End-User Hints

The API section of the help wiki is primarily for developers using the launchpad API. However, this page collects helpful information for people trying to use applications based on launchpadlib.

Authenticating with launchpadlib over a text-based console web browser

Sometimes you may want to use launchpadlib-based applications without benefit of a graphical browser. As of this writing, the Canonical Launchpad team supports lynx for this purpose. Other users and Launchpad contributors may support other text-based console browsers.

Selecting a browser

Python's webbrowser module, which launchpadlib uses to start a browser, looks at the BROWSER environmental variable to select a browser. Therefore, even if you have multiple browsers installed, you can set that value to control the authentication behavior.

For instance, if you want to run the ec2 land command (a tool to test a Launchpad branch and then submit it to the shared development branch if the tests pass) with lynx, try BROWSER=lynx ec2 land.

lynx

lynx is the text-based browser supported by Canonical Launchpad developers.

You might encounter a "Forbidden" error from Launchpad complaining about no REFERER header on the last step of the process. By adding the following to /etc/lynx-cur/local.cfg , you should be able to proceed:

REFERER_WITH_QUERY:PARTIAL

Active bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/535456

elinks

Some users have reported success with elinks.

w3m

No users have reported success with w3m.

Active bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/556927

links

No users have reported success with links.