Using APIs in Red Hat Subscription Management
authorizing, managing, and troubleshooting subscription management APIs
Abstract
Red Hat subscription services offer developed and documented APIs to help you better automate, manage, and track your subscriptions to Red Hat products.1. Using APIs in Red Hat Subscription Management
Using APIs in subscription services can help you more effectively track and automate your Red Hat subscriptions usage in the following ways:
- Control which tools that you use for each product
- Better manage your system and subscription inventories
- Update and secure your systems more efficiently
- Continue receiving official support for your Red Hat products
Red Hat Subscription Management APIs use OAuth 2.0 for authorization. To obtain a token and access the APIs, you will need the following pieces of information:
- Offline token generated on the Red Hat Subscription Manager API Tokens page
- Client ID = rhsm-api
- Token URL = https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/token
2. Using tokens for authentication
Offline and refresh tokens are used by Red Hat Subscription Management to authenticate your system after you set up your account using your secret to authenticate your Red Hat Single Sign On (SSO) account.
Please use password management that is consistent with security best practices. It is never safe to store any passwords or credentials in plaintext. Treat your offline token with the same security measures that you use for a password to protect it against unauthorized use.
2.1. Generating a new offline token
An offline token never expires as long as it is used at least once every 30 days and is used to create access tokens for the Red Hat Subscription Manager APIs. It works as a password and allows you to continue being able to authenticate your account without having to create new refresh tokens.
Procedure
- Visit the Red Hat Subscription Manager API Tokens page.
- Click the Generate Token button.
2.2. Generating a new refresh token
After you have created the offline token, you can use that token to create a new refresh token, which includes an access token that is valid for five minutes. Access tokens are used in the header to authenticate your Customer Portal user account to the Red Hat Subscription Manager APIs.
Procedure
Set the offline token value. In this example, we set it in plaintext and shorten the token value for clarity:
# offline_token='eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCIgOiA'
Enter the following command to create a function to easily filter out JSON values.
# function jsonValue() { KEY=$1 num=$2 awk -F"[,:}]" '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){if($i~/'$KEY'\042/){print $(i+1)}}}' | tr -d '"' | sed -n ${num}p }Enter the following command to extract the
access_token:# curl https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/token -d grant_type=refresh_token -d client_id=rhsm-api -d refresh_token=$offline_token
The expected output is similar to the following, where
access_tokenis the token used to authorize your account:{"access_token":"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.JfStOgLvgFUAlMb7aVfm-dWxd4wN5oqk377Q6oyDe55pM4zDiZ0f1yJfHsWL8RHeb3r0tj8DY_UAyAFkxAnjyWjq52d7h2EfJUPOs1p1P8Yeu5hDwOrA34Es2maN-ZbJCc4sOb7stGhxSCU15CfvPFIRR5tgSQ17-Mx-x4ZnK_fwpOK6DqQpNzZ0Krz3U1a-NH86XJ8dT8lC3o03YrdlcZx_-wv6-PehqNQa2Hb9vt1csX8QlL3PEyBVNPZXaaTHvyFYx0orGyjKA83Qq-LihbWBXzNjf_rIEfsPJYi-uQHIT_zjaOPYo2rXi7VTPJC2qRSxF2yaRGlihZHxkDzMOTITnaDeMhbx1zvRr-R9eXocEUzsU9j-Yx7h3WYCFjb8zdfXTBHV8SCaMdH1u9Eesa5gmHOoki8882RR85i1fjpBayFTS36y4S-yDebUYiukXOnw8mMMKy04NhVpFGfWtJ8--Jy4Ypndqqk_OS_PiWBsFFN6lMv5S6DZWVpjjE-CENHKn9ceA4MlerBBXLY02Xz9h0biiQUZrd-NLy11j4os124Mai1mmlNOLz993hw0gl-vKKno_bYOV8dEEmKtSLlSPVdW5X_0vBU0BtQuSEVctz_8zsRKHpT-YlDdmP0VDuzJjWM0YsGz2W0_tMuLG7NYS_Ia3vWAVuK--Uv5cAQ","expires_in":900,"refresh_expires_in":0,"refresh_token":"eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCIgOiAiSldUIiwia2lkIiA6ICItNGVsY19WZE5fV3NPVVlmMkc0UXhyOEdjd0l4X0t0WFVDaXRhdExLbEx3In0.