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Publish an API Proxy

Learn how to use F5 NGINX Management Suite API Connectivity Manager to publish an API Proxy.

Overview

In API Connectivity Manager, Services represent your Backend APIs. Proxies represent the NGINX reverse proxy that routes traffic to your backend service and to the Developer Portal. This guide provides instructions and examples for publishing an API and a Developer Portal by using the REST API.

Before You Begin

You should complete the following Quick Start Guides before proceeding with the steps in this guide:

  1. Set Up an API Gateway Environment
  2. Set Up a Developer Portal Environment

Create a service workspace

Services workspaces is a logical grouping of APIs. A user can created multiple workspaces that match an organizational structure.

  1. Select the Services option on the left hand menu.
  2. Select the Create Workspace button.
  3. Enter a name.
  4. (Optional) Provide a description of the workspace.
  5. (Optional) Select the Contact Information check box to provide contact details.
  6. Select the Create button.
Method Endpoint
POST /services/workspaces 
{
    "name": "{{proxyWorkspaceName}}",
    "metadata": {
        "description": "Petstore Team Workspace"
    },
    "contactDetails": {
        "adminEmail": "admin@example.com",
        "adminName": "I.M. Admin",
        "adminPhone": "555 123 1234"
    }
}

Publish API Proxy without OpenAPI Spec

An API proxy connects the backend services to the API-Gateway.

After creating the workspace, you can select Publish API Proxy or open the previously created workspace.

On the Publish API Proxy window:

Backend Service

  1. Type a name for the backend service.
  2. Type the Service Target Hostname; this can be an IP or FQDN.
  3. For the Service Target Transport Protocol, if your backend service is using gRPC, then select gRPC.
  4. Type the Service Target Port, or use the arrow buttons to increase or decrease the port number.

API Proxy

  1. Type a name for the API Proxy.
  2. Select No in the Use an OpenAPI spec option.
  3. Select the Gateway Proxy Hostname from the menu.
Note:
If this field is disabled, check the job status of your environment on the infrastructure workspace page.

Ingress

  1. Enter the Base Path that you wish to route traffic to.
  2. Type the version of your API.
  3. Select Publish.

Confirm Setup

  1. Open a terminal application.

  2. Run the following command:

    curl -k -X GET "https://gateway-proxy-hostname/version/basepath"

  3. If your proxy is set up correctly, you can send traffic.

Note:
By default the ingress append rule is set to PREFIX so your request must be in the form of version/basepath

After creating the service workspace, you can select Publish API Proxy, or you can follow these steps:

Method Endpoint
POST /services/workspaces/{{proxyWorkspaceName}}/proxies

The basic configuration below creates an API Proxy to a backend service.

{
    "name": "{{proxyName}}",
    "metadata": {
        "description": "Swagger Petstore Proxy"
    },
    "version": "v1",
    "proxyConfig": {
        "hostname": "{{environmentHostname}}",
        "ingress": {
            "basePath": "/v1"
        },
        "backends": [
            {
                "serviceName": "petstore-api-svc",
                "serviceTargets": [
                    {
                        "hostname": "petstore.example.com"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

Publish API Proxy with OpenAPI Spec

Note:
API Connectivity Manager supports the OpenAPI Specification version 3.0 and 3.1. If your spec uses the 2.0 standard, you must convert it before uploading it.

Uploading an OAS Schema

OAS Schemas can be uploaded to API Connectivity Manager and stored for use as references for Proxy deployments. The routes contained in the OAS Schema will be used to create the routes for your Proxy

Creating a Proxy with an OAS

After you have uploaded your OAS Schema as an API Doc, you can then reference that API Doc in your Proxy deployments using the specRef parameter in the JSON payload. Using the specRef will then associate that OAS Schema in API Connectivity Manager and allow API Connectivity Manager to create your routes from the information contained in the OAS Schema.

Extended support for OAS in API Connectivity Manager

API Connectivity Manager now allows you to set up an API gateway using Open API Specification by supporting the creation of Backends (upstream servers) from the supplied OAS using an API Connectivity Manager specific x- extension in your OAS document. API Connectivity Manager now also supports server URL templating in the global URL(s).

