A RESTful JSON web service that exposes DNS management functions to users.

1. Install Node.js
2. Download the NicTool v3 API

mkdir nictool && cd nictool
git clone https://github.com/NicTool/api.git
cd api
npm install

Edit the files in conf.d to reflect your local settings.

Each config file has a default section which lists all available config settings. Below the default section are optional deployment environments such as production, development, and test. When a deployment environment is detected, overrides in the matching deployment section are applied.

Running one of these commands:

npm run start (production)

or

npm run develop (development)

will start up the HTTP service on the port specified in conf.d/http.yml. The default URL for the service is http://localhost:3000 and the API methods have documentation at http://localhost:3000/documentation#/.

Until the NicTool 3.0 HTTP client is written, using a web browser (in Developer mode) or a CLI HTTP utility like curl can be used. Here's a quick tutorial:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/session

{ "statusCode": 400, "error": "Bad Request", "message": "Invalid request payload input" }

The request was rejected because it's missing the required parameters, as shown in the documentation. Create a file called nt-auth.json and store the credentials of a NicTool user therein, with the username qualified by the user's group name:

{ "username": "[email protected]", "password": "Wh@tA-Decent#P6ssw0rd" }

Then try the auth request again:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/session --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @nt-auth.json | json_pp

{
  "group": {
    "id": 4096,
    "name": "example.com"
  },
  "meta": {
    "api": {
      "version": "3.0.3"
    },
    "msg": "you are logged in"
  },
  "session": {
    "id": 1,
    "token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzUxMiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJhdWQiOiJ1cm46YXVkaWVuY2U6dGVzdCIs..."
  },
  "user": {
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "first_name": "Unit",
    "id": 4096,
    "is_admin": false,
    "last_name": "Test",
    "username": "unit-test"
  }
}

session.token is a JWT, valid for 8 hours. Send it as a Bearer token in the Authorization header of every other request. With jq, save it to a shell variable:

TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST http://localhost:3000/session --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @nt-auth.json | jq -r .session.token)

and then use it:

curl -s http://localhost:3000/user/4096 --header "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" | json_pp

{
  "group": {
    "id": 4096
  },
  "meta": {
    "api": {
      "version": "3.0.3"
    },
    "msg": "here's your user"
  },
  "user": [
    {
      "deleted": false,
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "first_name": "Unit",
      "id": 4096,
      "inherit_group_permissions": true,
      "is_admin": false,
      "last_name": "Test",
      "permissions": { "...": "..." },
      "username": "unit-test"
    }
  ]
}

Without the header, the API answers 401:

{ "statusCode": 401, "error": "Unauthorized", "message": "Missing authentication" }