Is it possible to use BIRT with a remote (http/https) XML data source that requires authentication?

• Cookie based
• HTTP authentication
• SSL Client certificate

Any of the above would suffice.

• birt

Try to use HTTP based authentication with a syntax:

http://username:password@hostname:portnumber/path

But anyway you can use scripted data source and construct a report via API. I.e. you can write a Java software that pass an authentication and get data, bind them to BIRT and generate output in BIRT internal or standard format (html,pdf,doc,xls etc.).