Example JSON 
"servers": [
  {
    "url": "https://{server}.example.com/api/{version}",
    "variables": {
      "version": {
        "default": "v1"
      },
      "server": {
        "default": "staging"
      }
    },
    "x-acm-append-rule": "NONE",
    "x-acm-strip-basepath": false,
    "x-acm-backends": [
      {
        "serviceName": "pets-backend",
        "serviceVersion": "pets-backend-v1",
        "serviceLabel": "default",
        "contextRoot": "/dev",
        "upstreams": [
          {
            "url": "https://gecho1.null.ie",
            "maxFails": 10,
            "maxConnections": 5,
            "failTimeout": "5s",
            "slowStart": "10s"
          },
          {
            "url": "https://gecho2.null.ie",
            "maxFails": 5,
            "maxConnections": 8,
            "failTimeout": "15s",
            "slowStart": "3s"
          },
          {
            "url": "https://gecho3.null.ie",
            "maxFails": 7,
            "maxConnections": 33,
            "failTimeout": "35s",
            "slowStart": "1s"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
],

 

Server URL Templating 

"servers": [
  {
    "url": "https://{server}.example.com/api/{version}",
    "variables": {
      "version": {
        "default": "v1"
      },
      "server": {
        "default": "staging"
      }
    },

In the above section, we can see how server URL templating will make substitutions with a matching value from the variables section of the server object in the specification. Each placeholder in the URL must have a matching variable in the variables section or the validation will fail and return an error.

Creating Backends

This section explains how to create a backend target for our API Gateway configuration, a Backend is a collection of upstream servers bundled under one “Service label”. An API Gateway can have multiple Backends which can each contain multiple upstream servers.

"x-acm-backends": [
      {
        "serviceName": "pets-backend",
        "serviceVersion": "pets-backend-v1",
        "serviceLabel": "default",
        "contextRoot": "/dev",
        "upstreams": [
          {
            "url": "https://server.example.com",
            "maxFails": 10,
            "maxConnections": 5,
            "failTimeout": "5s",
            "slowStart": "10s"
          },

In the above example, we can see how to create a single Backend with a single upstream server.

Variable Purpose Required Default Context
serviceName provides a human-readable identifier to the Backend true none Backend
serviceVersion provides some version metadata should it be required false none Backend
serviceLabel provides a means to target this backend from this and other API Gateway deployments true default Backend
contextRoot sets the service root path for the upstream servers, i.e. /dev would mean that all requests proxied to /api/v1 would be proxied to /dev/api/v1 on the upstream servers. false / Backend
upstreams array of upstream servers, requires at least one server to be provided. true none Backend
url the URL of the upstream server, a port should be provided if using non-standard scheme -> port mappings, i.e. http:80, https:443 true none Upstream
maxFails sets the number of unsuccessful attempts to communicate with the server that should happen in the duration set by the fail_timeout parameter to consider the server unavailable for a duration also set by the fail_timeout parameter false 0 Upstream
maxConnections limits the maximum _number_ of simultaneous active connections to the proxied server false 0 Upstream
failTimeout sets the time during which the specified number of unsuccessful attempts to communicate with the server should happen to consider the server unavailable and the period of time the server will be considered unavailable. false 10s Upstream
slowStart sets the `_time during which the server will recover its weight from zero to a nominal value, when an unhealthy server becomes healthy, or when the server becomes available after being unavailable. false none Upstream

All values supplied in the OAS Specification are only modifiable through the OAS Specification and not through the API or UI, this means that the OAS Specification is the source of truth for all values supplied within it. If values are omitted from the OAS Schema then they may be added or modified via the API or UI.

Proxy Basepath

It is possible to modify the basepath provided using two additional extensions: x-acm-append-rule and x-acm-strip-basepath.

x-acm-append-rule is a legacy configuration option that was used to either prepend or append the version field from the info section to your API basepath, going forward the basepath should be added explicitly to the global server URL section in exactly the manner in which it is to be used, for example: https://myserver.host.com/api/v1

x-acm-append-rule defaults to NONE and the version field in the info section is only used as the document version metadata in favor of explicitly adding the version to the server URL. x-acm-append-rule should ONLY be used for legacy deployments that used a value other than NONE

x-acm-strip-basepath is a boolean value that denotes whether to strip the basepath from the request URI before proxying the request to the backend servers.

