intec-anywhere

intec-anywhere is a simple server that allows you to bypass the same-origin policy for requests to INTEC's websites. It was inspired by the cors-anywhere project, but was made since these requests require a login to access these resources.

Why?

This was created so that 3rd-party, web-based tools are able to be made that interact with INTEC to provide a better experience to students. The same-origin policy prevents a login to be directly excecuted from the client side in web applications. Previous to this project, such tools were made as mobile or desktop applications, but this allows them to run on the web.

For an example on what can be done issuing requests like these, check out my article on "Using Web Scraping to Solve Problems and Create Value"

How to use

This server works by sending a POST request to the server that contains authorization credentials, the HTTP method to use and a JSON payload to be sent on POST requests.

First, just prefix the endpoint you want to send a request to with the intec-anywhere server URL. For example, if you want to request https://procesos.intec.edu.do/Main/Inicio and your intec-anywhere server is hosted at http://localhost/, you would issue a POST request to http://localhost/procesos/Main/Inicio.

This request must contain a JSON body with the following information:

1. auth (required): Object that contains two required keys, id and password. It refers to the credentials used to issue the first post request to login to INTEC's portal.
2. method (required): String that specifies which HTTP method to use on the second request. At the moment, only GET or POST can be specified.
3. payload (optional): Object that will be passed along as JSON as the second requests' body, if the method is set as POST.

If credentials were not issued correctly, the server will return a 401 - Unauthorized response. If not, the status code and body resulting from the request will be returned directly from INTEC.

Example

If we want to GET /Main/Inicio...

URL: http://localhost/procesos/Main/Inicio
Method: POST
Content-Type: application/json
Body: {"auth": {id: "ID", "password": "PASSWORD"}, "method": "GET"}

Or if we want to issue a POST for a report (/Reporte/MostrarEnPantalla)...

URL: http://localhost/procesos/Reporte/MostrarEnPantalla
Method: POST
Content-Type: application/json
Body: {"auth": {id: "ID", "password": "PASSWORD"}, "method": "POST", "payload": {"indiceReporte":"1","parametros":{"Ano":"2018","Termino":"1"}}}

What's missing?

At the moment, GET and POST requests to anything in the "procesos" portal is supported, however, requests to other parts of INTEC like "LMS" or others that don't require a login should also be included in the future.

Another issue is the limitation of only being able to issue a single request after login. Ideally, you should be able to specify a series of requests to be excecuted after login to prevent unnecessary strain on the servers.