Automating the Dropbox OAuth authentication from Python

Question

For a fully automated application where we are using Dropbox we need to automatically login into Dropbox using 'dropboxfs' (a Dropbox FS layer using 'pyfilesystem'). The constructor expects

https://github.com/btimby/fs-dropbox/blob/master/dropboxfs.py#L336

the token key + secret from the oauth process.

Can we automate the oauth process in some way? I don't any manual interaction where the application starts the browser with the oauth window and where I have to confirm the oauth access request.

app key + secret are not the problem. But I just want to provide Dropbox username + password to the application in order to get access to Dropbox directly.

Any options?

narzero narzero · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-04T13:11:21

I faced the same challenge, I solved it by using a test framework for web applications called Splinter. It allows me to automate browser actions. Check out the documentation page.

Here's the code I used:

from splinter import *
from dropbox import rest, session
from dropbox import client as dbclient
import time

# Initiate Dropbox API
APP_KEY = '###'
APP_SECRET = '###'
ACCESS_TYPE = 'dropbox'
sess = session.DropboxSession(APP_KEY, APP_SECRET, ACCESS_TYPE)
emailDropbox = '###'
passwordDropbox = '###'

request_token = sess.obtain_request_token()

urlDropbox = sess.build_authorize_url(request_token)

def phantomjsOAuth():
    # Target url
    print 'Target url: ', urlDropbox

    browser = Browser('phantomjs')
    print 'Starting phantomjs browser'
    print 'Visiting url'
    browser.visit(urlDropbox)

    # Email form
    print 'Is the email form present? ', browser.is_element_present_by_id('login_email')
    print 'Fill email form'
    browser.find_by_id('email-field').first.find_by_id('login_email').first.fill(emailDropbox)
    print 'Email form successfully filled'

    # Password form
    print 'Is the password form present? ', browser.is_element_present_by_id('login_password')
    print 'Fill password form'
    browser.find_by_id('login_password').first.fill(passwordDropbox)
    print 'Password form successfully filled'

    # Find login submit button
    print 'Is the "Submit" button present?', browser.is_element_present_by_name('login_submit_dummy')
    submitButton = browser.is_element_present_by_name('login_submit_dummy')

    if submitButton == True:
        print 'Pauzing for 5 seconds to avoid clicking errors'
        time.sleep(5)
        print 'Attempting to click the "Submit" button in order to login'
        browser.find_by_name('login_submit_dummy').first.click()
        print '"Submit" button successfully clicked'

        # Allow connection with Dropbox
        print 'Is the "Allow" button present?', browser.is_element_present_by_css('.freshbutton-blue')
        allowButton = browser.is_element_present_by_css('.freshbutton-blue')

        if allowButton == True:
            print 'The "Allow" button is present, attempting to click..'
            browser.find_by_css('.freshbutton-blue').click()
            print 'The "Allow" button is successfully clicked, access to Dropbox is granted.'

            dropboxCode()

        else:
            print 'The "Allow" button is not present, quitting.'
            browser.quit()

    else:
        print 'The "Submit" button was not present, quitting.'
        browser.quit()

def dropboxCode():
    # The rest of the Dropbox code
    # This will fail if the user didn't visit the above URL and hit 'Allow'
    access_token = sess.obtain_access_token(request_token)

    client = dbclient.DropboxClient(sess)
    print "linked account:", client.account_info()

    f = open('working-draft.txt')
    response = client.put_file('/magnum-opus.txt', f)
    print "uploaded:", response

phantomjsOAuth()

Automating the Dropbox OAuth authentication from Python

3 Answers