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WSO2 API Manager is a complete solution for publishing APIs, creating and managing a developer community and for routing API traffic in a scalable manner. It leverages the integration, security and governance components from the WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus, WSO2 Identity Server, and WSO2 Governance Registry. In addition, as it is powered by the WSO2 Business Activity Monitor (BAM), the WSO2 API Manager is ready for massively scalable deployments immediately.

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Application access tokens are generated at the application level and valid for all APIs that you associate to the application. These tokens have a fixed expiration time, which is set to 60 minutes 3600 seconds by default. You can change this to a longer time, even for several weeks. Consumers can regenerate the access token directly from the API Store. To change the default expiration time, you open the <APIM_HOME>/repository/conf/identity.xml file and change the value of the element <ApplicationAccessTokenDefaultValidityPeriod>. If you set a negative value, the token never expiresThis value only applies to the new applications you create.

Application user access token

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  1. Open the API Publisher (https://<hostname>:9443/publisher) and log in as apicreator.
  2. Click the Add link and provide the information given in the table below. Click Implement once you are done.

    Field Sample value
    Name 
    PhoneVerification
    Context
     
    /phoneverify
    Version 1.0.0
    Visibility Public
    ResourcesURL patternCheckPhoneNumber
     Request typesGET, POST, OPTIONS

  3. Give the following information in the Implement tab that opens and click Manage once you are done.

    FieldSample value
    Implementation methodBackend
    Endpoint typeHTTP
    Production endpoint

    In this guide, we work with a service exposed by the Cdyne services provider. We use their phone validation service, which has SOAP and REST interfaces. Endpoint is http://ws.cdyne.com/phoneverify/phoneverify.asmx

    This sample service has two operations as CheckPhoneNumber and CheckPhoneNumbers. Let's use CheckPhoneNumber here.

    Endpoint security schemeNon Secured (If secured, user is asked for credentials of the backend service)

  4. Click Manage to go to the Manage tab and provide the following information. 

    FieldValueDescription
    Tier AvailabilityBronze/Gold/Silver/UnlimitedThe API can be available at different level of service; you can select multiple entries from the list. At subscription time, the consumer chooses which tier they are interested in.

    Tip

    Tip: For resources that have methods requiring authentication (i.e., Auth Type is not NONE), you set  None  as the Auth type of OPTIONS to support CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing) between the API Store and Gateway.

  5. Once you are done, click Save and PublishGo to the API Store (https://<hostname>:9443/store) and note that the API you just published is listed there.Image Removed

Adding API documentation

  1. After saving the API, click on its thumbnail in the API Publisher to open it.

  2. Click on the API's Docs tab and click the Add New Document link.

  3. The document options appear. Note that you can create documentation inline, via a URL or as a file. For inline documentation, you can edit the content directly from the API publisher interface. You get several documents types:

    • How To
    • Samples and SDK
    • Public forum / Support forum (external link only)
    • API message formats
    • Other
  4. Create a 'How To,' using in-line content as the source. The document name is SimpleClient and click the Add Document button.

  5. Once the document is added, click Edit Content link associated with it to opens an embedded editor.

  6. Enter your API's documentation.

Versioning the API

Let's create a new version of this API.

  1. Log in to the API Publisher as apicreator if you are not logged in already.
  2. Click on the PhoneVerification API and then the Copy button that appears in its Overview tab.
    Image Removed
  3. Give a new version number (e.g., 2.0.0) and click Done.
    Image Removed

    Tip

    Tip: The Default Version option means that you make this version the default in a group of different versions of the API. A default API can be invoked without specifying the version number in the URL. For example, if you mark http://host:port/youtube/2.0 as the default version when the API has 1.0 and 3.0 versions as well, requests made to http://host:port/youtube/ get automatically routed to version 2.0. 

    If you mark any version of an API as the default, you get two API URLs in its Overview page in the API Store. One URL is with the version and the other is without. You can invoke a default version using both URLs.

