try:
        hn, fn = tempfile.mkstemp()
        csrftoken = ''
        cookies = cookielib.LWPCookieJar()
        handlers = [
            urllib2.HTTPHandler(),
            urllib2.HTTPSHandler(),
            urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookies)
        ]
        opener = urllib2.build_opener(*handlers)

        req = urllib2.Request(get_syllabus_url(className))
        res = opener.open(req)

        for cookie in cookies:
            if cookie.name == 'csrf_token':
                csrftoken = cookie.value
                break
        opener.close()

        # Now make a call to the authenticator url:
        cj = cookielib.MozillaCookieJar(fn)
        opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cj),
                                      urllib2.HTTPHandler(),
                                      urllib2.HTTPSHandler())

        opener.addheaders.append(('Cookie', 'csrftoken=%s' % csrftoken))
        opener.addheaders.append(('Referer', 'https://www.coursera.org'))
        opener.addheaders.append(('X-CSRFToken', csrftoken))
        req = urllib2.Request(get_new_auth_url())

        data = urllib.urlencode({'email_address': username,'password': password})
        req.add_data(data)

        resp = opener.open(req)
    except Exception as e:
        if '404' in str(e):
            raise ClassNotFoundException(className)
    cj.save()
    opener.close()
    os.close(hn)
    return fn