Authenticate User

{ authenticateUser }

Generates an access authentication token for the given user to use the API functions or login to the application.

Method

Input Parameters

Output Response

Notes

The security token is a string that needs to be embedded in every API call to ensure the API calls are authorized. For use in API calls, the token needs to be for an administrative user. If saved as a cookie in a web browser, it can be used (for the authenticated user) to auto-login into the application.

Examples

User Client Authentication (C#):

This example demonstrates how to authenticate users for the main application.

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace CsWebSite
{
	public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page
	{
		public const String API_PATH = "http://mySite.com/API2/";
		protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
		{
			//logging the user
			String adminToken = getToken("authenticateUser", new
			{ 	data = new {
					userName = "adminUser1",
					password = "abc123!"
				}
			});

			String userToken = getToken("authenticateUserByToken", new
			{ 	data = new {
					userIdentity = "userName",
					token = adminToken
				}
			});
			//this cookie should be placed on the domain pyramid is installed on - mySite.com in this example
			Response.Cookies.Add(new HttpCookie("PyramidAuth", userToken));


		}

	//generic method for getting the token via REST
		private String getToken(String service, Object data)
		{
			HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

			StringContent content = null;
			content = new StringContent(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(data), Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
			Task<HttpResponseMessage> response = client.PostAsync(API_PATH + "auth/" + service, content);

			return response.Result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
		}
		

	}
}

		

User Client Authentication (Java):

This example demonstrates how to authenticate users for the main application.

import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpExchange;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpHandler;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.CloseableHttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.entity.StringEntity;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.BasicResponseHandler;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClientBuilder;
import org.json.simple.JSONObject;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.InetSocketAddress;

public class Main {
	private static final String pyramidPath = "http://mySite.com/API2/";

	public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
		HttpServer server = HttpServer.create(new InetSocketAddress(8000), 0);
		server.createContext("/login", new LoginHandler());


		server.setExecutor(null); // creates a default executor
		server.start();

	}

	private static class LoginHandler implements HttpHandler {
		@Override
		public void handle(HttpExchange httpExchange) throws IOException {
			//logging the user
			JSONObject adminCredentials = new JSONObject();
			adminCredentials.put("userName", "testUser1");
			adminCredentials.put("password", "abc456!");
			String adminToken = getToken("authenticateUser", adminCredentials);

			//logging the user in using the admin's token
			JSONObject userCredentials = new JSONObject();
			userCredentials.put("userIdentity", "test.user1@mySite.com");
			userCredentials.put("token", adminToken);

			String userToken = getToken("authenticateUserByToken", userCredentials);

			//searching the user by name 
			JSONObject getUsersByName = new JSONObject();
			getUsersByName.put("userName", "testUser1");
			getUsersByName.put("auth", adminToken);
			JSONObject results = callApi("access/getUsersByName", getUsersByName);
			String userId = ((JSONObject) ((JSONArray) results.get("data")).get(0)).get("id").toString();

			//reading the user's private folder
			JSONObject getFolderItems = new JSONObject();
			getFolderItems.put("folderId", userId);//the user private folder id is the same as the user id
			getFolderItems.put("auth", adminToken);
			JSONObject privateFolder = callApi("content/getFolderItems", getFolderItems);
			String messageStr = "private folder id is " + userId + " and it contains ";
			JSONArray folderContent = ((JSONArray) privateFolder.get("data"));
			for (int i = 0; i < folderContent.size(); ++i) {
				messageStr += ((JSONObject) folderContent.get(i)).get("caption") + ",";
			}

			byte[] message = messageStr.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
			httpExchange.getResponseHeaders().add("Set-Cookie", "PyramidAuth=" + userToken);
			httpExchange.sendResponseHeaders(200, message.length);
			httpExchange.getResponseBody().write(message);
		}
	}


	protected static String getToken(String service, JSONObject data) throws IOException {
		JSONObject dataHolder = new JSONObject();
		dataHolder.put("data", data);
		return sendPost("auth/" + service, dataHolder.toJSONString());
	}


	protected static String sendPost(String path, String data) throws IOException {
		try (CloseableHttpClient httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().build()) {

			String address = pyramidPath + path;
			HttpPost request = new HttpPost(address);
			StringEntity params = new StringEntity(data);
			request.addHeader("content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
			request.setEntity(params);
			CloseableHttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(request);
			return new BasicResponseHandler().handleResponse(response);
		}
	}
}


		

Authenticate User (JavaScript):

This example demonstrates how to authenticate a user from JavaScript.

// URL of the Pyramid installation and the path to the API 2.0 REST methods
var pyramidURL = "http://mysite.com/api2/";

// step 1: authenticate user account and get token
// NOTE: callApi method is a generic REST method shown below.
let token = callApi("auth/authenticateUser",{
	"data":{
		"userName":"aUser",
		"password":"abc123!"
	}
},false);
log("got token "+token);

// step 2: get the current user's ID
let currentUser= callApi("access/getMe",
	{"auth": token}
);

// step3: get the user's ID from the response
let userId = currentUser.data[0];




// ##### optional generic login method for debugging ##############
function log(msg){
	document.write(msg);
	console.log(msg);
}

// ##### generic REST API calling method ##############
function callApi(path,data,parseResult=true){
	var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
	xhttp.open("POST", pyramidURL+path, false);
	xhttp.send(JSON.stringify(data));
	if(parseResult){
		return JSON.parse(xhttp.responseText);
	}else{
		return xhttp.responseText;
	}
}