    If you mark an unpublished API as the default, the previous default, published API will still be used as the default until the new default API is published (or prototyped).

A new version of the API is created. It is a duplication of all the original API, including its documentation. The PhoneVerification 2.0.0 API is now ready to be published. This is typically done by a user in the publisher role.

Publishing the API

  1. Log in to the API Publisher as apipublisher that you created earlier in this guide.
  2. Click on the PhoneVerification API version 2.0.0. Note that you now see a tab by the name API life cycle in the API Publisher UI.
  3. Go to the life cycle tab and select the state as PUBLISHED from the drop-down list.
    Image Removed
    • Propagate Changes to API Gateway: Used to define an API proxy in the API Gateway runtime component, allowing the API to be exposed to the consumers via the API Gateway. If this option is left unselected, the API metadata will not change and you will have to manually configure the API Gateway according to the information published in the API Store.
    • Deprecate Old Versions: If selected, any prior versions of the API will be set to the DEPRECATED state automatically.
    • Require Re-Subscription: Invalidates current user subscriptions, forcing users to subscribe again.
The API is now published and visible to consumers in the API store.

Adding interactive documentation

The API Manager provides facility to add interactive documentation support through the integration of Swagger. Swagger is a specification and a complete framework implementation for describing, producing, consuming, and visualizing RESTful Web services. In Swagger, when APIs are described in simple static JSON representation, they can be loaded through the Swagger UI, which in turn provides the interactive documentation.

When an API is created, the JSON representation of that API is automatically generated and saved into the registry as API definition. This definition describes the API with the information provided at the API creation level. You can customize the automatically generated API definition as follows:

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When the Swagger definition of the API opens, document the parameters required by the API Console.
For example, the PhoneVerification API requires a telephone number and a license key. You can document this by adding the following under the parameters section of the GET method:

Code Block
parameters:
   - description: Request Body
     name: body
     allowMultiple: false
     required: true
     type: string
     paramType: body
   - description: Give the phone number to be validated
     name: PhoneNumber
     type: string
     required: "True"
     paramType: query
   - description: "Give the license key. If you don't have any, enter 0"
     name: LicenseKey
     type: string
     required: "True"
     paramType: query

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Subscribing to the API

You subscribe to APIs using the API Store Web application.

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Adding interactive documentation

The API Manager provides facility to add interactive documentation support through the integration of Swagger. Swagger is a specification and a complete framework implementation for describing, producing, consuming, and visualizing RESTful Web services. You describe APIs in simple, static JSON representation through the Swagger API definition in the API Store. When an API is created, the JSON representation of that API is automatically generated and saved in the registry. This definition reflects the information you provide at the API creation stage. You can customize it as follows:

  1. Open the API Publisher (https://<hostname>:9443/publisher) and log in as apicreator if you haven't done so already.
  2. Click the PhoneVerification API to open it and then click the Edit link right next to the API's name. This opens the API in its edit mode.
    Image Added
  3. Click the Edit Swagger Definition button.
    Image Added
  4. When the Swagger definition of the API opens, navigate to the GET method, add the following parameters to it and remove the existing body parameter. The code is given below:

    Anchor
    thisStep
    thisStep

    Code Block
    parameters:
       - description: Give the phone number to be validated
         name: PhoneNumber
         type: string
         required: "True"
         paramType: query
       - description: "Give the license key. If you don't have any, enter 0"
         name: LicenseKey
         type: string
         required: "True"
         paramType: query
  5. Click Save once the changes are done. In a later section, we will see how these parameters appear to subscribers in the API Console of the API Store.

Versioning the API

Let's create a new version of this API.

  1. Log in to the API Publisher as apicreator if you are not logged in already.
  2. Click on the PhoneVerification API and then the Copy button that appears in its Overview tab.
    Image Added
  3. Give a new version number (e.g., 2.0.0) and click Done.
    Image Added

    Tip

    Tip: The Default Version option means that you make this version the default in a group of different versions of the API. A default API can be invoked without specifying the version number in the URL. For example, if you mark http://host:port/youtube/2.0 as the default version when the API has 1.0 and 3.0 versions as well, requests made to http://host:port/youtube/ get automatically routed to version 2.0. 

