Calling an API

Authentication

In order to use the API endpoints you will need to authenticate. Authentication is achieved using an API Key or Token .

You will either need to create an API key for your personal Stroom user account or for a shared processing user account. Whichever user account you use it will need to have the necessary permissions for each API endpoint it is to be used with.

To create an API key (token) for a user:

1. In the top menu, select:

1. Click Create.
2. Enter a suitable expiration date. Short expiry periods are more secure in case the key is compromised.
3. Select the user account that you are creating the key for.
4. Click OK
5. Select the newly created API Key from the list of keys and double click it to open it.
6. Click Copy Key to copy the key to the clipboard.

To make an authenticated API call you need to provide a header of the form Authorization:Bearer ${TOKEN}, where ${TOKEN} is your API Key as copied from Stroom.

Calling an API method with curl

This section describes how to call an API method using the command line tool curl as an example client. Other clients can be used, e.g. using python, but these examples should provide enough help to get started using another client.

HTTP Requests Without a Body

Typically HTTP GET requests will have no body/payload Often PUT and DELETE requests will also have no body/payload.

The following is an example of how to call an HTTP GET method (i.e. a method that does not require a request body) on the API using curl.

TOKEN='API KEY GOES IN HERE' \
curl \
  --silent \
  --insecure \
  --header "Authorization:Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
  https://stroom-fqdn/api/node/v1/info/node1a
(out){"discoverTime":"2022-02-16T17:28:37.710Z","buildInfo":{"buildDate":"2022-01-19T15:27:25.024677714Z","buildVersion":"7.0-beta.175","upDate":"2022-02-16T09:28:11.733Z"},"nodeName":"node1a","endpointUrl":"http://192.168.1.64:8080","itemList":[{"nodeName":"node1a","active":true,"master":true}],"ping":2}

TOKEN='API KEY GOES IN HERE' \
curl \
  --silent \
  --cert /path/to/client-cert \
  --key /path/to/client-key \
  --cacert /path/to/ca-cert \
  --header "Authorization:Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
  https://stroom-fqdn/api/some/path

You can either call the API via Nginx (or similar reverse proxy) at https://stroom-fddn/api/some/path or if you are making the call from one of the stroom hosts you can go direct using http://localhost:8080/api/some/path. The former is preferred as it is more secure.

Requests With a Body

A lot of the API methods in Stroom require complex bodies/payloads for the request. The following example is an HTTP POST to perform a reference data lookup on the local host.

Create a file req.json containing:

{
  "mapName": "USER_ID_TO_STAFF_NO_MAP",
  "effectiveTime": "2024-12-02T08:37:02.772Z",
  "key": "user2",
  "referenceLoaders": [
    {
      "loaderPipeline" : {
        "name" : "Reference Loader",
        "uuid" : "da1c7351-086f-493b-866a-b42dbe990700",
        "type" : "Pipeline"
      },
      "referenceFeed" : {
        "name": "STAFF-NO-REFERENCE",
        "uuid": "350003fe-2b6c-4c57-95ed-2e6018c5b3d5",
        "type" : "Feed"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Now send the request with curl.

TOKEN='API KEY GOES IN HERE' \
curl \
  --json @req.json \
  --request POST \
  --header "Authorization:Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
  http://localhost:8080/api/refData/v1/lookup
(out)staff2

This API method returns plain text or XML depending on the reference data value.

--header "Content-Type: application/json"
--header "Accept: application/json"

Handling JSON

jq is a utility for processing JSON and is very useful when using the API methods.

For example to get just the build version from the node info endpoint:

TOKEN='API KEY GOES IN HERE' \
curl \
    --silent \
    --insecure \
    --header "Authorization:Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
    https://localhost/api/node/v1/info/node1a \
  | jq -r '.buildInfo.buildVersion'
(out)7.0-beta.175