Authenticating for REST commands

The way that you authenticate to run REST commands depends on how the server is set up and the tool that you are using to run the commands.

Note: Using REST commands requires the same permissions as using the web interface. For information about permissions, see Roles and permissions.

Authenticating with a user name and password

The simplest way to authenticate for REST commands is to use a user name and password. For example, if you are using the curl program, you can specify the user name and password in the command, as in the following code:

curl -k -u jsmith:passw0rd 
  https://ucrelease.example.org:8080/initiatives/ 
  -X GET -H "Accept: application/json"

Authenticating with a session key

For maximum performance, clients that perform multiple REST API requests should establish an HTTP session and reuse it for the duration of each batch of requests. An HTTP session is established after each successful request using HTTP Basic authentication and is identified by the JSESSIONID and UCR_SESSION_KEY cookies. In addition, clients that wish to use an HTTP session must place the UCR_SESSION_KEY into an HTTP request header for each request, as described below.

To get a session key, the client program first runs a command with a user name and password. The response headers include the session key. The header with the key typically has the name Set-Cookie and a value that is similar to the following example:

UCR_SESSION_KEY=6286eb44-b867-5243-875b-e61c5d8b4301;
Expires=Wed, 09-Sep-2082 16:51:45 GMT; Path=/; Secure

The client program must extract the session key from this header. In the previous example, the session key is 6286eb44-b867-5243-875b-e61c5d8b4301. Then, for additional PUT, POST, and DELETE commands, include the following header:

UCR_SESSION_KEY:sessionKey

Use the session key for sessionKey.

In addition, to reuse the HTTP session, include the JSESSIONID cookie in the standard Cookie HTTP request header.

Authenticating in scripts and programs

Many programming and scripting languages can call REST commands.

The following example is a Python script that authenticates by adding the password to the request header.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import urllib2
import json
import base64
import sys

if not len(sys.argv) == 3:
  print 'usage: script <username> <password>'
  exit(1)

username = sys.argv[1]
password = sys.argv[2]

epass = base64.b64encode(username + ':' + password)
print 'base64 encoded: ' + epass
baseUrl = 'ucrelease.example.org:8080'

url = 'http://' + baseUrl + '/applications/name'

opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPHandler)
req = urllib2.Request(url)
req.add_header('Authorization', 'Basic '+epass)
req.get_method = lambda: 'GET'

resp = opener.open(req)
print resp.read()

Importing the server certificate

The default server certificate is unsigned. Some tools do not connect to servers with unsigned certificates by default. To access a server with a self-signed certificate, you can instruct the tool to connect insecurely, or you can import the certificate into your client. Follow these steps to import the certificate into your client:

Export the server certificate to a file:
1. On the computer that hosts the IBM® UrbanCode Release server, open the server.xml file in a text editor. By default, this file is in the location /opt/IBM/UCRelease/server/tomcat/conf/server.xml.
2. In the server.xml file, find the following lines of code and note the values of the keystoreFile and keystorePass attributes:
```
sslProtocol="TLS"
keystoreFile="conf/tomcat.keystore"
keystorePass="changeit" />
```
3. In a command-line window, run the following command:
```
keytool -v -list -keystore keyStoreFileName
```
  The keytool application is included in the Java™ developer kit and is not part of IBM UrbanCode Release. Use the name of the keystoreFile attribute from the server.xml file for keyStoreFileName. When the command prompts you for a password, specify the value of the keystorePass attribute. The default value is changeit.
4. From the result of the command, find the alias of the server. For example, the result of the command might look like the following code:
```
Keystore type: JKS
Keystore provider: SUN

Your keystore contains 1 entry

Alias name: server
Creation date: Mar 19, 2014
Entry type: PrivateKeyEntry
```
  In this code, the alias is server.
5. Run the following command to export the certificate to a file and specify the password again:
```
keytool -exportcert 
  -alias serverAlias 
  -keystore keyStoreFileName 
  -storetype jks 
  -file server.cert
```
  Use the alias of the server for serverAlias.
Copy the server.cert file to the client computer.
Import the server.cert file into the keystore of the client computer:
1. In a command-line window on the client computer, run the following command and specify the password for the keystore on the client. The default is changeit.
```
jreLocation\jre\bin\keytool.exe -importcert 
  -alias serverAlias
  -file tomcat.cert 
  -storetype jks 
  -keystore jreLocation\jre\lib\security\cacerts
```
  Use the location of the JRE or JDK for jreLocation.

Now, some tools that use this JRE or JDK accept the server certificate. Other tools, such as curl, might still not accept the server certificate because it is unsigned. To resolve this problem, set up a signed certificate for the server.

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