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.S_pmAWzQUc04f0uGHN9rRYd4sH1t4IPnEwCcOH1aBL9Qo4_EbXPWCrtnf84f1pfuKJTQwUS-DldY6eloyVEsGgnqkygBKh270bu_bNXCNAuLJigEMsYx_2VzdnwWLptWS2_FUaNwe7Tai8qXwd8F0ge0Zjoi3P15S_8z4Tp79uD-qKcvwz6NlPKCOZwEbwZqOkJDZ8JKTIK8O0jfqdtHMfaWwlXMXdvx3B70tTOtHjQGAsxZA2dPPvqVGuyMOMmC3bMaISReUbtDwsCV-eAZplDfDZthr4k4JbmG9Iwq1aATaF3aCwfpebcmoIZGHE4_RLZrXCZKapXVVvRxcOrJytxIZrbDHq6ozX7j-j1SE3kuexcSLvlodmfTlxwPX9g7aqJu2ZLno54NxQSgYO8lQqSvScFgLtbX5f_FUS0Iw6yRWWJy2o2fnvfGk83rt5UYTtIb8Xd1GXcpHf8Yl10nVy21BetSQY__VpahF_eZghBNxS689GJnwUqAwlu01pOlb26mmHaydHc3hqUsudZydRbaFfI7nR6gQP8lCtp6b0z5hgVHLG4ZJ7i4MmEL6C5G4xHUaUs6RZgJUSsc2DzLW0b7rSQj41JuvTmSgD8bMrnVokmkAbfvxjKGc7E8n2GyImO7JiKb3RA7_o0xOTRYDIa_Ns-lnigJkUlQZUzt7JI","token_type":"bearer","not-before-policy":0,"session_state":"f0dbb8d4-4e4e-4654-844c-6f3704c84422","scope":"offline_access"}%Enter the following command to set the
access_tokenas an authorization token that can be used to perform the API call.# token=`curl https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/token -d grant_type=refresh_token -d client_id=rhsm-api -d refresh_token=$offline_token | jsonValue access_token`
3. Accessing available subscription management APIs
Red Hat provides a Swagger file to describe the specifications of the Red Hat Subscription Management APIs. The Swagger specification includes information about the API endpoints available, input parameters, expected output, and possible error responses. The swagger file can be imported into REST clients like Postman or RESTlet to automatically build a library of API calls.
4. Troubleshooting API errors
| Code | Explanation | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| 400 | BadRequest error | Validate that you entered the API call correctly and try again. |
| 401 | Unauthorized | Generate a new authorization token. |
| 403 | Forbidden | Generate a new authorization token. |
| 404 | Not found | Resource not found or does not exist. |
| 429 | Too many requests | Reduce the frequency of requests |
| 500 | Internal server error | The problem is on Red Hat’s end. Wait a minute and try your request again. |
4.1. Troubleshooting error 403
Error 403 is a "not authorized" error, meaning that the authentication you are using for Red Hat Subscription Manager APIs has failed. There are two possible solutions you can try.
Procedure
To authenticate through the Red Hat Subscription Manager gateway, ensure the authorization header includes the text "bearer" before entering your API call:
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" <api_url>
- If the header is correct, create a new token. Refresh tokens last for five minutes.
4.2. Troubleshooting error 429
Error 429 is a “rate limiting” error, meaning that your account has exceeded the number of allowed requests per second. This limit applies to all users of a single Red Hat account.
Procedure
Extract the header of the response, which includes: * X-RateLimit-Limit: the total requests/sec allowed * X-RateLimit-Remaining: the number of requests/sec remaining (this will be a negative integer) * X-RateLimit-Delay: the number of seconds the requester should wait before trying again
Adjust the rate of requests to the X-RateLimit-Limit value and start again once the X-RateLimit-Delay time has passed.
