Using JSESSIONID from API request

Question

It looks like each API request authenticated with basic auth returns a JSESSIONID cookie. However if that cookie is passed in the next API request instead of the basic auth credentials (i.e. to switch to using cookie authentication) then a 401 results.

If however I use the /auth/1/session API then the JSESSIONID cookie returned can be used successfully.

My goal is to avoid the extra round-trip to make the POST to /auth/1/session and instead use basic auth with the first API request and cookie authentication with subsequent requests (in order to meet the recommendation here https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-44654).

Does anyone know why the JSESSIONID from API requests can be used to authenticate the next request?

Niclas Sandstroem · Answer

@Chris Waters I think the following might be out of interest for you on this subject.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35632642/jira-rest-api-calls-fail-when-using-jsessionid-cookie-authentication-using-urlfe

Br, Niclas

Chris Waters · Answer

Do you know what the purpose is of the JSESSIONID cookie that is returned with each API request?

Using cookie based authentication would be more efficient if it didn't require an extra call each time. Sometimes we need to make just one API call, so calling /auth/1/session would double the time taken. In other cases we make many requests in a row with the same identity and so cookie based authentication would apparently help. However it is not easy to know before the first call whether there will be many subsequent calls or not.

(Sorry this should have been a comment ... but I am locked out from making any more edits for 24 hours).

Volodymyr Krupach @BrizoIT · Answer

Because it's not supposed to. Either you pass basic-auth headers with every request or you call /auth/1/session to retrieve the JSESSIONID bounded to authenticated session.