Basic Authentication for Safari Web Automation

Introduction

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Basic Authentication is a method for an HTTP user agent to provide a user name and password when making a request. In basic HTTP authentication, a request contains a header field in the form of Authorization: Basic <credentials>, where credentials is the Base64 encoding of ID and password joined by a single colon :.

To provide support for Basic Authentication in Safari during Web Automation, we have introduced a new lambda hook in our iOS Real Device (RD) web sessions.

info

1. This hook is not compatible with any app-based sessions.
2. The capability autoAcceptAlerts must be set to false.

How to Use

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Here is an example of how to use the Basic Authentication hook in Python:

Verified

data = {
  "username": "admin",
  "password": "admin",
  "url": "https://the-internet.herokuapp.com/basic_auth",
}
driver.execute_script("lambda-ios-set-basic-auth", data)

For Playwright

On iOS real devices, standard Playwright approaches such as httpCredentials may not work because Safari/WebKit can block or fail to resolve the authentication prompt. Instead, pass the credentials as an Authorization header using the customHeaders capability which will be handled by our proprietary implementation.

Step 1: Combine your username and password in the format username:password and Base64-encode the combined string using below command:

echo -n 'username:password' | base64

For example, username:password becomes dXNlcm5hbWU...

Step 2: To enable Basic authentication, add a customHeaders capability to your Playwright capabilities and set the Authorization header to Basic <encoded-value>.

"customHeaders": {
  "Authorization": "Basic dXNlcm5hbWU..."
}

Step 3: Run your test. The Authorization header is sent with each request, so the Basic Auth–protected URL loads without an authentication prompt.

HTTP Basic Authentication in Safari - Real Device (Using Tunnel)

Basic Authentication is natively supported on Google Chrome. For manual testing on Safari, use the following workaround with the TestMu AI Tunnel.

Step 1: Download the tunnel binary from the TestMu AI dashboard. For detailed instructions, refer to the TestMu AI Tunnel documentation.

Step 2: After installing the tunnel binary, start the tunnel using the following command:

LT --user <username> --key <access_key> -b https://admin:admin@the-internet.herokuapp.com/basic_auth --mitm

• Replace <username> and <access_key> with your TestMu AI credentials.
• Replace admin:admin with your website's Basic Authentication username and password, and replace the URL with your website's URL.

Step 3: Once the tunnel is active, navigate to the TestMu AI Real Device → Browser Testing dashboard and enter your website URL in the URL field.

Step 4: Launch a Safari browser session.

The tunnel handles Basic Authentication automatically, so you are logged in and taken directly to your webpage.

Limitations

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Please note, this hook is designed to be used exclusively with Safari on iOS Real Device (RD) web sessions and is not compatible with Android sessions or any app-based sessions.