains constant throughout.

I would like to make this call from python so that I can loop through different ids and analyze the output. Before authentication was needed I had done that with urllib2. I have also taken a look at the requests module but couldn't figure out how to authenticate with it.

Setting an auth token for the entire session: stackoverflow.com/a/47043335/911945 — Anton Tarasenko
– Anton Tarasenko, Commented Oct 31, 2017 at 19:38

President James K. Polk · Accepted Answer · 2024-12-10 15:21:13Z

198

The requests package has a very nice API for HTTP requests, adding a custom header works like this (source: official docs):

>>> import requests
>>> response = requests.get(
... 'https://website.example/id', headers={'Authorization': 'access_token myToken'})

If you don't want to use an external dependency, the same thing using urllib2 of the Python 2 standard library looks like this (source: official docs):

>>> import urllib2
>>> response = urllib2.urlopen(
... urllib2.Request('https://website.example/id', headers={'Authorization': 'access_token myToken'})

For Python 3, simply use urllib instead of urllib2

edited Dec 10, 2024 at 15:21

President James K. Polk

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answered Dec 11, 2012 at 19:27

wosc

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9 Comments

wosc Over a year ago

Strange. What bugs me a little is the colon in the header... ah! Maybe I (or we both ;) just read that wrong. The header might be named "Authorization" and its value then would be "access_token long_hexadecimal_string". Want to give that a spin?

bloodrootfc Over a year ago

This solution is deprecated or otherwise not working in default Anaconda install.

Deep Jadia Over a year ago

What is access_token myToken? From where and how can I get it? @wosc

Filippos Zofakis Over a year ago

It is an authentication token that the server uses to verify you are authorized to have access to the API. You need to obtain client credentials (username, password, API key) for the API you want to access and then send them (for example, via a get request) to the authentication server. The server returns a string that could be JSON-encoded to your client and you then use that as a token in your API calls. Search for JWT or OAuth to do some more reading and view some examples.

SwissNavy Over a year ago

As @Sowmiya Ragu pointed below, sometimes it's not 'access_token' but 'Bearer'. response = requests.get( 'https://website.com/id', headers={'Authorization': 'Bearer myToken'}) . Not sure if this is a version or specific sever's config isuue.

|

bloodrootfc · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-04 16:28:35Z

46

I had the same problem when trying to use a token with Github.

The only syntax that has worked for me with Python 3 is:

import requests

myToken = '<token>'
myUrl = '<website>'
head = {'Authorization': 'token {}'.format(myToken)}
response = requests.get(myUrl, headers=head)

answered Dec 4, 2017 at 16:28

bloodrootfc

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1 Comment

Deep Jadia Over a year ago

What would be the token here? Or how to get authentication token?

Sowmiya Ragu · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-27 04:52:16Z

29

>>> import requests
>>> response = requests.get('https://website.com/id', headers={'Authorization': 'access_token myToken'})

If the above doesnt work , try this:

>>> import requests
>>> response = requests.get('https://api.buildkite.com/v2/organizations/orgName/pipelines/pipelineName/builds/1230', headers={ 'Authorization': 'Bearer <your_token>' })
>>> print response.json()

edited May 27, 2020 at 4:52

answered Jan 21, 2020 at 9:02

Sowmiya Ragu

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4 Comments

Ryan Harris Over a year ago

I had the same issue this week and what ended up working for me was the Authorization bearer option. Not sure why there's a difference, but thanks for providing that option for me to try and successfully get working!

hydradon Over a year ago

@SowmiyaRagu the second part works for me Bearer <my_token> while the first doesn't because the response is as if the request is not authenticated.

Koops Over a year ago

JULY 2022 : OPTION 2 WORKS ON PYTHON REQUESTS = 2.28.1

Aanish Amir Waseem Over a year ago

access_token does not work because it is deprecated in python3

djvg · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-10 18:20:01Z

15

A lot of good answers already, but I didn't see this option yet:

If you're using requests, you could also specify a custom authentication class, similar to HTTPBasicAuth. For example:

from requests.auth import AuthBase


class TokenAuth(AuthBase):
    def __init__(self, token, auth_scheme='Bearer'):
        self.token = token
        self.auth_scheme = auth_scheme

    def __call__(self, request):
        request.headers['Authorization'] = f'{self.auth_scheme} {self.token}'
        return request

This could be used as follows (using the custom auth_scheme from the example):

response = requests.get(
    url='https://example.com', 
    auth=TokenAuth(token='abcde', auth_scheme='access_token'),
)

This may look like a more complicated way to set the Request.headers attribute, but it can be advantageous if you want to support multiple types of authentication. Note this allows us to use the auth argument instead of the headers argument.

answered May 10, 2022 at 18:20

djvg

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1 Comment

Kiruahxh Over a year ago

Useful because you don't have to merge headers manually

Shivam Bharadwaj · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-22 09:07:06Z

12

import requests

BASE_URL = 'http://localhost:8080/v3/getPlan'
token = "eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6ImR"

headers = {'Authorization': "Bearer {}".format(token)}
auth_response = requests.get(BASE_URL, headers=headers)

print(auth_response.json())

Output :

{
"plans": [
    {
        "field": false,
        "description": "plan 12",
        "enabled": true
    }
  ]
}

answered Apr 22, 2021 at 9:07

Shivam Bharadwaj

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Comments

tschmelz · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-30 15:42:32Z

7

Have you tried the uncurl package (https://github.com/spulec/uncurl)? You can install it via pip, pip install uncurl. Your curl request returns:

>>> uncurl "curl --header \"Authorization:access_token myToken\" https://website.com/id"

requests.get("https://website.com/id",
    headers={
        "Authorization": "access_token myToken"
    },
    cookies={},
)

answered Oct 30, 2019 at 15:42

tschmelz

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Comments

Orkhan M. · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-12 06:20:49Z

3

I'll add a bit hint: it seems what you pass as the key value of a header depends on your authorization type, in my case that was PRIVATE-TOKEN

header = {'PRIVATE-TOKEN': 'my_token'}
response = requests.get(myUrl, headers=header)

edited Oct 12, 2019 at 6:20

user4447799

answered Oct 12, 2019 at 5:44

Orkhan M.

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Comments

skillsmuggler · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-11 13:09:57Z

3

One of the option used in python to retrieve below:

import requests

token="abcd" < retrieved based>
headers = {'Authorization': "Bearer {}".format(token)}
response = requests.get(
    'https://<url api>',
    headers=headers,
    verify="root ca certificate"
)

print(response.content)

If you get hostname mismatch error then additional SANs need to be configured in the server with the hostnames.

Hope this helps.

edited Nov 11, 2022 at 13:09

skillsmuggler

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answered Nov 8, 2022 at 9:06

rajeshk

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