NAME RT::Extension::REST2 - Adds a modern REST API to RT under /REST/2.0/ INSTALLATION perl Makefile.PL make make install May need root permissions Edit your /opt/rt4/etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm Add this line: Plugin('RT::Extension::REST2'); Clear your mason cache rm -rf /opt/rt4/var/mason_data/obj Restart your webserver USAGE Tutorial To make it easier to authenticate to REST2, we recommend installing RT::Authen::Token. Visit "Logged in as ___" -> Settings -> Auth Tokens. Create an Auth Token, give it any description (such as "REST2 with curl"). Make note of the authentication token it provides to you. For other authentication options see the section "Authentication Methods" below. Authentication Run the following in a terminal, filling in XX_TOKEN_XX from the auth token above and XX_RT_URL_XX with the URL for your RT instance. curl -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queues/all' This does an authenticated request (using the Authorization HTTP header with type token) for all of the queues you can see. You should see a response, typical of search results, like this: { "total" : 1, "count" : 1, "page" : 1, "per_page" : 20, "items" : [ { "type" : "queue", "id" : "1", "_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queue/1" } ] } This format is JSON, which is a format for which many programming languages provide libraries for parsing and generating. (If you instead see a response like {"message":"Unauthorized"} that indicates RT couldn't process your authentication token successfully; make sure the word "token" appears between "Authorization:" and the auth token that RT provided to you) Following Links You can request one of the provided _urls to get more information about that queue. curl -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_QUEUE_URL_XX' This will give a lot of information, like so: { "id" : 1, "Name" : "General", "Description" : "The default queue", "Lifecycle" : "default", ... "CustomFields" : {}, "_hyperlinks" : [ { "id" : "1", "ref" : "self", "type" : "queue", "_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queue/1" }, { "ref" : "history", "_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queue/1/history" }, { "ref" : "create", "type" : "ticket", "_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/ticket?Queue=1" } ], } Of particular note is the _hyperlinks key, which gives you a list of related resources to examine (following the principle). For example an entry with a ref of history lets you examine the transaction log for a record. You can implement your REST API client knowing that any other hypermedia link with a ref of history has the same meaning, regardless of whether it's the history of a queue, ticket, asset, etc. Another ref you'll see in _hyperlinks is create, with a type of ticket. This of course gives you the URL to create tickets *in this queue*. Importantly, if your user does *not* have the CreateTicket permission in this queue, then REST2 would simply not include this hyperlink in its response to your request. This allows you to dynamically adapt your client's behavior to its presence or absence, just like the web version of RT does. Creating Tickets Let's use the _url from the create hyperlink with type ticket. To create a ticket is a bit more involved, since it requires providing a different HTTP verb (POST instead of GET), a Content-Type header (to tell REST2 that your content is JSON instead of, say, XML), and the fields for your new ticket such as Subject. Here is the curl invocation, wrapped to multiple lines for readability. curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{ "Subject": "hello world" }' -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_TICKET_CREATE_URL_XX' If successful, that will provide output like so: { "_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/ticket/20", "type" : "ticket", "id" : "20" } (REST2 also produces the status code of 201 Created with a Location header of the new ticket, which you may choose to use instead of the JSON response) We can fetch that _url to continue working with this newly-created ticket. Request the ticket like so (make sure to include the -i flag to see response's HTTP headers). curl -i -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_TICKET_URL_XX' You'll first see that there are many hyperlinks for tickets, including one for each Lifecycle action you can perform, history, comment, correspond, etc. Again these adapt to whether you have the appropriate permissions to do these actions. Additionally you'll see an ETag header for this record, which can be used for conflict avoidance (). We'll first try updating this ticket with an *invalid* ETag to see what happens. Updating Tickets For updating tickets we use the PUT verb, but otherwise it looks much like a ticket creation. curl -X PUT -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "If-Match: