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. 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;
	}
}