Northbound interface:RESTful

RESTful

In computing, Representational State Transfer (REST) is the software architectural style of the World Wide Web. REST gives a coordinated set of constraints to the design of components in a distributed hypermedia system that can lead to a higher-performing and more maintainable architecture.

To the extent that systems conform to the constraints of REST they can be called RESTful. RESTful systems typically, but not always, communicate over HTTP with the same HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.) which web browsers use to retrieve web pages and to send data to remote servers. REST interfaces with external systems using resources identified by URI, for example /people/tom, which can be operated upon using standard verbs, such as DELETE /people/tom.

Reference: Wikipedia

TelcoBridges RESTful Northbound Interface

As of Release 2.9, TelcoBridges gateways support a RESTful configuration interface using JSON for data exchange.

Supported RFCs

TelcoBridges supports the following RFCs for RESTful API:

Specification	Supported
RFC 7159 The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format	Yes
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition)	No
RFC 2617 HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication	Basic Scheme Only
RFC 2109 HTTP State Management Mechanism	Yes

API overview

Supported Methods

GET

List collection entries

 GET /users
 <- Content : {"root":{}}
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Read a specific configuration entry

 GET /users/root
 <- Content : {"name":"root","user_group":"Admin","pass":"Not Shown"}
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK

PUT

Update a configuration entry

 PUT /users/root
 -> Content : {"pass":"MyNewSecret"}
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK

POST

Create a configuration entry into a collection

 POST /users
 -> Content : { "name" : "RogerFluffy", "user_group" : "nobody" , "pass" : "xyz" }
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK

DELETE

Delete a configuration entry from a collection

 DELETE /users/RogerFluffy
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Entries

Entries are found under collection URIs. A collection is generally composed of multiple entries, with a different name for each entry. The entry name must be provided during the POST:

 POST /users
 -> Content : { "name" : "RogerFluffy", ... }
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Entries generally have attributes, and can also include collections. For example, for the configuration entry MyCFG, we can find the routes collection using the following URI:

 /configurations/MyCFG/routes

Collections

URI with the plural form generally represent a collection of entries. A collection can be composed of mutiple entries, or limited to 1.

For example, the URI where users configuration entries are grouped into is

 /users

Likewise, the list of routes can be found on

 /configurations/MyCFG/routes

When the collection is limited to 1 entry, the entry name is fixed. For example, only one H.248 stack can be defined, therefore the name is fixed to gateway_h248 The entry name must be NOT be provided during the POST:

 POST /configurations/MyCFG/h248_stacks
 -> Content : { "enabled" : true, "naps" : [ "NAP_TDM", "RTP_NAP"], ... }
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Request Status code

The following result class are used to as HTTP status code to indicate the result of request.

* 2XX - success
* 3XX - redirection (304 Not Modified)
* 4XX - client error
* 5XX - server error

In Addition to HTTP status code, every HTTP response also inlcudes a JSON payload with a verbose message.

 POST /configurations/MyCFG/h248_stacks
 -> Content : { ... }
 <- Code    : HTTP/1.0 200 OK
 <- Content : { "message" : "Tbgw h248 cfg creation failed: Public ip address can't be blank, Public ip address is invalid, Local ip address is invalid, Local ip address When not using virtual ip, an ip address must be entered"}

This message can be used to find the exact reason why a RESTful API call failed.

HTTP headers

The following HTTP header should be used in requests:

HTTP Header	GET	PUT	POST	DELETE
Host	Mandatory	Mandatory	Mandatory	Mandatory
Authorization	For each requests, or only on first request if using Cookie/Set-Cookie headers	For each requests, or only on first request if using Cookie/Set-Cookie headers	For each requests, or only on first request if using Cookie/Set-Cookie headers	For each requests, or only on first request if using Cookie/Set-Cookie headers
Cookie	Recommended	Recommended	Recommended	Recommended
Content-Type	Optional	Mandatory	Mandatory	Mandatory
User-Agent	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional
Connection	Optional (keep-alive)	Optional (keep-alive)	Optional (keep-alive)	Optional (keep-alive)