couchDB , python and authentication

Question

I have installed couchDB v 0.10.0, and am attempting to talk to it via python from Couch class downloaded from couchDB wiki. Problem is:

Create database 'mydb': {'error': 'unauthorized', 'reason': 'You are not a server admin.'}

I hand edited the local.ini file to include my standard osx login and password. I now have full access via futon but no joy WRT python. Is this an http header issue?

At a a loss - thanks!

Which python library are you using? There are several listed on the python wiki page (http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Getting_started_with_Python) — andyuk, Nov 21 '09 at 19:26
thanks andyuk - I am using EXAMPLE code that is on wiki page since it is simplest. I am also trying to find couchDB doc on disabling auth (locally) — idiotype, Nov 21 '09 at 19:30

score 23 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 22 '21 at 12:14

23

To concour David's reply, (i.e. "This is how I do it using module CouchDB 0.8 in python 2.6 with couchdb 1.0.2")

couch = couchdb.Server(couch_server)

couch.resource.credentials = (USERNAME, PASSWORD)

edited Feb 22 '21 at 12:14

Atlas Sullivan

81
1
9

answered Feb 14 '11 at 16:16

lysdexia

1,786
18
29

worked for me in a similar situation...once I remembered to put my username and password in quotes! It's kind of implied in lysdexia's answer here but I mention it here just in case someone else is missing that at the end of a longish day. Unless of course you have actually defined them elsewhere and are just using variable names here. – rossdavidh Apr 26 '11 at 02:31
Just wanted to confirm that I was able to use this on the library version 1.0, running on debian wheezy against CouchDB 1.6.1, where the admin password was set in local.ini under [admins]. I assume it will work with normal users, too. – Fran K. Mar 31 '15 at 21:08

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 04 '09 at 18:35

6

You can also do:

db = couchdb.Database("http://your.url/yourdb")
db.resource.http.add_credentials(username, password)

after which all your requests should work.

answered Dec 04 '09 at 18:35

thisfred

211
1
4

4

Doesn't appear to be a .http property in resource, but there is couch.resource.credentials. So I did couch.resource.credentials = (SERVER_USER, SERVER_PASSWD) which works for me. – David Dec 19 '10 at 08:41

fviktor · Answer 3 · 2009-11-22T02:43:31.833

The Couch class in the example does not pass any authentication information to the database, so it is not a miracle that it does not allow privileged operations. So your only options are:

disable authentication completely (as you mentioned)
pass the user name and password as part of the URI
pass the user name and password as an Authorization HTTP request header

If you want to pass a user name and a password, then you will need to change the Couch class. Sending an Authorization HTTP request header is easier, since the Couch class uses the httplib.HTTPConnection class. You can add such a header next to the Accept one this way:

headers = {
    "Accept": "application/json",
    "Authorization": "Basic " + 'username:password'.encode('base64')[:-1]}

Same for the other HTTP request methods.

The documentation on the basic authentication is here:

http://books.couchdb.org/relax/reference/security

Documentation on the security features of CouchDB: http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Security_Features_Overview — fviktor, Nov 22 '09 at 02:57

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 29 '10 at 23:45

3

Just pass it as part of the URI...python-couchdb will parse the user/pass out and use them:

http://user:pass@localhost:5984

answered Nov 29 '10 at 23:45

jasonjwwilliams

2,541
3
19
14

This is true for python-couchdb 0.7 and above, so make sure you're up to date. – Redbeard Jan 27 '11 at 23:10

Uncle Tallest · Answer 5 · 2012-03-09T11:56:11.027

Above are all nice; but I've found that for oauth validation methods versus basic auth, this works really well:

from couchdb import Server, Session
auth = Session()
auth.name = USERNAME
auth.password = PASSWORD
s = Server('http://localhost:5984/', session=auth)
db = s['dbname']

Note: This will not work with basic authentication; in such a case, fviktor has what I consider to be the best answer. You might also look into the security reference material he linked to if you're interested in persistent auth sessions.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 26 '09 at 18:56

There are several patches for python-couchdb that enable authentication. The code probably will be included in Version 0.7 but until then you can usr teh fork at http://github.com/mdornseif/couchdb-python - it allows you to use http://user:pass@127.0.0.1:5984/ type URLs.

http://blogs.23.nu/c0re/2009/12/running-a-couchdb-cluster-on-amazon-ec2/ (at the bottom) shows how to use CouchDB passwords.

couchDB , python and authentication

6 Answers6

Linked