Stay Logged In Cookies with Qt Webview - c++

Question

Background on the program (in case that helps):
I'm trying to make a simple wrapper to go around "web applications" to give them some of the look/feel + isolation that a traditional application brings. I understand that using web technologies makes it way easier to develop for cross platform (especially when it comes to the UI) but I don't like how it has become a sort of catch all solution for lots of dev teams. I don't want to run software inside my web browser.
Browsers are heavy and support a wide range of functions that aren't relevant to what the application does and having a program function entirely in a browser tab can lead to a clunky user experience (I'm looking at you Bittorrent Sync for linux). Instead I would rather use a stripped down browser that is much lighter and runs in its own isolated space rather than in the browser ecosystem.
Additional functionally can be easily tacked on to provide a more fluid user experience (for example if the user doesn't start the program and tries to connect to it through a browser they are going to get HTTP error codes. In this separate wrapper the program could read the error code itself and show some preloaded html to give a more useful error specific to the program).
To accomplish this I am trying to use Qt to create a browser that is simply a web render-er, http communicator, cookie support, and some basic management features (shortcuts for running the program instead of relying on the command line)
PROBLEM:
Checking the "Stay Signed In" box does nothing. I'm pretty sure the way stay signed in works is the server generates an authentication for the browser to store as a cookie.
When I sign into my google account I can see several cookies that are created after logging in that appear to do just that. I can have access to my gmail, calendar, etc. and when I exit the non session cookies are stored to the disk.
When I start the program back up they are loaded from the disk and appear in each request, but I am not signed into an account and the sign in link is visible. If I don't log in again, the old cookies aren't stored to disk again when the program exists.
Here is some debug output of the cookies when I close the program when logged in (cookies saved to disk) then restart the program (loaded from disk) and close it without logging in again (cookies saved):
SAVING COOKIES
GAPS=1:8-XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=accounts.google.com; path=/
NID=XXXXX; HttpOnly; expires=Fri, 01-Jan-2016 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
SID=XXXXX; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
LSID=XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=accounts.google.com; path=/
HSID=XXXXX; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
SSID=XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
APISID=XXXXX; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
SAPISID=XXXXX; secure; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
ACCOUNT_CHOOSER=XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=accounts.google.com; path=/
PREF=ID=1111111111111111:FF=0:LD=en:TM=XXXXX:LM=XXXXX:V=1:S=XXXXX_rr5; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
OGPC=5-2:; expires=Sat, 01-Aug-2015 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
OTZ=XXXXX; secure; expires=Sat, 01-Aug-2015 17:34:15 GMT; domain=plus.google.com; path=/
build-WebView-Desktop-Debug/WebView exited with code 0
LOADING COOKIES
GAPS=1:8-XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=accounts.google.com; path=/
NID=XXXXX; HttpOnly; expires=Fri, 01-Jan-2016 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
SID=XXXXX; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
LSID=XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=accounts.google.com; path=/
HSID=XXXXX; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
SSID=XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
APISID=XXXXX; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
SAPISID=XXXXX; secure; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
ACCOUNT_CHOOSER=XXXXX; secure; HttpOnly; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=accounts.google.com; path=/
PREF=ID=1111111111111111:FF=0:LD=en:TM=XXXXX:LM=XXXXX:V=1:S=XXXXX_rr5; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
OGPC=5-2:; expires=Sat, 01-Aug-2015 17:34:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
OTZ=XXXXX; secure; expires=Sat, 01-Aug-2015 17:34:15 GMT; domain=plus.google.com; path=/
SAVING COOKIES
PREF=ID=1111111111111111:FF=0:TM=XXXXX:LM=XXXXX:V=1:S=XXXXX; expires=Sat, 01-Jul-2017 17:34:51 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
NID=XXXXX; HttpOnly; expires=Fri, 01-Jan-2016 17:34:51 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
OGPC=5-2:; expires=Sat, 01-Aug-2015 17:35:03 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/
I replaced some keys and numbers with XXXXX to avoid posting anything important online.
Here's the source code producing this output:
MainWindow::MainWindow(QWidget *parent) :
QMainWindow(parent),
ui(new Ui::MainWindow)
{
//Manager to allow use of cookiejar
QNetworkAccessManager* nam = new QNetworkAccessManager;
//Used for debug, prints out all cookies after each request is finished
connect(nam, SIGNAL(finished(QNetworkReply*)), this, SLOT(echo(QNetworkReply*)));
//create and assign cookiejar to nam
jar = new CookieJar();
nam->setCookieJar(jar);
//create webview and assign nam to it
webview = new QWebView();
webview->page()->setNetworkAccessManager(nam);
//Display cookies loaded from disk
const QList<QNetworkCookie> cookies = jar->getCookies();
std::cout << std::endl << "Cookies From Disk:" << std::endl << std::endl;
for(QNetworkCookie cookie: cookies)
std::cout << cookie.toRawForm().data() << std::endl;
//Load the test url
QUrl url("http://www.google.com");
webview->load(url);
//place webview on screen
ui->setupUi(this);
setCentralWidget(webview);
}
//Used for debug, prints out all cookies after each request is finished
void MainWindow::echo(QNetworkReply *reply){
const QList<QNetworkCookie> cookies2 = jar->getCookies();
std::cout << std::endl << "Cookies After HTTP:" << std::endl << std::endl;
for(QNetworkCookie cookie: cookies2)
std::cout << cookie.toRawForm().data() << std::endl;
}
Relevant parts of my cookiejar implementation:
bool CookieJar::saveCookiesToDisk(){
std::ofstream output("cookies.dat");
this->purgeOldCookies();
if(output){
QList<QNetworkCookie> cookies = this->allCookies();
std::cout << "\nSAVING COOKIES" << std::endl << std::endl;
for(QNetworkCookie cookie: cookies)
if(!cookie.isSessionCookie()){
std::cout << cookie.toRawForm().data() << std::endl;
output << cookie.toRawForm().data() << this->COOKIE_DELIMITER;
}
output.close();
return true;
}
else{
return false;
}
}
bool CookieJar::loadCookiesFromDisk(){
std::ifstream input("cookies.dat");
if(input){
QList<QNetworkCookie> cookies;
std::string cookieData;
std::cout << "\nLOADING COOKIES" << std::endl << std::endl;
while(getline(input, cookieData, this->COOKIE_DELIMITER)){
std::cout << cookieData << std::endl;
cookies.append(QNetworkCookie(QByteArray(cookieData.c_str(), cookieData.length())));
}
this->setAllCookies(cookies);
return true;
}
else{
return false;
}
}
/**
* This function comes from the official qt demo at
* http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtwebkitexamples-webkitwidgets-browser-cookiejar-cpp.html
*/
void CookieJar::purgeOldCookies(){
QList<QNetworkCookie> cookies = allCookies();
if (cookies.isEmpty())
return;
int oldCount = cookies.count();
QDateTime now = QDateTime::currentDateTime();
for (int i = cookies.count() - 1; i >= 0; --i) {
if (!cookies.at(i).isSessionCookie() && cookies.at(i).expirationDate() < now)
cookies.removeAt(i);
}
if (oldCount == cookies.count())
return;
setAllCookies(cookies);
//This last line from the example was omitted as it is not relevant to the function of this project?
//emit cookiesChanged();
}
Any help figuring out why my stored cookies seem to be ignored by the server would be greatly appreciated. As far as I can tell I am properly storing and sending all cookies so I wouldn't be surprised if I've oversimplified how these authentication cookies work.
Thank you to anyone taking time out of their day to help me out here.