    If you mark any version of an API as the default, you get two API URLs in its Overview page in the API Store. One URL is with the version and the other is without. You can invoke a default version using both URLs.

    If you mark an unpublished API as the default, the previous default, published API will still be used as the default until the new default API is published (or prototyped).

A new version of the API is created. It is a duplication of the original API, including its documentation. The PhoneVerification 2.0.0 API is now ready to be published. This is typically done by a user in the publisher role.

Publishing the API

  1. Log in to the API Publisher as apipublisher that you created earlier in this guide.
  2. Click on the PhoneVerification API version 2.0.0. Note that you now see a tab by the name Lifecycle in the API Publisher.
  3. Go to the Lifecycle tab and select the state as PUBLISHED from the drop-down list. 
    Image AddedThe three checkboxes mean the following:
    • Propagate Changes to API Gateway: Used to define an API proxy in the API Gateway runtime component, allowing the API to be exposed to the consumers via the API Gateway. If this option is left unselected, the API metadata will not change and you will have to manually configure the API Gateway according to the information published in the API Store.
    • Deprecate Old Versions: If selected, any prior versions of the API that are published will be set to the DEPRECATED state automatically.
    • Require Re-Subscription: Invalidates current user subscriptions, forcing users to subscribe again.
  4. Go to the API Store (https://<hostname>:9443/store) using your browser.The API you published earlier is available in the API Store. browser and note that the PhoneVerification 2.0.0 is visible under the APIs menu.
    Image Added
You have now published an API to the API Store. It is ready to be used by subscribers. 

Subscribing to the API

You subscribe to APIs using the API Store.

  1. Open the API Store (https://<hostname>:9443/store).
  2. Self sign up to the API Store using the Sign-up link.
    Image Removed Image Added

  3. After subscriptionsigning up, log in to the API Store and click the API that you published earlier (PhoneVerification 2.0.0).

  4. Note that you can now see the subscription

    option in

    options on the right hand side of the UI

    after logging in

    . Select the default application and Bronze tier, and click Subscribe.

    Image Removed

    Applications

    An application is a logical collection of one or more APIs, and is required when subscribing to an API. You can subscribe to multiple APIs using the same application. Instead of using the default application, you can also create your own by selecting the New Application... option in the above drop-down list or by going to the My Applications menu in the top menu bar.

  5. Once the subscription is successful, go to My Subscriptions page.
  6. In the My Subscriptions page, click the Generate buttons to generate production and sandbox access tokens and consumer key/secret pairs for the API.
    Image Removed
You are now successfully subscribed to the API and are ready to start using it.

Invoking the API

To invoke an API, you can use the integrated Swagger interactive documentation support (or any other simple REST client application or curl).

  1. Log in to the API Store (https:/ /<YourHostName>:9443/store).
  2. Click the APIs menu in the API Store and then click on the API that you want to invoke. When the API opens, go to its API Console tab.
    Image Removed

  3. Note the changes you did in the Swagger definition earlier displayed on the console. For example, expand the GET method and see the two parameters that you added:
    Image RemovedLet's invoke this API using the API Console.

  4. On the API Console, give Image Added

  5. Once the subscription is successful, choose to go to the My Subscriptions page.
  6. In the My Subscriptions page, click the Generate buttons to generate access tokens that you need to invoke the API.
    Image Added

    Tip

    Tip: You can set a token validity period in the given text box. By default, it is set to one hour. If you set a minus value (e.g., -1), the token will never expire.

You are now successfully subscribed to an API. Let's invoke it.

Invoking the API

Let's invoke the API using the integrated Swagger-based API Console.

