I dug up this cold from my old netnerds blog. For Googlers wondering if sustaining a remote session is possible, the answer is yes; I've sustained remote cookie sessions using both ASP & VBScript. I've provided simplified code below. It should be self explanatory. If not, drop me a comment and I'll explain it.
<%
url1 = "http://www.netnerds.net/session/login.asp"
url2 = "http://www.netnerds.net/session/controlPanel.asp"
data1 = "username=bobby&pass=thepass&submit=Login"
theCookie = httpSessionRequest(1, "POST", url1, data1, noCookie, noViewState)
finalHTML = httpSessionRequest(2, "GET", url2, nodata, theCookie, noViewState)
response.write finalHTML
'---------------------------------------------------------
'THE FUNCTION
'---------------------------------------------------------
Function httpSessionRequest(theStep, method, url, data, cookie, viewState)
'FYI, viewstate code has been ripped out.
'Previously, I screenscraped to get the viewstate hidden field for aspx pages.
baseURL = "http://www.netnerds.net/" 'This is to fix any broken images in the output.
if len(cookie) = 0 then cookie = "dummy=dummy;"
HTTPReferrer = Trim(url)
postVars = Trim(data)
Set XMLHTTP = server.CreateObject("MSXML2.serverXMLHttp")
XMLHTTP.open method, Trim(url), false
if UCASE(method) = "POST" Then
XMLHTTP.SetRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
End If
XMLHTTP.SetRequestHeader "Referer", HTTPReferrer 'just in case the server cares
XMLHTTP.setRequestHeader "Cookie", "excuse the Microsoft bug"
XMLHTTP.setRequestHeader "Cookie", cookie
XMLHTTP.send postVars
'wait for response
While XMLHTTP.readyState <> 4
XMLHTTP.waitForResponse 1000
Wend
strHeaders = XMLHTTP.getAllResponseHeaders()
hArr = split(strHeaders,"Set-Cookie: ")
for kk = 1 to ubound(hArr)
theCookie = left(hArr(kk),instr(hArr(kk),"path=/")-2)
myCookie = myCookie & " " & theCookie
next
if len(myCookie) = 0 then mycookie = cookie
sReturn = replace(XMLHTTP.responsetext,"../",baseURL)
if cint(theStep) = 1 then
httpSessionRequest = mycookie
elseif cint(theStep) = 2 then
httpSessionRequest = sReturn
elseif cint(theStep) = 3 then
'You can add stuff here to debug
httpSessionRequest = mycookie
response.write theCookie & "<p>" & mycookie & "<p>" & sReturn & "<hr /><p>"
end if
set XMLHTTP = nothing
END FUNCTION
%>