Understanding the Administrative API

The WBI-C Administrative API allows certain common administrative functions to be carried out without using the Community Console GUI.

Note: The Console itself must be running for API calls to be processed and the API functionality must have been turned on through the GUI before the calls are made. For more information using the GUI to turn the APIs on, see the WBI-C Hub Configuration Guide

A method is called by sending an HTTP POST request with an appropriate XML document as the body. This request is directed to a servlet running on the Console instance, at the relative URL of /console/bcgpublicapi.

In general, the XML request document includes the following data:

At present, the following 11 methods are supported:

The system processes the request and returns the response (or exception) XML synchronously, i.e., on the same HTTP connection. Each method has a corresponding response. Using an API produces the same internal process that using the console does. If a particular operation executed via the console generates events, that operation executed via the API generates the same events.

The Administrative API describes these APIs in detail. More detail can be gathered by looking in the $(WBICINSTALLROOT)/publicapi directory at the two provided schemas:

In addition to the actual response, the servlet itself also provides standard HTTP status codes, as specified in Table 1

Table 1. Servlet Status Codes

HTTP status code Situation in which this code is returned
500
  • Request XML cannot be parsed
  • There is any error in processing the request
  • There is an internal error

405
  • An HTTP request other than POST has been received The servlet supports only the POST method

200
  • The API has been successfully executed

501
  • A non-implemented request has been received
  • The Administrative API has not been turned on

Security is provided by the use of SSL and, optionally, Client Authorization. Data, but not the elements of the API itself, can be localized, based on the user's locale, as long as character encoding is set to UTF-8, which is the standard expected encoding.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2004