Binary Data Posting with curl

Question

So basically, I'm trying to write a series of scripts to interact with Dot Net Nuke. I've been analysing the traffic and can now login and do some basic tasks. However, I've never handled binary file upload with curl. Would someone be willing to look at this to help me out? Here's the anatomy of the request:

http://pastebin.com/qU8ZEMaQ

Here's what I've got for curl so far:

http://pastebin.com/LG2ubFZG

edit: For the lazy -

length of the file is achieved and stored in LENGTH
STUFF is just a copy/paste of the request URL with parameters, minus the URL itself.

curl -L --cookie ~/.cms --data-binary "@background.jpg" \
--header "Content-Length: $LENGTH" \
--header "Content-Disposition: form-data" \
--header "name=\"RadFileExplorer1_upload1file0\"" \
--header "Content-Type: image/jpg" \
--header "Filename=\"background.jpg\"" \
--data $STUFF \
--referer "Kept-Secret" \
"Kept-Secret"

Violetteviolin

Answer 1

You don't need --header "Content-Length: $LENGTH".

curl --request POST --data-binary "@template_entry.xml" $URL

Note that GET request does not support content body widely.

Also remember that POST request have 2 different coding schema. This is first form:

  $ nc -l -p 6666 &
  $ curl  --request POST --data-binary "@README" http://localhost:6666

POST / HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: curl/7.21.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.21.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8o zlib/1.2.3.4 libidn/1.15 libssh2/1.2.6
Host: localhost:6666
Accept: */*
Content-Length: 9309
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Expect: 100-continue

.. -*- mode: rst; coding: cp1251; fill-column: 80 -*-
.. rst2html.py README README.html
.. contents::

You probably request this:

-F/--form name=content
           (HTTP) This lets curl emulate a filled-in form in
              which a user has pressed the submit button. This
              causes curl to POST data using the Content- Type
              multipart/form-data according to RFC2388. This
              enables uploading of binary files etc. To force the
              'content' part to be a file, prefix the file name
              with an @ sign. To just get the content part from a
              file, prefix the file name with the symbol <. The
              difference between @ and < is then that @ makes a
              file get attached in the post as a file upload,
              while the < makes a text field and just get the
              contents for that text field from a file.

Pokey

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, nothing manages to happen. Would it be possible for you to take a quick look at the post anatomy? How would you add in something like:------WebKitFormBoundarymXQVUy6BiZBV3AxA Content-Disposition: form-data; name="RadFileExplorer1$currentFolder" /Portals/0/Images/Test/ to a curl command? Would that be via header? Or since it has a name would it be via regular post data? – Violetteviolin

As I proper remember for POST request there exist different coding schema (may be to manage FORM html tag??). – Pokey

Well normally with curl you can say something like curl -d "username=cheese&password=123456" <url>, but it also looks drastically different when I inspect it with Chrome/Firebug. I certainly don't see Content-Disposition among other things. I don't know if there needs to be a special version of POST data when you're submitting plaintext and binary data. – Violetteviolin

See --form option and google for Content-Type multipart/form-data from RFC2388. – Pokey

in my case I needed to add this header -H "Content-Type:application/octet-stream" – Billmyre