  1. Click the APIs menu in the API Store and then click on the API that you want to invoke. When the API opens, go to its API Console tab.
    Image Added

  2. Expand the GET method of the resource CheckPhoneNumber. Note the parameters that you added in this step now appearing with their descriptions in the console.
    Image Added

  3. Give sample values to the PhoneNumber and LicenseKey and click Try it Out to invoke the API. 

    Tip

    Tip: If you cannot invoke the API's HTTPS endpoint (causes the SSLPeerUnverified exception), it could be because the security certificate issued by the server is not trusted by your browser. To resolve this issue, access the HTTPS endpoint directly from your browser and accept the security certificate.

    Image RemovedImage Added

  4. Note the response for the API invocation. As we used a valid phone number in this example, the response is valid.
    Image RemovedImage Added

 You You have invoked an API using the Swagger API consoleConsole.

Monitoring APIs and viewing statistics

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  • Number of subscriptions per API (across all versions of an API)
  • Number of API calls being made per API (across all versions of an API)
  • The subscribers who did the last 10 API invocations and the APIs/versions they invoked
  • Usage of an API and from which resource path (per API version)

  • Number of times a user has accessed an API
  • The number of API invocations that failed to reach the endpoint per API per user
  • API usage per application
  • Users who make the most API invocations, per application
  • API usage from resource path, per application

Configuring statistics

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Tip

If you are on

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Windows

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JDK 1.6.* or 1.7

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, note the following:

  • If you install JDK in Program Files in the Windows environment, avoid the space by using PROGRA~1 when specifying environment variables for JAVA_HOME and PATH. Else, the server throws an exception.
  • Install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com

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  • .) WSO2 BAM analytics framework depends on Apache Hadoop, which requires Cygwin in order to run on Windows. Install at least the basic net (OpenSSH,tcp_wrapper packages) and security related Cygwin packages. After Cygwin installation, update the PATH variable with C:/cygwin/bin and restart BAM.

Steps below explain how to configure WSO2 BAM 2.45.10 with the API Manager. Let's do the configurations first.

  1. Do the following changes in <APIM_HOME>/repository/conf/api-manager.xml file:

    • Enable API usage tracking by setting the <APIUsageTracking> element to true
    • Set the Thrift port to 7614
    • Uncomments and set the data source used for getting BAM statistics in <DataSourceName> element.
    • Set <BAMServerURL> to tcp://<BAM host IP>:7614/ where <BAM host IP> is the machine IP address. Do not use localhost unless you're in a disconnected mode.
    Code Block
    languagexml
    <APIUsageTracking>
        <!-- Enable/Disable the API usage tracker. -->
        <Enabled>true</Enabled>   
        <PublisherClass>org.wso2.carbon.apimgt.usage.publisher.APIMgtUsageDataBridgeDataPublisher</PublisherClass>
        <ThriftPort>7614</ThriftPort> 
        <BAMServerURL>tcp://<BAM host IP>:7614/</BAMServerURL>
        <BAMUsername>admin</BAMUsername>
        <BAMPassword>admin</BAMPassword>
        <!-- JNDI name of the data source to be used for getting BAM statistics. This data source should
            be defined in the master-datasources.xml file in conf/datasources directory. -->
        <DataSourceName>jdbc/WSO2AM_STATS_DB</DataSourceName>
    </APIUsageTracking>
  2. Specify the datasource definition in <APIM_HOME>/repository/conf/datasources/master-datasources.xml file as follows. 

    Code Block
    languagexml
    <datasource>
              <name>WSO2AM_STATS_DB</name>
              <description>The datasource used for getting statistics to API Manager</description>
              <jndiConfig>
                 <name>jdbc/WSO2AM_STATS_DB</name>
              </jndiConfig>
              <definition type="RDBMS">
                 <configuration>
                     <!-- JDBC URL to query the database -->
                     <url>jdbc:h2:<BAM_HOME>/repository/database/APIMGTSTATS_DB;AUTO_SERVER=TRUE</url>
                     <username>wso2carbon</username>
                     <password>wso2carbon</password>
                     <driverClassName>org.h2.Driver</driverClassName>
                     <maxActive>50</maxActive>
                     <maxWait>60000</maxWait>
                     <testOnBorrow>true</testOnBorrow>
                     <validationQuery>SELECT 1</validationQuery>
                     <validationInterval>30000</validationInterval>
     