invalid-etag" -d '{ "Subject": "trial update" }' -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_TICKET_URL_XX' You'll get an error response like {"message":"Precondition Failed"} and a status code of 412. If you examine the ticket, you'll also see that its Subject was not changed. This is because the If-Match header advises the server to make changes *if and only if* the ticket's ETag matches what you provide. Since it differed, the server refused the request and made no changes. Now, try the same request by replacing the value "invalid-etag" in the If-Match request header with the real ETag you'd received when you requested the ticket previously. You'll then get a JSON response like: ["Ticket 1: Subject changed from 'hello world' to 'trial update'"] which is a list of messages meant for displaying to an end-user. If you GET the ticket again, you'll observe that the ETag header now has a different value, indicating that the ticket itself has changed. This means if you were to retry the PUT update with the previous (at the time, expected) ETag you would instead be rejected by the server with Precondition Failed. You can use ETag and If-Match headers to avoid race conditions such as two people updating a ticket at the same time. Depending on the sophistication of your client, you may be able to automatically retry the change by incorporating the changes made on the server (for example adding time worked can be automatically be recalculated). You may of course choose to ignore the ETag header and not provide If-Match in your requests; RT doesn't require its use. Summary RT's REST2 API provides the tools you need to build robust and dynamic integrations. Tools like ETag/If-Match allow you to avoid conflicts such as two people taking a ticket at the same time. Using JSON for all data interchange avoids problems caused by parsing text. Hypermedia links inform your client application of what the user has the ability to do. Careful readers will see that, other than our initial entry into the system, we did not *generate* any URLs. We only *followed* links, just like you do when browsing a website on your computer. We've better decoupled the client's implementation from the server's REST API. Additionally, this system lets you be informed of new capabilities in the form of additional hyperlinks. Using these tools and principles, REST2 will help you build rich, robust, and powerful integrations with the other applications and services that your team uses. Endpoints Currently provided endpoints under /REST/2.0/ are described below. Wherever possible please consider using _hyperlinks hypermedia controls available in response bodies rather than hardcoding URLs. Tickets GET /tickets?query= search for tickets using TicketSQL GET /tickets?simple=1;query= search for tickets using simple search syntax POST /tickets search for tickets with the 'query' and optional 'simple' parameters POST /ticket create a ticket; provide JSON content GET /ticket/:id retrieve a ticket PUT /ticket/:id update a ticket's metadata; provide JSON content DELETE /ticket/:id set status to deleted POST /ticket/:id/correspond POST /ticket/:id/comment add a reply or comment to the ticket GET /ticket/:id/history retrieve list of transactions for ticket Transactions GET /transactions?query= POST /transactions search for transactions using L syntax GET /ticket/:id/history GET /queue/:id/history GET /queue/:name/history GET /asset/:id/history GET /user/:id/history GET /user/:name/history GET /group/:id/history get transactions for record GET /transaction/:id retrieve a transaction Attachments and Messages GET /attachments?query= POST /attachments search for attachments using L syntax GET /transaction/:id/attachments get attachments for transaction GET /attachment/:id retrieve an attachment Queues GET /queues/all retrieve list of all queues you can see GET /queues?query= POST /queues search for queues using L syntax POST /queue create a queue; provide JSON content GET /queue/:id GET /queue/:name retrieve a queue by numeric id or name PUT /queue/:id PUT /queue/:name update a queue's metadata; provide JSON content DELETE /queue/:id DELETE /queue/:name disable queue GET /queue/:id/history GET /queue/:name/history retrieve list of transactions for queue Assets GET /assets?query= POST /assets search for assets using L syntax POST /asset create an asset; provide JSON content GET /asset/:id retrieve an asset PUT /asset/:id update an asset's metadata; provide JSON content DELETE /asset/:id set status to deleted GET /asset/:id/history retrieve list of transactions for asset Catalogs GET /catalogs/all retrieve list of all catalogs you can see GET /catalogs?query= POST /catalogs search for catalogs using L syntax POST /catalog create a catalog; provide JSON content GET /catalog/:id GET /catalog/:name retrieve a catalog by numeric id or name PUT /catalog/:id PUT /catalog/:name update a catalog's metadata; provide JSON content DELETE /catalog/:id DELETE /catalog/:name disable catalog Users GET /users?query= POST /users search for users using L syntax POST /user create a user; provide JSON content GET /user/:id GET /user/:name retrieve a user by numeric id or username PUT /user/:id PUT /user/:name update a user's metadata; provide JSON content DELETE /user/:id DELETE /user/:name disable user GET /user/:id/history GET /user/:name/history retrieve list of transactions for user Groups GET /groups?query= POST /groups search for groups using L syntax GET /group/:id retrieve a group (including its members) GET /group/:id/history retrieve list of transactions for group Custom Fields GET /customfields?query= POST /customfields search for custom fields using L syntax GET /customfield/:id retrieve a custom field Custom Roles GET /customroles?query= POST /customroles search for custom roles using L syntax GET /customrole/:id retrieve a custom role Miscellaneous GET / produces this documentation GET /rt produces system information JSON searches Some resources accept a basic JSON structure as the search conditions which specifies one or more fields to limit on (using specified operators and values). An example: curl -si -u user:pass https://rt.example.com/REST/2.0/queues -XPOST --data-binary ' [ { "field": "Name", "operator": "LIKE", "value": "Engineering" }, { "field": "Lifecycle", "value": "helpdesk" } ] ' The JSON payload must be an array of hashes with the keys field and value and optionally operator. Results are returned in the format described below. Example of plural resources (collections) Resources which represent a collection of other resources use the following standard JSON format: { "count" : 20, "page" : 1, "per_page" : 20, "total" : 3810, "items" : [ { … }, { … }, … ] } Each item is nearly the same representation used when an individual resource is requested. Paging All plural resources (such as /tickets) require pagination, controlled by the query parameters page and per_page. The default page size is 20 items, but it may be increased up to 100 (or decreased if desired). Page numbers start at 1. Authentication Methods Authentication should always be done over HTTPS/SSL for security. You should only serve up the /REST/2.0/ endpoint over SSL. Basic Auth Authentication may use internal RT usernames and passwords, provided via HTTP Basic auth. Most HTTP libraries already have a way of providing basic auth credentials when making requests. Using curl, for example: curl -u 'username:password' /path/to/REST/2.0 Token Auth You may use the RT::Authen::Token extension to authenticate to the REST 2 API. Once you've acquired an authentication token in the web interface, specify the Authorization header with a value of "token" like so: curl -H 'Authorization: token …' /path/to/REST/2.0 If the library or application you're using does not support specifying additional HTTP headers, you may also pass the authentication token as a query parameter like so: curl /path/to/REST/2.0?token=… Cookie Auth Finally, you may reuse an existing cookie from an ordinary web session to authenticate against REST2. This is primarily intended for interacting with REST2 via JavaScript in the browser. Other REST consumers are advised to use the alternatives above. Conditional requests (If-Modified-Since, If-Match) You can take advantage of the Last-Modified headers returned by most single resource endpoints. Add a If-Modified-Since header to your requests for the same resource, using the most recent Last-Modified value seen, and the API may respond with a 304 Not Modified. You can also use HEAD requests to check for updates without receiving the actual content when there is a newer version. You may also add an If-Unmodified-Since header to your updates to tell the server to refuse updates if the record had been changed since you last retrieved it. ETag, If-Match, and If-None-Match work similarly to Last-Modified, If-Modified-Since, and If-Unmodified-Since, except that they don't use a timestamp, which has its own set of tradeoffs. ETag is an opaque value, so it has no meaning to consumers (unlike timestamps). However, timestamps have the disadvantage of having a resolution of seconds, so two updates happening in the same second would produce incorrect results, whereas ETag does not suffer from that problem. Status codes The REST API uses the full range of HTTP status codes, and your client should handle them appropriately. AUTHOR Best Practical Solutions, LLC BUGS All bugs should be reported via email to bug-RT-Extension-REST2@rt.cpan.org or via the web at rt.cpan.org . LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT This software is Copyright (c) 2015-2017 by Best Practical Solutions, LLC. This is free software, licensed under: The GNU General Public License, Version 2, June 1991