CURL - cookies are stored where? - php

I would like to login to a site, so the first time I request a page, it redirects me to another page setting the cookies.
I am following a tutorial where they specify doing this
$cookie = '/tmp/cookies.txt';
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, $cookie);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie);
But when i check http live headers, the server passes cookie information to set my cookies.
But i don't see it doing anything. When I examine the cookies, those values aren't there.
So do I have to specify another path for $cookie?

You've to use CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE for sending cookies instead of CURLOPT_COOKIE.
From the docs for function curl_setopt():
CURLOPT_COOKIE
The contents of the "Cookie: " header to be used in the HTTP request. Note that multiple cookies are separated with a semicolon followed by a space (e.g., "fruit=apple; colour=red")
CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE
The name of the file containing the cookie data. The cookie file can be in Netscape format, or just plain HTTP-style headers dumped into a file.
CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR
The name of a file to save all internal cookies to when the handle is closed, e.g. after a call to curl_close.

Related

PHP & cURL to use existing COOKIEFILE + Adding my own value to save

I already have a cookie file saved that I want to reference and update. I also want to specify my own additional cookie values via CURLOPT_COOKIE and save those to my existing cookie file as well.
However, I am unable to get this to work.
My code is:
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $website); // Define target site
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE); // Return page in string
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING , "gzip");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, "fruit=apple;");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "usercookies/cookie_$user.txt"); // Tell cURL where to write cookies
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "usercookies/cookie_$user.txt"); // Tell cURL which cookies to send
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT,15);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE); // Follow redirects
$returnx = curl_exec($ch);
$info = curl_getinfo($ch);
curl_close($ch);
My saved cookie file does not reflect the changes I made via curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, "fruit=apple;");. The cookiefile saved should show "fruit=apple" but it's still showing the old values or the values returned by the cURL request.
Do I need to reference the entire domain name in order to get it to save?
The cookie file looks something like this:
# Netscape HTTP Cookie File
# http://curl.haxx.se/docs/http-cookies.html
# This file was generated by libcurl! Edit at your own risk.
.go.com TRUE / FALSE 1754020486 one AE4F4981
.go.com TRUE / FALSE 1468965260 two B9A1
Cookies you add manually using CURLOPT_COOKIE won't get saved to the cookie jar at the end of the request.
The only case in which it would is if the server sent back a Set-Cookie header for the cookie you sent in order to update it.
The reason is because cURL requests have a cookie structure that holds cookies which gets written at the end of the request. Data only gets in this structure by a) being read from the cookie file in the first place or b) Set-Cookie headers in the response headers.
With a little care you can append your own cookie to that file with something like this:
$domain = '.go.com';
$expire = time() + 3600;
$name = 'fruit';
$value = 'apple';
file_put_contents($cookieJar, "\n$domain\tTRUE\t/\tFALSE\t$expire\t$name\t$value", FILE_APPEND);

When Session Cookies Expire Using cURL

Usually, when using a browser, session cookies expire when browser window closed.
But when using (php) cURL (and set COOKIE_FILE and COOKIE_JAR options), how long do they keep alive?
According to mozilla.org:
session cookie [...] is deleted when the client shuts down, because it didn't specify an Expires or Max-Age directive. However, web browsers may use session restoring, which makes most session cookies permanent, as if the browser was never closed.
According to the documentation of curl_setopt function:
By default, libcurl always stores and loads all cookies, independent if they are session cookies or not. Session cookies are cookies without expiry date and they are meant to be alive and existing for this "session" only.
If you save a cookie in a specified file with
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://stackoverflow.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, dirname(__FILE__) . '/cookie.txt');
$output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
Then, from the client perspective, the session will be active as long as CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR is set with the right cookie. This is a choice of your script.

Cookies through Curl

I have a thought - is there a possibility to get cookies from a curl POST request to a particular page?
I mean, I create the curl request with post fields, and then get the response of the page - but if the page has some cookies set as HttpOnly I won't be able to see them, right?
cUrl has the possibility to save cookies in a txt file, that's correct I did it and that is fantastic - but how can a split that .txt to save each cookie in a database ?
You can store cookies in .TXT which each time will have different name like Time/Date or you can do this.
$dir = dirname(__file__);
$config['cookie_file'] = $dir . '/cookies/' . md5($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']) . 'txt';
This will save all cookies with User's IP in MD5 to COOKIES Folder.
or for directly storing into database.
$cookie = tempnam('cookie',rand(000000000,999999999));
and the after each request, you can send cookie to Database.
TIP:
cURL(cookie)
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $cookie);
SQL(storing)
Use INSERT for adding cookies to database.

PHP CURL By Passing a Cookie Key/Value Pair

I was wondering if someone knew the equivalent of doing (from terminal):
curl --cookie "session_id=12345" http://www.example.com
Using CURL in php. I would prefer to do it without using a cookies.txt file by just doing the php curl calls by passing a cookie key/value pair. Please let me know if this makes sense, otherwise I can clarify further. I'm using this to connect to an API that requires sending a session variable via a cookie.
MORE CLARIFICATION:
The spec specifies this...
"The first thing that has to be done is to login. The response has a session id in it. This should be stored and used for subsequent calls. This should be added as a cookie, session_id, for further calls into the API."
You want CURLOPT_COOKIE as specified in the curl_setops page.
$ch = curl_init('http://www.example.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, 'session_id=12345');
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
For multiple cookies, separate with a semicolon and a space:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, 'session_id=12345; fruit=apple');
You may be looking for the following flags:
CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION
And:
CURLOPT_COOKIE
CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE
CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR

Can CURL request can be used set a cookie while requesting?

I'm using curl to get the contents of a webpage.. The website sets cookies when i visit them using browser..
Can i use the cURL same way and send a request to that specific website with the cookie information...????
Here are some of the option I found useful regarding curl and cookies.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, 'cookie.txt' ); //use this cookie file
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, '/tmp/cookie.jar'); //if you close the session the cookies will be saved here
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE,"cookie_test=yes; domain=.google.com; path=/"); //set the cookie for the current session

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