[support] support Digest, Vol 55, Issue 25

[Larry Garfield]

On Wednesday 18 July 2007, Cheryl Chase wrote:

> >> 1. When I use any of the download tools (wget, sitesucker, I've not
> >> yet tried httrack) to download the site, the function
> >> drupal_get_html_head in file includes/common.inc outputs a directive
> >> ". This causes the downloaded pages to contain links which try to
> >> open the original site on the Internet, rather than the local file
> >> copy.
> >
> > I'm afraid the directive didn't come through.  Which one do you
> > mean? :-)
>
> The base directive (sorry, I used html and it was stripped out).

Ah, the base HTML tag.  That means you're running 4.6, which is no longer 
supported.  The base tag was removed in Drupal 4.7 because it caused too many 
problems.  I suspect this is one of them. :-)

> >> 2. I would like to be logged in as a special user, named "archive",
> >> which is configured specially for archive purposes. For instance, it
> >> has no permission to search; it displays a custom block that tells
> >> that this is an archived version of the website, and states the date
> >> on which it was archived, etc. This works for me when I manually
> >> login as user "archive". How to get a downloading tool to login as a
> >> drupal user (they are good at http authentication, but have no
> >> understanding of drupal authentication).
> >
> > If you log in as that user, you can check in the database and see
> > what the
> > session variable is for that user.  wget (and probably the others)
> > can be set
> > to send a specific cookie with each request, and you can just give
> > it that
> > value.  See the man page for the exact syntax, as I don't recall it
> > at the
> > moment.
>
> But then, wouldn't I have to manually login first? I'm trying to
> create an automated procedure.
>
> Cheryl

If you're comfortable with shell scripting you could script the login process, 
get the cookie that's passed back, and then hand that off to wget.  Drupal 
quite deliberately makes it hard to get an authenticated account without 
human intervention, as 99.9% of the time any script trying to do so is a 
spammer, cracker, or otherwise someone you don't want. :-)

-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, 
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to 
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession 
of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."  -- Thomas 
Jefferson