Trouble with konqueror on http authentication

[Erik Rull]

Stefano Crocco wrote:
> On sabato 30 gennaio 2021 09:25:45 CET Erik Rull wrote:
>> Stefano Crocco wrote:
>>> On giovedì 28 gennaio 2021 23:39:00 CET Erik Rull wrote:
>>>> Stefano Crocco wrote:
>>>>> On martedì 26 gennaio 2021 22:04:15 CET Erik Rull wrote:
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't know how to get this working again. I just updated to 20.04
>>>>>> from
>>>>>> 16.04 (kubuntu LTS) and before the update this was working great:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I start my Linux box (just power on) and remote SSH into the system
>>>>>> (X-Forwarding enabled). Then I open my applications and also konqueror.
>>>>>> This works all fine and smoothly, websites are displayed fine. Until I
>>>>>> try to access a website with HTTP-Authentication - there I directly get
>>>>>> a 401 - no asking for a password, nothing, just the 401 page directly.
>>>>>> Firefox prompts me for the username/password and shows me the page
>>>>>> behind the
>>>>>> authentication. So the server is fine. I tried multiple servers and
>>>>>> konqueror behaves always the same.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any idea what I broke during the update?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Erik
>>>>>
>>>>> Hello Erik,
>>>>> do you by any chance know whether your previous version of Konqueror
>>>>> still
>>>>> used the WebKit engine or had it already switched to QtWebEngine? In the
>>>>> first case, I think you can have found yet another feature which stopped
>>>>> working with the switch to the new engine.
>>>>>
>>>>> If your current Kubuntu version still provides KWebKitPart, you could
>>>>> also
>>>>> try installing it, select it as default web engine in the General tab of
>>>>> the Konqueror settings page and check whether the HTTP Authentication
>>>>> works with it. If it does, the problem lies with QtWebEngine, otherwise,
>>>>> we'll need to investigate somewhere else.
>>>>>
>>>>> Stefano
>>>>
>>>> Hi Stefano,
>>>>
>>>> I don't know exactly. How can I check this and / or switch the engine?
>>>> When opening konqueror and access e.g. google.com then a new process is
>>>> listed with QtWebEngineProcess - so I assume this is the QtWebEngine.
>>>> I tried to search for kwebkit in aptitude - nothing found...
>>>> Maybe it is hidden in a different named package?
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>>
>>>> Erik
>>>
>>> Hello Erik,
>>> the current version of Konqueror uses QtWebEngine by default. I fear that
>>> kwebkitpart may have been removed from it (for instance, I know it's been
>>> removed from Gentoo). In the weekend, I'll try to install an Ubuntu
>>> virtual
>>> machine with both Ubuntu 20.04 and 16.04 to check what the situation is.
>>>
>>> Stefano
>>
>> Hi Stefano,
>>
>>
>> Thanks a lot!
>> Please try the SSH access before you logged in.
>>
>> I found out something new meanwhile:
>> When NOT logging in directly on the desktop - I get the 401 with konqueror
>> directly via SSH - that I described already.
>> BUT - When logging into the system directly (local screen and keyboard) and
>> THEN open the konqueror remotely via SSH, konqueror does NOT display the
>> 401 - it "waits". But what happens in parallel on the local screen: the
>> authentication dialog of the requested website pops up!
>>
>> So "something" is different when being logged in directly. But the behavior
>> is still odd, because you have no chance to access the login dialog via
>> SSH...
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Erik
> 
> Hello Erik,
> I can confirm that, unfortunately, KUbuntu 20.4 doesn't include KWebKitPart. If 
> you are comfortable building programs from source, you can download it from 
> https://invent.kde.org/libraries/kwebkitpart and install it (it requires 
> kdewebkit which is available in KUbuntu). After installing it, in the General 
> tab of Konqueror settings dialog, you'll be able to set KWebKit as default web 
> browser engine. I'm not sure whether this will fix your issue or not, however.
> 
> As I've never used ssh with X-forwarding, could you please explain step by 
> step what you did to in the two situations you described? I tried setting up a 
> very minimalistic server with http authentication and accessing it with using 
> Konqueror from ssh and I had no problems neither with the old KWebKit nor with 
> the new QtWebEngine.
> 
> Stefano

Hi Stefano,

sure - her a bit more verbose what I did (target system is kubuntu 20.04):
- install the SSH server on the target system
- do a fresh boot of the target system (just power it up)
- start an SSH client on an second system or use konsole on the second system with:
ssh -X user at target
(enter password)
then on the new opened remote console:
konqueror
Enter a URL that requires username/password via HTTP
Now there are two possibilities:
1) you have NOT logged in on the target desktop via keyboard / monitor
 => you get a 401 directly
2) you have logged on the target desktop when calling the URL
 => you get a "busy" icon on the upper right but no dialog via SSH
 => you get the dialog prompted on the desktop of the target desktop
 => nothing happens on your remote session, you can press ESC to proceed
browsing to somewhere else but the dialog stays open on the target desktop

Best regards,

Erik