Authentication Issue with REST call for iOS - ios

Question

I am currently trying to make a REST call from an iOS device. My code is below
NSString *restCallString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"MyURL"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:restCallString];
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url cachePolicy:NSURLRequestUseProtocolCachePolicy timeoutInterval:60];
[request setHTTPMethod:#"GET"];
[request addValue:Value1 forHTTPHeaderField:#"Header1"];
[request addValue:Value2 forHTTPHeaderField:#"Header2"];
[request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:restCallString]];
#try{
_currentConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self];
}
#catch(NSError *e){
NSLog(#"%#", e.description);
}
Whenever this is called, I get the following error: Authentication credentials were not provided. However, what confuses me is that if I send an identical GET request via a HTTP web console, it works perfectly. In other words, using the same URL and the same 2 header-value pairs, I get a valid response on a web console, and see no authentication errors. What could be causing this?

Answer 1

You are setting the HTTP headers. This won't work, because the HTTP header is not contained in $_GET or $_POST because they're are not content, but description of the content expected.
Try this instead:
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[restCallString stringByAppendingFormat:#"?Header1=%#&Header2=%#", Value1, Value2]];
Of cause you have to be aware that the URL is RFC 1738 compliant.

Answer 2

if I send an identical GET request via a HTTP web console, it works perfectly
I suspect your web console is leveraging SessionAuthentication — i.e. If you're already logged in to your site in your browser the API will authenticate you based on your session cookie.
Django Rest Framework provides various authentication methods and there are third-party options too. The simplest to get going is probably the provided Token Auth method.
Make sure this is enabled. Create a token in the admin (or via the provided view) and make sure you've set the Authorization header. It needs to look like this:
Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b
So your Objective-C will go something like:
[request addValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"Token %#", yourToken]
forHTTPHeaderField:#"Authorization"];
Hopefully that gets you started.