PowerShell Invoke-Webrequest not compatible with site?

Question

I've seen many examples of Invoke-Webrequest and I've already had some success with it myself, however, one site where I was trying to automate my login just hasn't worked no matter what I try. Here is the code:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12 # This is required so that HTTPS requests won't fail with Invoke-WebRequest
$r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://order.swisschalet.com -SessionVariable sc
$r.forms[0].fields['form-login-header-email'] = "MyEmail"
$r.forms[0].fields['form-login-header-password'] = 'MyPassword'
$a = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri ("https://order.swisschalet.com" + $r.forms[0].Action) -WebSession $sc -Method POST -Body $r.forms[0]

I have tried using Fiddler 4 to analyze what is going on but it has only confused me even more. When I manually go to the website Fiddler shows 'email' and 'password' fields that were posted rather than what originally came back in the forms which is 'form-login-header-email' and 'form-login-header-password'. However, even if I try to create these new fields and POST them it still doesn't work. Fiddler shows that going to the website manually also creates some kind of synchronization token called 'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.SYNCHRONIZER_TOKEN'.

I am beginning to wonder if Invoke-WebRequest is simply incompatible with this site as I can never get the expected response where I can find my name in the $a.parsedHTML.DocumentElement.InnerText. Instead, when I view this I simply get the full page back telling me that my session has already expired.

I started to try this with the IE Com Object as well but this also did not seem to work. Am I missing something or is it just the way this site has been made? I've been struggling with this (really just to learn) for a couple of days now.

Thanks for any help!

TessellatingHeckler TessellatingHeckler · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-15T20:07:32

If you send what it sends, to the place it sends it, you get logged in:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12 # This is required so that HTTPS requests won't fail with Invoke-WebRequest
$r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://order.swisschalet.com -SessionVariable sc
$form = @{
    delegate='login'
    id='null'
    mode='save'
    target='#form-login'
    email='[email protected]'
    password='password'
}
$a = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://order.swisschalet.com/order/auth/index" -WebSession $sc -Method POST -Body $form

and it says

<span class="welcome-back">Welcome, <span class="username">TestingSome StuffForStackOverflo</span>

in the $a.RawContent result. So I guess it's not incompatible.

PowerShell Invoke-Webrequest not compatible with site?

1 Answers