In this section:

A REST client is required to first authenticate with the SBC Edge Portfolio REST service to acquire a uniquely assigned session token. This token must be used in any subsequent REST API call during the lifetime of the session.

This page is intended to walk you through a simple example of establishing a session between a REST client and the SBC Edge Portfolio API. All code snippets below use a combination of PHP and libcurl. You may use any other language/library as long as it meets the Ribbon SBC Edge API requirements .


Prerequisite - Setting up the HTTP Options

The SBC Edge Portfolio Web Service (REST) runs on a secure channel i.e. HTTPS, which requires Web Services clients to establish secure communication channel with the service.

If PHP+libcurl is not used, refer to the documentation of the current library to determine the HTTP configuration necessary to properly import and trust the server certificate for secure HTTP

Setup cURL Options
// initialize curl
$curlHandle = curl_init();

// uncomment for debug porposes
//curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true)

// set the appropriate timeout
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);

curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
// Set so curl_exec returns the result instead of outputting it.
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

// This example blindly accepts any server certificate, without doing any
// verification as to which CA signed it, and whether or not that CA is trusted.

// For the sake of simplicity, configure cURL to accept any server(peer) certificate
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);


// Following captures the details on how libcurl options can be configured to use secure HTTP.

//curl_setopt($curlHandle , CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, true);

// 2, means, check that the common name exists and that it matches the host name of the server
//curl_setopt($curlHandle , CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);

// previously downloaded server cert
//$certLocation = getcwd() . "/CAcerts/sbc_rest.crt";
//curl_setopt($curlHandle , CURLOPT_CAINFO, $certLocation);

How to Acquire a SBC Session Token

Upon successful authentication via /rest/login, HTTP response HEADER carries the session token in a cookie. REST clients need to lookup this cookie in the response header and cache it to use it for subsequent REST calls by setting the cookie back in the HTTP request header.

The REST client cookie session expires after 10 minutes of idle session.

POST Request to /rest/login Resource and Extract Session Token
// define an array where we would cache the Session Token Cookie with value
$cookieArr = array();

// Sonus SBC 1000/2000 REST login resource URL
$loginResource = "https://sbc_host_or_ipaddress/rest/login";

// set the login resource url in curl
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $loginResource );

// setup a callback handler for reading and processing the response header fields
// that would come in response to REST login resource POST call
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION, array($this, 'responseHeaderCallback'));

// tell cURL that we are doing a HTTP POST
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_POST, true);

// set the login resource POST params. The user must be of the REST access level and created from the WebUI prior to using the API.
$loginPropsArr = array('Username'=>'admin', 'Password'=>'admin');
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($loginPropsArr, '', '&'));

// exec the HTTP/REST request
$response = curl_exec($curlHandle);

// HTTP response header callback function which processes the header fields
function responseHeaderCallback($curlHandle, $header) {
    if(!strncmp($header, "Set-Cookie:", 11)) {
        $cookiestr = trim(substr($header, 11, -1));
        $cookie = explode(';', $cookiestr);
        $cookie = explode('=', $cookie[0]);
        $cookiename = trim(array_shift($cookie));
        $cookieArr[$cookiename] = trim(implode('=', $cookie));
    }
    return strlen($header);
}

How to Use the Session Token

GET on System Resource (/rest/system) Using the Session Token
// init cURL handle
$curlHandle = curl_init();

$cookieHeader = '';
// previously extracted cookies in $cookieArr (above), is used to add the
// session token in HTTP request header for subsequent REST call
foreach ($cookieArr as $key=>$value) {
    $cookieHeader .= "$key=$value; ";
}
if (!empty($cookieHeader)) {
    curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_COOKIE, $cookieHeader);
}

// set other relevant HTTP option as shows in above section _Setting up the HTTP Options_
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, true);

// Sonus SBC 1000/2000 REST system resource URL
$systemResource = "https://sbc_host_or_ipaddress/rest/system";

// set the system resource url in curl
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $systemResource );

// exec the HTTP/REST request
$response = curl_exec($curlHandle);

How to Close a SBC Session

It is recommended that an explicit POST is done on logout resource to cleanup session specific resources the SBC node.

POST on logout Resource (/rest/logout)
// init cURL handle
$curlHandle = curl_init();

$cookieHeader = '';
// previously extracted cookies in $cookieArr (above), is used to add the
// session token in HTTP request header for this REST call
foreach ($cookieArr as $key=>$value) {
    $cookieHeader .= "$key=$value; ";
}
if (!empty($cookieHeader)) {
    curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_COOKIE, $cookieHeader);
}

// tell cURL that we are doing a HTTP POST
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_POST, true);

// set other relevant HTTP option as shows in above section _Setting up the HTTP Options_

// Sonus SBC 1000/2000 REST logout resource URL
$logoutResource = "https://sbc_host_or_ipaddress/rest/logout";

// set the system resource url in curl
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $logoutResource);
// logout resource does not require any POST parameter.

// exec the HTTP/REST request
$response = curl_exec($curlHandle);

// any subsequent REST call should result in HTTP Error 401 Unauthorized status