Sending an OWA logon form from Java

I am interested in a way to programmatically log into OWA (Microsoft Outlook Web Access - a web-based email client) from Java code and retrieve nothing more than the inbox unread count -- I can read this number from the inbox web page's HTML source - but the problem is getting there - logging in.

Essentially, from looking at the HTML source of the OWA logon page, I can see that there is an HTML form element:

<form action="owaauth.dll" method="POST" name="logonForm" autocomplete="off">

that gets submitted by a button element within it:

<input type="submit" class="btn" value="Log On" onclick="clkLgn()">

From investigating the clkLgn() script, I find that it sends a cookie to the document so it may not be crucial:

function clkLgn()
{
    if(gbid("rdoPrvt").checked)
    {
        var oD=new Date();
        oD.setTime(oD.getTime()+2*7*24*60*60*1000);
        var sA="acc="+(gbid("chkBsc").checked?1:0);
        var sL="lgn="+gbid("username").value;
        document.cookie="logondata="+sA+"&"+sL+";expires="+oD.toUTCString();
    }
}

Basically, how can I send this form? The following code is my attempt at the problem, I can make the HTTP connection - but I can't seem to be able to POST the correct HTTP request.

                URL urlObject = new URL(url);

                HttpURLConnection hConnection = (HttpURLConnection)urlObject.openConnection();
                HttpURLConnection.setFollowRedirects(true);
                hConnection.setDoOutput(true);
                hConnection.setRequestMethod("POST");

                PrintStream ps = new PrintStream(hConnection.getOutputStream());

                ps.print("username="+username+"&amp;password="+password);
                ps.close();


                hConnection.connect();

                if( HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK == hConnection.getResponseCode() )
                {
                    InputStream is = hConnection.getInputStream();
                    OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream("output.html");
                    int data;
                    while((data=is.read()) != -1)
                    {
                      os.write(data);
                    }
                    is.close();
                    os.close();
                    hConnection.disconnect();
                }

It just keeps returning the same logon HTML page.

BalusC

That JavaScript does certainly an important thing: it adds a cookie to the document. A decent HTTP client is required to send all valid cookies along the headers on every HTTP request. You should do the same programmatically. You can add headers using URLConnection#setRequestProperty().

Further, there are several things to take into account as well when submitting forms programmatically: you should not skip any hidden input fields (input type="hidden"), those might be of relevance. You should also send the name=value pair of the submit button you'd like to press programmatically along as request parameter. Finally, you should not be using & to concatenate parameter pairs, but &.

Note that I don't guarantee that it will finally work, that OWA thing might have some other prevention against bots, but it should solve the as far spotted problems.

Sending an OWA logon form from Java

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