Incoming URI basePath stripBasepath Context Root Proxied URI
/api/v1/customers /api/v1 false / /api/v1/customers
/api/v1/customers /api/v1 true / /customers
/api/v1/customers/123 /api/v1 true / /customers/123
/api/v1/customers /api/v1 false /prod /prod/api/v1/customers
/api/v1/customers /api/v1 true /prod /prod/customers
  • When you upload an OpenAPI spec, API Connectivity Manager automatically generates a name for the API Docs object using the following format:

"info.title"-"info.version"

  • The string is “URL-ized”, meaning any whitespace gets converted to dashes (-) and all letters are lowercase. If we used the OpenAPI example Petstore API, the auto-generated name for the API Docs would be petstore-v1.
  1. Enter a name for the backend service.
  2. Type the Service Target Hostname; this can be an IP or FQDN.
  3. In the Service Target Transport Protocol menu, select gRPC if your backend service uses gRPC.
  4. Enter the Service Target Port, or use the arrow buttons to increase or decrease the port number.

API Proxy

  1. Enter a name for the API Proxy.
  2. Select Yes in the Use an OpenAPI spec option.
  3. Select the Add API Spec button.
  4. Select the Browse button and select a YAML or JSON file.
  5. After the file uploads you can either select or search for your API spec.
  6. Select Publish.

Ingress

Populated from API Specification and are read-only

Confirm Setup

  1. Open a terminal application.

  2. Run the following command:

    curl -k -X GET "https://gateway-proxy-hostname/version/basepath"
Note:
By default the ingress append rule is set to NONE when using an OAS Schema so your request must match the basepath you have supplied as part of your Global Server URL.
Method Endpoint
POST /services/workspaces/{{proxyWorkspaceName}}/api-docs
POST /services/workspaces/{{proxyWorkspaceName}}/proxies

Take the steps below to add an API Proxy with an OpenAPI spec using either version 3.0.x or 3.1.

  1. Send a POST request containing the OpenAPI spec for your API to the api-docs endpoint to upload it.

    {
"info": {
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "title": "Swagger Petstore",
    "license:" {
        "name": "MIT"
    }
},
"openapi": "3.0.0",
"paths": {...}
}

  2. Send a POST request to the proxies endpoint to create a new API Proxy. In this example, specRef contains the name that API Connectivity Manager assigned to the API Docs object: petstore-1.

    {
    "name": "{{proxyName}}",
    "metadata": {
        "description": "Swagger Petstore API"
    },
    "version": "v1",
    "specRef": "petstore-1",
    "proxyConfig": {
        "hostname": "{{environmentHostname}}",
        "ingress": {
            "basePath": "/v1"
        },
        "backends": [
            {
                "serviceName": "petstore-api-svc",
                "serviceTargets": [
                    {
                        "hostname": "petstore.example.com"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

Publish an API Doc to Developer Portal

Next, you can publish API Docs to your Developer Portal.

API Connectivity Manager uses the portalConfig.hostname setting to connect your Dev Portal Proxy to the Developer Portal. You should define this field using the hostname that you assigned to the Developer Portal in the Set Up a Developer Portal guide.

Refer to Publish API Proxy with OpenAPI Spec.

  1. Select the Also publish API to developer portal option
  2. Select the Portal Proxy Hostname.
  3. (Optional) Enter a category if required.
  4. Select Publish

Open the Developer Portal and you should see the API doc is now displayed on the page.

Method Endpoint
PUT /services/workspaces/{{proxyWorkspaceName}}/proxies/{{proxyName}}

The example below adds the Developer Portal to the same API Proxy that you created in the previous section.

{
    "name": "{{proxyName}}",
    "specRef": "petstore-1",
    "version": "v1",
    "proxyConfig": {
        "hostname": "{{environmentHostname}}",
        "ingress": {
            "basePath": "/v1"
        },
        "backends": [
            {
                "serviceName": "petstore-api-svc",
                "serviceTargets": [
                    {
                        "hostname": "petstore.example.com"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    },
    "portalConfig": {
        "hostname": "{{portalClusterHostname}}"
    }
}