Trouble with konqueror on http authentication

[Erik Rull]

Erik Rull wrote:
> 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

Hi Stefano,

I tried a bit more - I tried to use another browser using the QTWebEngine and I
found "falkon" in the repositories.
And this browser worked just fine - I got the http login dialog from both SSH
remote and locally.
So the chance that the QTWebEngine is the root cause got less likely.
I checked what happens in addition compared to the falkon browser and discovered
the dbus session.
I have a bad feeling that the dbus / dbus-session might be the troublemaker...

Best regards,

Erik