How to send authenticated requests with curl

How to send authenticated requests with curl

Send HTTP requests with basic auth, bearer tokens, and client certificates using curl.

Prerequisites

• curl installed (version 7.0+).
• Valid credentials for the target API or service.

Step-by-Step: Send Authenticated Requests with curl

1. Send a request with HTTP basic authentication using the -u flag. curl encodes the username and password as a Base64 Authorization header:

   curl -u username:password https://api.example.com/users

2. Send a request with a bearer token. curl adds the Authorization: Bearer header with -H:

   curl -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIs..." https://api.example.com/users

3. Send a request with a client TLS certificate for mutual authentication. curl presents the certificate and private key to the server:

   curl --cert /path/to/client.crt --key /path/to/client.key https://api.example.com/secure

How to Verify Authentication Succeeded

A successful request returns HTTP status 200. An authentication failure returns 401 (Unauthorized) or 403 (Forbidden). Check the status code with -w:

curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{http_code}" -u user:pass https://api.example.com/users