How to send Basic Auth with axios

Hi you can do this in the following way

    var username = '';
    var password = ''

    const token = `${username}:${password}`;
    const encodedToken = Buffer.from(token).toString('base64');
    const session_url = 'http://api_address/api/session_endpoint';

    var config = {
      method: 'get',
      url: session_url,
      headers: { 'Authorization': 'Basic '+ encodedToken }
    };

    axios(config)
    .then(function (response) {
      console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data));
    })
    .catch(function (error) {
      console.log(error);
    });

There is an "auth" parameter for Basic Auth:

auth: {
  username: 'janedoe',
  password: 's00pers3cret'
}

Source/Docs: https://github.com/mzabriskie/axios

Example:

await axios.post(session_url, {}, {
  auth: {
    username: uname,
    password: pass
  }
});

The reason the code in your question does not authenticate is because you are sending the auth in the data object, not in the config, which will put it in the headers. Per the axios docs, the request method alias for post is:

axios.post(url[, data[, config]])

Therefore, for your code to work, you need to send an empty object for data:

var session_url = 'http://api_address/api/session_endpoint';
var username = 'user';
var password = 'password';
var basicAuth = 'Basic ' + btoa(username + ':' + password);
axios.post(session_url, {}, {
  headers: { 'Authorization': + basicAuth }
}).then(function(response) {
  console.log('Authenticated');
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.log('Error on Authentication');
});

The same is true for using the auth parameter mentioned by @luschn. The following code is equivalent, but uses the auth parameter instead (and also passes an empty data object):

var session_url = 'http://api_address/api/session_endpoint';
var uname = 'user';
var pass = 'password';
axios.post(session_url, {}, {
  auth: {
    username: uname,
    password: pass
  }
}).then(function(response) {
  console.log('Authenticated');
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.log('Error on Authentication');
});

For some reasons, this simple problem is blocking many developers. I struggled for many hours with this simple thing. This problem as many dimensions:

1. CORS (if you are using a frontend and backend on different domains et ports.
2. Backend CORS Configuration
3. Basic Authentication configuration of Axios

CORS

My setup for development is with a vuejs webpack application running on localhost:8081 and a spring boot application running on localhost:8080. So when trying to call rest API from the frontend, there's no way that the browser will let me receive a response from the spring backend without proper CORS settings. CORS can be used to relax the Cross Domain Script (XSS) protection that modern browsers have. As I understand this, browsers are protecting your SPA from being an attack by an XSS. Of course, some answers on StackOverflow suggested to add a chrome plugin to disable XSS protection but this really does work AND if it was, would only push the inevitable problem for later.

Backend CORS configuration

Here's how you should setup CORS in your spring boot app:

Add a CorsFilter class to add proper headers in the response to a client request. Access-Control-Allow-Origin and Access-Control-Allow-Headers are the most important thing to have for basic authentication.

    public class CorsFilter implements Filter {

...
    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest servletRequest, ServletResponse servletResponse, FilterChain filterChain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) servletResponse;
        HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) servletRequest;

        response.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "http://localhost:8081");
        response.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS, PATCH");
        **response.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "authorization, Content-Type");**
        response.setHeader("Access-Control-Max-Age", "3600");

        filterChain.doFilter(servletRequest, servletResponse);

    }
...
}

Add a configuration class which extends Spring WebSecurityConfigurationAdapter. In this class you will inject your CORS filter:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
public class SecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
...
    @Bean
    CorsFilter corsFilter() {
        CorsFilter filter = new CorsFilter();
        return filter;
    }

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {

        http.addFilterBefore(corsFilter(), SessionManagementFilter.class) //adds your custom CorsFilter
          .csrf()
          .disable()
          .authorizeRequests()
          .antMatchers("/api/login")
          .permitAll()
          .anyRequest()
          .authenticated()
          .and()
          .httpBasic()
          .authenticationEntryPoint(authenticationEntryPoint)
          .and()
          .authenticationProvider(getProvider());
    }
...
}

You don't have to put anything related to CORS in your controller.

Frontend

Now, in the frontend you need to create your axios query with the Authorization header:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Title</title>
    <script src="https://unpkg.com/vue"></script>
    <script src="https://unpkg.com/axios/dist/axios.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="app">
    <p>{{ status }}</p>
</div>
<script>
    var vm = new Vue({
        el: "#app",
        data: {
            status: ''
        },
        created: function () {
            this.getBackendResource();
        },
        methods: {
            getBackendResource: function () {
                this.status = 'Loading...';
                var vm = this;
                var user = "aUserName";
                var pass = "aPassword";
                var url = 'http://localhost:8080/api/resource';

                var authorizationBasic = window.btoa(user + ':' + pass);
                var config = {
                    "headers": {
                        "Authorization": "Basic " + authorizationBasic
                    }
                };
                axios.get(url, config)
                    .then(function (response) {
                        vm.status = response.data[0];
                    })
                    .catch(function (error) {
                        vm.status = 'An error occured.' + error;
                    })
            }
        }
    })
</script>
</body>
</html>

Hope this helps.