How to read contents of files that do not fall under public security group?

Question

Hi,
I need to read the contents of a WCM based xml file that does not fall under public security.
The process is like this:
First the user makes chnages to the content.
The workflow will be triggred based on the security group metadata that is associated with the content.
Once the content is finally approved our workflow calls a custom idoc script.
First we tried directly reading the xml contents from the idoc script which was still in the context of workflow. But since content item is still in workflow I was not able to read the changes. So I created a separate content publisher thread and read the DOC_INFO and checked for the dStatus value. If the value is RELEASED then I reading contents by calling ssIncludeXml idoc script.
This was working fine for public content. But now the requirement is that all content cannot be public. Content authors should not be able to edit the content that does not belong to their group, So we created security groups (and roles) and are associating that groups to the relavent content.
Beacuse of this change I am not not able to read the non public content. The call to DOC_INFO_BY_NAME service, which gives all the content files' metadata, is expecting the user to be logged in to give the details.
I tried calling the CHECKIN service with sysadmin and captured the cookies returned by that service and use cookies for the DOC_INFO_BY_NAME service call. But the service call was faling. It is throing the 401 forbidden error with the message that user needs to be logged in to get the details.
How to address this problem. Someone please help.
Note: I also tried using ridc for this. I was able to get it working but since it is executing in the context of server ridc api is changing server's environment properties like HTTP_HOST, HTTP_CGIPATHROOT etc. It also seemed like system was becoming non functional after using ridc. When I called check-in the system metadata values like security group are no more loading. Not sure if ridc is the culprit here but worried that it might be causing this issue.
Regards,
Pratap

Answer 1

Sorry, I posted too much details while posting this question. I was saying "not able to read *non* public content".
Anyway, I was able to resolve the issue. I was able to authenticate with sysadmin credentials in the request to service using basic authentication and was able to read doc info with that credential.
But I realized there is more than option for reading secure content.
- I could set user name as sysadmin in the m_environment (if I am in the context of a service) and the call the DOC_INFO_BY_NAME service.
- I can post an HTTP request to DOC_INFO_BY_NAME service with sysadmin credentials and do basic authorization via the connection. (This is what i have done successfully as of now )
- I could add guest role to all security groups with R (read) privileges.
I will look into all options and implement the one which is more apt.
Regards,
Pratap