End of Sale Notice:

F5 NGINX is announcing the End of Sale (EoS) for NGINX Management Suite API Connectivity Manager Module, effective January 1, 2024.

F5 maintains generous lifecycle policies that allow customers to continue support and receive product updates. Existing API Connectivity Manager Module customers can continue to use the product past the EoS date. License renewals are not available after September 30, 2024.

See our End of Sale announcement for more details.

Publish an HTTP API

Learn how to use F5 NGINX Management Suite API Connectivity Manager to publish APIs to your API Gateway.

Overview

API Connectivity Manager lets you manage your API infrastructure by using a set of hierarchical resources. The top-level resource, called a Workspace, provides a logical grouping for resources called Environments. Environments contain Clusters that assign NGINX instances for use as API Gateways and Developer Portals.

This topic describes how to publish an API config to a cluster.

Before You Begin

Complete the following prerequisites before proceeding with this guide:

  • API Connectivity Manager is installed, licensed, and running.
  • You have one or more Environments with API Gateway or Dev Portal clusters.

How to Access the User Interface

This guide provides instructions for completing tasks using the API Connectivity Manager user interface (UI).

To access the UI, go to the FQDN of your NGINX Instance Manager host and log in. On the Launchpad menu, select “API Connectivity Manager.”

Create a Service Workspace

Note:
The API Connectivity Manager admin must verify that the user (API Onwer) has CRUD RBAC permissions for the services feature.

Service Workspaces let you group API configurations. Publishing an API requires at least one Service Workspace.

To create a Service Workspace you need to do the following:

  1. On the sidebar, select Services. If this is your first time on the page, you’ll see a prompt for creating a new workspace. If not, select the +Add button in the top-right corner.
  2. Enter a name, description, and any other information you want to provide.
  3. Select Create.

Next Steps

After creating a Service Workspace, two options are displayed:

Publish API Proxy and Publish API Doc

Publish an API Proxy

  1. Enter the required information in the fields provided.
  2. Service Target Hostname should point to the backend service you want this API to resolve to.
  3. If you choose not to use an OpenAPI spec then you need to add some extra information.
  4. For Gateway Proxy Hostname, select the hostname of the environment you want to associate with the API.
  5. Base Path and Version build up the URI, for example /api/v1/.
  6. Select Publish to save and publish your API Proxy.
Note:
If you choose to use an OpenAPI spec, it will get processed into a config and published.

Advanced Configurations

After publishing the API Proxy, a link to Edit Advanced Configurations is displayed. If you want to create more advanced routing configurations, select this option. You can upload an OpenAPI spec here too, which has all the necessary API and routing information.

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.

To add an Advanced Routing configuration, select the Ingress menu item in the advanced section of the menu.

  1. Select Add Route in the Advanced Routes section.
  2. Fill out the required information in the form presented to you.
  3. Match URI is the value you want to match on for queries.
  4. Choose the required HTTP Method you want to use for this route match.
  5. Change the Target Backend Service Label if required to target a specific backend based on the label value.
  6. Select Add Parameter to add a parameter to the Path, Query, or Header that’s used to match on the route.
    Note:
    If you choose a path parameter then you must have a placeholder for that parameter in Match URI.
  7. Select Add to finish adding the route.
  8. Select Next to move to the Backend configuration page.

Backends

Backends tell your API where to resolve the queries to, for example your backend server.

You can add, edit, or delete Backends.

You can also set DNS resolvers and TLS on the backend.

Policies

This section ensures you can set policies at the individual API level.

Check the Manage Policies documentation for more information.

Publish an API Proxy using an OpenAPI Spec

In the Publish an API Proxy form, select the option to use an OpenAPI spec and choose one from the list of existing specs.

You may also upload a new OpenAPI spec in this form by selecting +Add API Spec and uploading the new spec in the file input.

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.

Update a Published API Proxy

  1. On the sidebar, select Services. Then on the Services Workspaces page, select the workspace containing the API proxy you want to edit.
  2. Select Edit Proxy from the Actions menu of the Proxy you want to delete.
  3. Edit as needed.
  4. Select Save and Publish.
Note:
Certain sections can’t be modified for API Proxies created with OpenAPI Specs, for example, Advanced Routing in the Ingress step.

Delete a Published API Proxy

  1. On the sidebar, select Services. Then on the Services Workspaces page, select the name of the workspace containing the API proxy you want to delete.
  2. Select Delete Proxy from the Actions menu of the Proxy you want to delete.

What’s Next