Hi all, I've now updated the ndg3beta site to enable secure access to the OPeNDAP and COWS services via non-browser based clients. This means that you can access the data via a script or program such as wget. This complements the current OpenID based access which provides a convenient means for access via a browser.
An example wget based request to the OPeNDAP service could be: $ wget http://ndg3beta.badc.rl.ac.uk/dap/rapid/chime/co2_1pc/1day/chime_co2_1pc_daily_0060_197.oc.nc --no-check-certificate --certificate=./user.crt --private-key=./user.key --keep-session-cookies --save-cookies=cookie.txt --cookies=on The new access method uses SSL client based authentication. A certificate and private key are passed to the service. Although the initial URI is HTTP based, the server returns a redirect to a HTTPS based endpoint so that it can authenticate based on the certificate and key provided. If successful, another redirect returns the client to the original requested URI granting access and also setting a session cookie. Further requests to the service can skip the SSL authentication step by passing the session cookie returned previously. The next call retrieves a PNG image from the COWS WMS: $ wget "http://ndg3beta.badc.rl.ac.uk/cows/famous_control_month/wms?Service=WMS&request=GetMap&version=1.1.1&Time=2793-06-14T00:00:00.0&Format=image/png&BBox=-180,-90,180,90&Layers=sea_water_salinity&srs=EPSG:4326&height=300&width=400"; --keep-session-cookies --save-cookies=cookie.txt --cookies=on --load-cookies=cookie.txt The certificate provided could be a server certificate or a personal use one obtained from for example MyProxy. MyProxy provides a means of single sign-on: you could for example login to a MyProxy service at your home institution using your usual username/password credentials. The service would return a short term certificate which you could then use to access secure data at other data centres which trust your home site. If you'd like to try it out let me know and I can provide you with test certificates. Cheers, Phil -- Scanned by iCritical. _______________________________________________ NDG-technical mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ncas.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/ndg-technical
