#! /usr/bin/env python
# Reading the cookie's from Firefox/Mozilla. Supports Firefox 3.0 and Firefox 2.x
#
# Author: Noah Fontes <nfontes AT cynigram DOT com>, 
#         Tim Ansell <mithro AT mithis DOT com>
# License: MIT
 
def sqlite2cookie(filename):
    from cStringIO import StringIO
    from pysqlite2 import dbapi2 as sqlite
 
    con = sqlite.connect(filename)
 
    cur = con.cursor()
    cur.execute("select host, path, isSecure, expiry, name, value from moz_cookies")
 
    ftstr = ["FALSE","TRUE"]
 
    s = StringIO()
    s.write("""\
# Netscape HTTP Cookie File
# http://www.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html
# This is a generated file!  Do not edit.
""")
    for item in cur.fetchall():
        s.write("%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\n" % (
            item[0], ftstr[item[0].startswith('.')], item[1],
            ftstr[item[2]], item[3], item[4], item[5]))
 
    s.seek(0)
 
    cookie_jar = cookielib.MozillaCookieJar()
    cookie_jar._really_load(s, '', True, True)
    return cookie_jar
 
import cookielib
import os
import sys
import logging
import ConfigParser
 
# Set up cookie jar paths
def _get_firefox_cookie_jar (path):
    profiles_ini = os.path.join(path, 'profiles.ini')
    if not os.path.exists(path) or not os.path.exists(profiles_ini):
        return None
 
    # Open profiles.ini and read the path for the first profile
    profiles_ini_reader = ConfigParser.ConfigParser();
    profiles_ini_reader.readfp(open(profiles_ini))
    profile_name = profiles_ini_reader.get('Profile0', 'Path', True)
 
    profile_path = os.path.join(path, profile_name)
    if not os.path.exists(profile_path):
        return None
    else:
        if os.path.join(profile_path, 'cookies.sqlite'):
            return os.path.join(profile_path, 'cookies.sqlite')
        elif os.path.join(profile_path, 'cookies.txt'):
            return os.path.join(profile_path, 'cookies.txt')
 
def _get_firefox_nt_cookie_jar ():
    # See http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/473846
    try:
        import _winreg
        import win32api
    except ImportError:
        logging.error('Cannot load winreg -- running windows and win32api loaded?')
    key = _winreg.OpenKey(_winreg.HKEY_CURRENT_USER, r'Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders')
    try:
        result = _winreg.QueryValueEx(key, 'AppData')
    except WindowsError:
        return None
    else:
        key.Close()
        if ret[1] == _winreg.REG_EXPAND_SZ:
            result = win32api.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(ret[0])
        else:
            result = ret[0]
 
    return _get_firefox_cookie_jar(os.path.join(result, r'Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles'))
 
def _get_firefox_posix_cookie_jar ():
    return _get_firefox_cookie_jar(os.path.expanduser(r'~/.mozilla/firefox'))
 
def _get_firefox_mac_cookie_jar ():
    # First of all...
    result = _get_firefox_cookie_jar(os.path.expanduser(r'~/Library/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles'))
    if result == None:
        result = _get_firefox_cookie_jar(os.path.expanduser(r'~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles'))
    return result
 
FIREFOX_COOKIE_JARS = {
    'nt': _get_firefox_nt_cookie_jar,
    'posix': _get_firefox_posix_cookie_jar,
    'mac': _get_firefox_mac_cookie_jar
}
 
cookie_jar = None
try:
    cookie_jar = FIREFOX_COOKIE_JARS[os.name]()
except KeyError:
    cookie_jar = None
 
path = raw_input('Path to cookie jar file [%s]: ' % cookie_jar)
if path.strip():
    # Some input specified, set it
    cookie_jar = os.path.realpath(os.path.expanduser(path.strip()))
 
if cookie_jar.endswith('.sqlite'):
    cookie_jar = sqlite2cookie(cookie_jar)
else:
    cookie_jar = cookielib.MozillaCookieJar(cookie_jar)

Edit: The latest version of this code can be found at http://blog.mithis.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi and includes numerous fixes and updates.

This code is useful if you want to access something behind an authentication gateway and you also access the page through your web browser. You can also use this code to convert a sqlite database into a cookie file CURL can read.

I didn’t write this code, it was written by Noah Fontes when we where doing some scraping of the Google Summer of Code website (before I joined Google).

#! /usr/bin/env python
# Protocol implementation for handling gsocmentors.com transactions
# Author: Noah Fontes nfontes AT cynigram DOT com
# License: MIT
 
def sqlite2cookie(filename):
    from cStringIO import StringIO
    from pysqlite2 import dbapi2 as sqlite
 
    con = sqlite.connect(filename)
 
    cur = con.cursor()
    cur.execute("select host, path, isSecure, expiry, name, value from moz_cookies")
 
    ftstr = ["FALSE","TRUE"]
 
    s = StringIO()
    s.write("""\
# Netscape HTTP Cookie File
# http://www.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html
# This is a generated file!  Do not edit.
""")
    for item in cur.fetchall():
        s.write("%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\n" % (
            item[0], ftstr[item[0].startswith('.')], item[1],
            ftstr[item[2]], item[3], item[4], item[5]))
 
    s.seek(0)
 
    cookie_jar = cookielib.MozillaCookieJar()
    cookie_jar._really_load(s, '', True, True)
    return cookie_jar