Query Authentication

Query Authentication provides the simplest authentication method, in which the credentials are sent in the request URL. This method is most often used with APIs that authenticate using API tokens and signatures. Dynamic values of query parameters can be generated using user functions.

User Interface

In the user interface, you simply select the Query method and enter the key-value pairs of the query parameters.

Note: Unless you need multiple parameters, the API Key authentication method may be more suitable.

JSON

A sample Query authentication configuration looks like this:

{
    "api": {
        ...,
        "authentication": {
            "type": "query",
            "query": {
                "apikey": "2267709"
            }
        }
    }
}

Configuration Parameters

The following configuration parameters are supported for the query type of authentication:

query (required, object): An object whose properties represent key-value pairs of the URL query.

Basic Configuration Example

Let’s say you have an API that requires an api-token parameter (with value 2267709) to be sent with each request. The following authentication configuration does exactly that:

"authentication": {
    "type": "query",
    "query": {
        "api-token": "2267709"
    }
}

For this use case, it is also possible to use the defaultOptions setting. However, we recommend using the authentication setting for credentials so that the Generic Extractor configuration remains organized.

See example [EX077].

Configuration With Encrypted Token Example

Usually, you want the value used for authentication to be encrypted (the api-token parameter with the value 2267709 in our example), so you do not expose it to other users or store it in the configuration versions history. The following authentication configuration, combined with the parameter defined in the config section, does that (the value with the prefix # is encrypted upon saving the configuration):

{
    "api": {
        ...,
        "authentication": {
            "type": "query",
            "query": {
                "api-token": {
                    "attr": "#token"
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "config": {
        ...,
        "#token": "2267709" 
        }
    }
}

See example [EX094].