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So as the title suggest how does one perform an HTTP POST to an external website while also redirecting the user there? I am looking for something similar to this: 

Redirect("MyWebsite.com", HttpAction.POST, new RedirectData(new { item = "itemValue"}));

It has to be done in ASP.NET mvc.

EDIT

This behaviour is necessary to implement authentication on an external website. The algorithm for the authentication:

  1. User navigates to the webpage that requires him to be identified.
  2. The webpage calls the web service of the authentication website and initializes authentication.
  3. Initialization returns GUID that has to be posted to the given URL (let's say it is "MyWebsite.com").
  4. The user is supposed to be redirected to the URL that data was posted to.

So far I've managed to come up with this:

string url = "MyWebsite.com";
NameValueCollection formData = new NameValueCollection();
formData["ticket"] = Ticket.ticket;
WebClient webClient = new WebClient();
byte[] responseBytes = webClient.UploadValues(url, "POST", formData);

Response.BinaryWrite(responseBytes);
Response.Redirect("MyWebsite.com", true);

The response I get is the HTML of the website I am supposed to be redirected to and the question is - what now? How do I tell the browser to display HTML that I got via the response? If I simply redirect to "MyWebSite.com" it would execute a GET action, which is not what I am looking for. Doing binary write of the response accomplishes nothing - it just writes the response of the POST action to the action I am currently executing - there is no redirect to "MyWebSite.com".

Buduls
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  • The above code is not working for you? what error you are getting? – Murali Murugesan Feb 10 '14 at 10:17
  • Please explain _why_ you need to do this. You can't do it like this, after a redirect a GET is always executed. You can however build a form on your site and make it POST to the other website, if it allows that. – CodeCaster Feb 10 '14 at 10:20

2 Answers2

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If you want to post and redirect to an external site, then you should just make your form's action go to that URL directly. There's no reason to handle anything on your side. However, unless you control the external site or have some sort of arrangement to be able to do this, it very likely won't work. Just about every platform implements some sort of CSRF protection to prevent exactly this type of thing.

Chris Pratt
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.NET Supports the following -

   using (var client = new WebClient())
    {
        client.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.ContentType] = "application/x-www-form-      urlencoded";
        var data = new Person 
        { 
              Name = "Glitch100"
        }
        var result = client.UploadString("http://www.website.com/page/", "POST", data);
        Console.WriteLine(result);
    }

WebClient or HttpWebRequest can be used on the server side to POST data.

Curious - what is the reason for wanting to do this?

Links:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.webclient(v=vs.110).aspx

POST string to ASP.NET Web Api application - returns null

how to POST data to external URL in MVC4 using server side

Community
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JEV
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  • I'm using this method to post data to another page via a button click rather than a postback. I am setting some values manually in the button click and want to post that data – djack109 Aug 12 '15 at 09:33
  • Then if you want to do it clientside use jQuery and $.post or something . Or just have a post method in MVC – JEV Aug 12 '15 at 09:54