Difference between revisions of "stoney core: REST API"

Revision as of 11:08, 13 November 2013

REST API

• The REST API will be implemented as a first-class citizen
  • It provides all the available functions and data to its clients
  • Serves as a data and business logic abstraction layer
• The REST API will be implemented using HTTPS and REST principles
• The REST API uses JSON as the primary data interchange format (serialization of data structures should be abstracted), other formats should be possible in the future.
• Multiple authentication methods are possible
  • Web-Server assisted:
    • Basic HTTP-Auth
    • X509 Certificate based authentication
    • Kerberos
  • API key with shared secret
  • Access tokens
• versioned API (either via URI or the Accept-Header)
• All API calls need to be fully nonblocking. If an expensive call has to be made to a backend system, the client needs to be provided with a status URI which can be checked for the current status or preferably be notified via WebSockets.
• Input validation must be performed for all data (validation of data happens twice: in the API and the client)
• Meaningful error message will be presented to the client
• All API functions are to be documented using an accepted documentation standard (doxygen (preferred), phpDocumentor or Sami)
• The API will be based on existing, proven and tested open source modules and components, coming either from a framework are as stand alone implementations,

Why a REST API?

• Separation and abstraction of presentation and business logic
  • Faster development/test cycles for business logic
  • Smaller development packages
• Support for multiple clients with the same code base
  • HTML/JS/CSS for selfcare Web GUI
  • Command line interface for easy scripting
  • Integration into third party provisioning systems for resellers
• Automatic testing of functionality
• Base for responsive resp. Mobile First Web-Applications/-Design

Yii related API modules

• On the Yii PHP Framework Homepage: Extensions tagged with "rest"
  • On the Yii PHP Framework Homepage: RestfullYii or on GitHub: RestfullYii
• On the Yii PHP Framework Homepage: Extensions tagged with "api"
• yii-apiauth

Service implementation details

Base URI

The RESTful token web service has to be accessible via a secure HTTP (HTTPS) base URI, for instance https://api.example.com/v1/tokens. The definition of the base URI is up to the provider of the service. The only requirements are the use of HTTPS and the presence of the service's version information, so that further changes are possible without breaking existing clients.

Client authentication

The service needs to authenticate each client via HTTP basic authentication by a user name and a corresponding password.

Data interchange format

The service needs to accept and send all data in the JSON data interchange format via HTTP, encoded as UTF-8. Thus a client needs to accept and use the application/json media type. Further media types might be supported in the future.

Error codes and responses

The service needs to return appropriate HTTP status codes for every request, the following table lists the commonly used codes: