Perl interfacing to egroupware:

The Frontier::RPC module available at CPAN is capable of logging into an
egroupware server.  To authenticate your session after the initial login,
however, requires a patch to Frontier.  This patch causes Frontier to create
an Authentication header using username/password values.  We use the assigned
sessionid and kp3 for this.

NOTE: sessionid/kp3 values in this file are not valid.

TODO:

1. Apply the patch at the end of this file to Frontier-RPC-0.06.
2. Install Frontier.
3. Try the following method using rpc-client.pl in the examples subdirectory for
  the Frontier source:

	rpc-client.pl \
	http://www.egroupware.org/egroupware/xmlrpc.php \
	system.login \
	"{domain => '',username => 'demo', password => 'guest'}"

4. Take the returned sessionid and kp3, e.g.:

$result = HASH(0x826d4b0)
   'domain' => 'default'
   'kp3' => 'e0219714614769x25bc92286016c60c2'
   'sessionid' => '36f9ec1e4ad78bxd8bc902b1c38d3e14'

5. Place these on the commandline for a new request:

	rpc-client.pl \
	http://www.egroupware.org/egroupware/xmlrpc.php \
	--username 36f9ec1e4ad78bxd8bc902b1c38d3e14 \
	--password e0219714614769x25bc92286016c60c2 \
	service.contacts.read \
	"{ id => '4'}"

6. This should return record #4 from the addressbook application.


Here is the patch:

----CUT HERE----
--- Frontier-RPC-0.06/lib/Frontier/Client.pm	Sat Nov 20 18:13:21 1999
+++ Frontier-RPC-0.06-me/lib/Frontier/Client.pm	Wed Aug 22 15:25:36 2001
@@ -24,22 +24,27 @@
     bless $self, $class;
 
     die "Frontier::RPC::new: no url defined\n"
-	if !defined $self->{'url'};
+    if !defined $self->{'url'};
 
     $self->{'ua'} = LWP::UserAgent->new;
     $self->{'ua'}->proxy('http', $self->{'proxy'})
-	if(defined $self->{'proxy'});
+    if(defined $self->{'proxy'});
     $self->{'rq'} = HTTP::Request->new (POST => $self->{'url'});
+    if(defined $self->{'username'} and defined $self->{'password'})
+    {
+        use MIME::Base64;
+        $self->{'rq'}->header('Authorization: Basic', encode_base64($self->{'username'} . ":" . $self->{'password'}));
+    }
     $self->{'rq'}->header('Content-Type' => 'text/xml');
 
     my @options;
 
     if(defined $self->{'encoding'}) {
-	push @options, 'encoding' => $self->{'encoding'};
+        push @options, 'encoding' => $self->{'encoding'};
     }
 
     if (defined $self->{'use_objects'} && $self->{'use_objects'}) {
-	push @options, 'use_objects' => $self->{'use_objects'};
+        push @options, 'use_objects' => $self->{'use_objects'};
     }
 
     $self->{'enc'} = Frontier::RPC2->new(@options);
@@ -53,8 +58,8 @@
     my $text = $self->{'enc'}->encode_call(@_);
 
     if ($self->{'debug'}) {
-	print "---- request ----\n";
-	print $text;
+        print "---- request ----\n";
+        print $text;
     }
 
     $self->{'rq'}->content($text);
@@ -62,21 +67,21 @@
     my $response = $self->{'ua'}->request($self->{'rq'});
 
     if (substr($response->code, 0, 1) ne '2') {
-	die $response->status_line . "\n";
+        die $response->status_line . "\n";
     }
 
     my $content = $response->content;
 
     if ($self->{'debug'}) {
-	print "---- response ----\n";
-	print $content;
+        print "---- response ----\n";
+        print $content;
     }
 
     my $result = $self->{'enc'}->decode($content);
 
     if ($result->{'type'} eq 'fault') {
-	die "Fault returned from XML RPC Server, fault code " . $result->{'value'}[0]{'faultCode'} . ": "
-	    . $result->{'value'}[0]{'faultString'} . "\n";
+        die "Fault returned from XML RPC Server, fault code " . $result->{'value'}[0]{'faultCode'} . ": "
+        . $result->{'value'}[0]{'faultString'} . "\n";
     }
 
     return $result->{'value'}[0];
--- Frontier-RPC-0.06/examples/rpc-client.pl	Thu Sep  2 15:16:49 1999
+++ Frontier-RPC-0.06-me/examples/rpc-client.pl	Wed Aug 22 15:32:07 2001
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+#!/usr/bin/perl
 #
 # Copyright (C) 1998 Ken MacLeod
 # See the file COPYING for distribution terms.
@@ -11,7 +12,7 @@
 
 =head1 SYNOPSIS
 
- rpc-client [--debug] [--encoding ENCODING] [--proxy PROXY] \
+ rpc-client [--debug] [--username] [--password] [--encoding ENCODING] [--proxy PROXY] \
      URL METHOD ["ARGLIST"]
 
 =head1 DESCRIPTION
@@ -31,6 +32,12 @@
 The `C<--debug>' option will cause the client to print the XML request
 sent to and XML response received from the server.
 
+The `C<--username>' option will force an Authorization:Basic header
+to be generated, if used in conjunction with the `C<--password>' option
+
+The `C<--password>' option will force an Authorization:Basic header
+to be generated, if used in conjunction with the `C<--username>' option
+
 The `C<--encoding>' option will supply an alternate encoding for the
 XML request.  The default is none, which uses XML 1.0's default of
 UTF-8.
@@ -57,9 +64,11 @@
 my $encoding = undef;
 my $proxy = undef;
 
-GetOptions( 'debug' => \$debug,
+GetOptions( 'debug'      => \$debug,
             'encoding=s' => \$encoding,
-            'proxy=s' => \$proxy );
+            'proxy=s'    => \$proxy,
+            'username=s' => \$username,
+            'password=s' => \$password);
 
 die "usage: rpc-client URL METHOD [\"ARGLIST\"]\n"
     if ($#ARGV != 1 && $#ARGV != 2);
@@ -68,10 +77,12 @@
 my $method = shift @ARGV;
 my $arglist = shift @ARGV;
 
-$server = Frontier::Client->new( 'url' => $url,
-                                 'debug' => $debug,
+$server = Frontier::Client->new( 'url'      => $url,
+                                 'debug'    => $debug,
                                  'encoding' => $encoding,
-                                 'proxy' => $proxy );
+                                 'proxy'    => $proxy,
+                                 'username' => $username,
+                                 'password' => $password);
 
 my @arglist;
 eval "\@arglist = ($arglist)";