Using curl to download zip reports

Question

I am attempting to use curl (or any other viable alternative) to download a zip report from SalesForce, but I seem to be unable to do so. I am using syntax:

curl -o my_file.zip 'https://login.salesforce.com/?un=username&pw=password&ec=123&startURL=%2Fservlet%2Fservlet.OrgExport%3Fid%3Dfile_id%26fileName%3Dfile_name.ZIP'

If I navigate my browser in incognito to the url, I don't need to do anything further and the file begins to download. The curl command seems to do nothing, however.

I have also tried to store my cookies in a text file:

curl -c cookies.txt 'https://login.salesforce.com/?un=username&pw=password

and then passing in the cookies to my download url:

curl -b cookies.txt 'https://login.salesforce.com/?ec=123&startURL=%2Fservlet%2Fservlet.OrgExport%3Fid%3Dsample_id%26fileName%3Dsample_filename.ZIP'

Contents of cookies.txt:

.salesforce.com TRUE    /       FALSE   1234567890      BrowserId       sample_browser_id
.salesforce.com TRUE    /       FALSE   0       inst    APPj
.salesforce.com TRUE    /       TRUE    1234567890      login   username@email.com
.salesforce.com TRUE    /       FALSE   1234567890      com.salesforce.LocaleInfo       us
.salesforce.com TRUE    /       FALSE   1234567890      oinfo   sample_oinfo

Answer 1

That won't work, because login sends back a page that JavaScript redirects to the start URL, so curl will just see this html file and not know what to do with it. Instead, assuming you received a sid cookie from the first cookie command, your next step would be to call your instance server directly with the correct URL. This should allow the file to download as you expect.