Displaying KMZ files behind protected networks - google-earth-plugin

Question

I'm trying to display a KMZ file which resides in a folder that is password protected and has a port different from 80. It looks like this:
http://localhost:8080/assets/data/3641
That will return a KMZ file with the valid MIME type, and I can save and open it in Google Earth if I access this link in the browser.
Google Earth's API has the following methods for displaying KMZ/KML:
KmlNetworkLink - you provide the URL of the KMZ/KML and then attach this object to the GE instance
parseKml() - you provide it a KML string, it gives you back a KmlFeature to attach
fetchKml() - you provide it a URL to a KML/KMZ, it attaches it for you
Another handy method is displayKml() from the Google Earth API Utility library, which uses fetchKml()
fetchKml()
My first attempt was to use fetchKml, but this gives no response - it fails silently. I'm surprised this is considered normal behaviour by the plugin (why doesn't it throw an exception, or provide a second callback to handle errors?). This method works fine if I provide it a sample kmz in the form:
http://localhost/somefile.kmz
I believe the issue is the fact that my first URL is password protected - it will redirect to a login screen if no login session is present, and I suspect that the Google Earth plugin doesn't share the same browser session as the browser - so it runs into a login screen and fails because it receives an HTML file instead of a KMZ/KML.
parseKml()
Pressing on undeterred, I made another API method to unzip the KMZ on the server side and return the KML string:
http://localhost:8080/assets/data/unzip/3641
The beauty of this method is that I write my own JavaScript to perform the GET request - it doesn't go through Google Earth, so the login session I have opened is used and the KMZ can be downloaded. The downfall is that KMZs can contain images and music which the KML file can reference. These can't be passed along with the KML string as far as the documentation is concerned.
KmlNetworkLink
My last attempt was to use KmlNetworkLink and KmlLink. This has the same effect as fetchKml - nothing happens.
UPDATE: Also, it will fail when using "https" without a valid certificate.

Answer 1

Yes the issue is that URL is password protected. You can get fetchKml() to give some indication of the error if you use it like so:
google.earth.fetchKml(ge, 'http://localhost:8080/assets/data/3641
', finishFetchKml);
function finishFetchKml(kmlObject) {
// check if the KML was fetched properly
if (kmlObject) {
// add the fetched KML to Earth
currentKmlObject = kmlObject;
} else {
// setTimeout prevents a deadlock in some browsers
setTimeout(function() {
alert('Bad or null KML.');
}, 0);
}
}
Kml is designed to be a free open format - if you wish to use it privately on a secure system then you should look at using the enterprise version of the Google Earth Plugin.