              </configuration>          </definition>
    </datasource>
    Next, prepare BAM to collect and analyze statistics from API manager.
  3. Download WSO2 BAM 2.4.1 or later from location: http://wso2.com/products/business-activity-monitor.
  4. Change port offset of BAM to 3 by editing the file <BAM_HOME>/repository/conf/carbon.xml file (search for the offset node).

    Code Block
    languagehtml/xml
    <Offset>3</Offset>

    This increments all ports used by the server by 3, which means the BAM server will run on port 9446. Port offset is used to increment the default port by a given value. It avoids possible port conflicts when multiple WSO2 products run in same host.

  5. Do the following changes in <BAM_HOME>/repository/conf/datasources/bam_datasources.xml file:
    • Copy/paste WSO2_AMSTATS_DB definition from API Manager's master-datasources.xml file. You edited it in step 2.
    • Replace the port of WSO2BAM_CASSANDRA_DATASOURCE in URL (jdbc:cassandra://localhost:9163/EVENT_KS). Note that localhost is used here; not the machine IP.

      Note
      • Do not edit the WSO2BAM_UTIL_DATASOURCE, which is using the offset
      • Cassandra is bound by default on localhost, unless you change the data-bridge/data-bridge-config.xml file
  6. Copy the file <APIM_HOME>/statistics/API_Manager_Analytics.tbox to directory <BAM_HOME>/repository/deployment/server/bam-toolbox.
    If this folder is not in the BAM installation directory by default, create it. The toolbox describes the information collected, how to analyze the data, as well as the location of the database where the analyzed data is stored.Open
       <validationInterval>30000</validationInterval>
                </configuration>
             </definition>
    </datasource>
  7. Save the database driver JAR inside both <AM_HOME>/repository/components/lib and <BAM_HOME>/repository/components/lib folders.

    Next, prepare BAM to collect and analyze statistics from API manager.

  8. Download WSO2 BAM 2.5.0 or later from location: http://wso2.com/products/business-activity-monitor.
  9. Change port offset of BAM to 3 by editing the file <BAM_HOME>/repository/conf/carbon.xml file (search for the offset node).

    Code Block
    languagehtml/xml
    <Offset>3</Offset>

    This increments all ports used by the server by 3, which means the BAM server will run on port 9446. Port offset is used to increment the default port by a given value. It avoids possible port conflicts when multiple WSO2 products run in same host.

  10. <Nodes>localhost:9163</Nodes>

    In <BAM_HOME>/repository/conf/etc/hector-config.xml file and change the port to localhost:9163. You must add the other nodes too when configuring a clustered setup.

    Code Block
    languagexml

    /datasources/bam_datasources.xml file, copy/paste WSO2_AMSTATS_DB definition from API Manager's master-datasources.xml file. You edited it in step 2.

  11. Restart the BAM server by running <BAM_HOME>/bin/wso2server.[sh/bat].

Viewing statistics

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  1. Let's see the statistics now.

  2. Generate some traffic via the API Gateway (invoke the Cdyne API we use in this guide) and wait a few seconds.

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  1.  

  2. Connect to the API Publisher as a creator or publisher.
    In the publisher role, you are able to see all stats and as creator, you see stats specific to the APIs you create.

  3. Click the Statistics menu. We show the sample statistics here, but you will see graphs specific to your instance.
    Image Modified
  4. Similarly, API subscribers can also see statistics though the API Store. Click the Statistics menu as follows:
    Image Modified

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This concludes the API Manager quick start. You have set up the API Manager and taken a look at its common usecasesgone through the basic usecases of the product. For more advanced usecases, please see the User Guide and the Admin Guide of the API Manager documentation.