Answer 1

I have an working example of a 'stay logged' application, here are the load&save functions:
bool loadLoginCookie()
{
QDir cookiesDir("dir where cookie is stored");
if(! cookiesDir.exists())
{
return false;
}
QFile cookieFile(cookiesDir.path() + "/cookie.dat");
if(! cookieFile.exists())
{
return false;
}
if(! cookieFile.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly))
{
qDebug() << "Error reading the cookie file:" << cookieFile.fileName();
}
QByteArray cookieRaw = cookieFile.readAll();
cookieFile.close();
QList<QNetworkCookie> newCookies = QNetworkCookie::parseCookies(cookieRaw);
if (newCookies.count() == 0 && cookieRaw.length() != 0)
{
qDebug() << "CookieJar: Unable to parse saved cookie:" << cookieRaw;
}
QNetworkManager& myAppNetworkManager =Application::getInstance().getNetworkManager();
myAppNetworkManager.fillCookiesJar(newCookies, QUrl("theurl:443"));
foreach (QNetworkCookie cookie, newCookies)
{
if(cookie.name() == "connect.sid") //loging cookie
{
Application::getInstance().setLoginCookie(cookie); //here i save the login cookie in a class QNetworkCookie*
qDebug() << "cookie loaded";
}
else
{
qDebug() << "Error loading the login cookie.";
}
}
return true;
}
bool Application::saveLoginCookie(const QNetworkCookie &cookie)
{
QDir cookiesDir("dir where cookie must be stored");
if(! cookiesDir.exists())
{
if(! cookiesDir.mkpath("."))
{
qDebug() << "Error creating the cookies directory";
return false;
}
}
QFile cookieFile(cookiesDir.path() + "/cookie.dat");
if(! cookieFile.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly))
{
qDebug() << "Error saving the cookie file:" << cookieFile.fileName();
return false;
}
cookieFile.write(cookie.toRawForm());
cookieFile.close();
qDebug() << "Login cookie created successfully.";
return true;
});
This save function is called after the login operation:
QVariant cookieVar = reply.header(QNetworkRequest::SetCookieHeader);//reply is the QNetworkReply returned by the login operation
if(cookieVar.isValid())
{
QList<QNetworkCookie> cookies = cookieVar.value<QList<QNetworkCookie> >();
foreach (QNetworkCookie cookie, cookies)
{
if(cookie.name() == "connect.sid") //loging cookie
{
if(! saveLoginCookie(cookie))
{
qDebug() << "Error saving login cookie";
}
}
}
}
else
{
qDebug() << "Login cookie not valid";
}
}
I know that its not a reimplementation of the cookieJar but it maybe gives you inspiration. We can discuss it further if you can't make it work.