Jenkins Groovy Web Login RESTful Authentication method

requestConnection.groovy

/***
 * Use this method to get an authentication token for a given URL and authentication string
 * @param auth is an authentication string in the form of username:password or username:authtoken
 * @param addr is the url to access
 ***/
 def requestConnection(auth,addr)
{
   def authString = "${auth}".getBytes().encodeBase64().toString() // Use authentication token
   def conn = addr.toURL().openConnection()
   if (authString.length() > 0)
   {
      conn.setRequestProperty( "Authorization", "Basic ${authString}" )
   }
   return conn
}