Should REST API be versioned?

APIs only need to be up-versioned when a breaking change is made. Breaking changes include: a change in the format of the response data for one or more calls. a change in the request or response type (i.e. changing an integer to a float)

How is authentication information passed in REST API calls?

The client must create a POST call and pass the user name, password, and authString in the Request headers using the /x-www-form-urlencoded content type. The AR System server then performs the normal authentication mechanisms to validate the credentials.

How do you do authentication and authorization in REST API?

Here’s how:

1. When a user signs up for access to your API, generate an API key: var token = crypto.
2. Store this in your database, associated with your user.
3. Carefully share this with your user, making sure to keep it as hidden as possible.
4. To authenticate a user’s API request, look up their API key in the database.

Why do we need versioning for RESTful Web services?

Versioning is the most important and difficult part of the API as it takes backward API compatible. Versioning helps us to iterate faster when the changes are identified. We should always version our Web API. Consider a scenario in which we have a Web API that is up (status) and running.

What is the best way to track SDK and version usage REST API?

To find out which SDKs are inside a mobile app, you can rely on app intelligence tools such as App Annie, Apptopia or 42 Matters. They provide a great way to see at a given time, how many apps use a certain SDK, be it for ad monetization, attribution, analytics, CRM, user support, etc.

How do I authenticate an API call?

You can authenticate API requests using basic authentication with your email address and password, with your email address and an API token, or with an OAuth access token. All methods of authentication set the authorization header differently. Credentials sent in the payload (body) or URL are not processed.

How do I secure a RESTful API?

The first step in securing an API is to ensure that you only accept queries sent over a secure channel, like TLS (formerly known as SSL). Communicating with a TLS certificate protects all access credentials and API data in transit using end-to-end encryption. API keys are another step toward securing a REST API.

What is authorization in RESTful API?

Involves checking resources that the user is authorized to access or modify via defined roles or claims. For example, the authenticated user is authorized for read access to a database but not allowed to modify it. The same can be applied to your API.

What are the most popular methods of authentication for REST API?

We will go over the two most popular used today when discussing REST API. HTTP Basic Authentication is rarely recommended due to its inherent security vulnerabilities. This is the most straightforward method and the easiest. With this method, the sender places a username:password into the request header.

Which versioning guidelines should I use for my Rest API?

REST doesn’t provide for any specific versioning guidelines but the more commonly used approaches fall into three categories: Using the URI is the most straightforward approach (and most commonly used as well) though it does violate the principle that a URI should refer to a unique resource.

Are REST API keys a good security measure?

In REST API Security – API keys are widely used in the industry and became some sort of standard, however, this method should not be considered a good security measure. API Keys were created as somewhat of a fix to the early authentication issues of HTTP Basic Authentication and other such systems.

What is the difference between authentication and authorization in rest?

The distinction between authentication and authorization is important in understanding how RESTful APIs are working and why connection attempts are either accepted or denied: Authentication is the verification of the credentials of the connection attempt.