How to generate an access token using PowerShell

Gord Russell wrote auth.ps1 (thanks!) to generate an access token using Microsoft PowerShell. It implements the Invoke-RestMethod to send an HTTPS POST request to the VSS RESTful web service, then PowerShell deserializes the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) content into objects.

Step-by-step guide

The following steps explain how auth.ps1 works:

1. Request username and password:

   $user = Read-Host -Prompt 'User name'
   $pass = Read-Host -Prompt 'password' -AsSecureString

2. Convert secureString to plain text:

   $BSTR = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($pass)
   $UnsecurePassword = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto($BSTR)

3. Generate request Headers with Authentication: Basic:
   

   $pair = $user + ":" + $UnsecurePassword
   # Encode the string to the RFC2045-MIME variant of Base64, except not limited to 76 char/line.
   $bytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($pair)
   $base64 = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($bytes)
   # Create the Auth value as the method, a space, and then the encoded pair Method Base64String
   $basicAuthValue = "Basic $base64"

4. Make the POST request to /auth/request-token

   Invoke-RestMethod -uri "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/auth/request-token" -Headers $headers -method POST

5. After populating $TK, it can be used for any of the API calls by:

   $authVal = "Basic " + [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($tk.token))
   
   Invoke-RestMethod -uri "https://vss-ws.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/vm" -Headers @{"AUTHORIZATION"=$authVal}

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