AlertSite XML API

An API has been developed based on the principles of Representational State Transfer (REST) to allow customers to perform a basic set of actions by sending and receiving data in the XML format. The following API functions are available:

• Login
• Logout
• List Monitors
• Edit Monitor
• Add Monitor
• Get Monitor (Download)
• Delete Monitor
• Get Monitor Status
• Get Monitor Site Plans

The user must first be logged in for permission to access any of these API functions.

From a programmatic standpoint, the validation of a user’s credentials is handled by passing a cookie in the HTTP header. The REST client requests a login, the server responds by sending back a Set-Cookie header on successful login, and the client, in turn, uses this same cookie in the HTTP header for each subsequent request.

Some functions require information returned in the response of another request. For example, to do the Get Monitor function, the List Monitors request must be issued first in order to retrieve the monitor number.

The REST API has access to data for site monitors, DéjàClick monitors, and API monitors, but not ServerAgent or Security data.

DéjàClick monitors must be uploaded through the DéjàClick client. You can download AlertSite here.

SoapUI API monitors must be created using ReadyAPI or SoapUI from SmartBear. For more information, see Create API Monitor From SoapUI Test.

ServerAgent and Security monitors. must be added through AlertSite 1.0.

The REST API sends all communication in the form of an XML-formatted text string via a raw POST action. The POST can be done via Ajax, although our example client code does not use Ajax. The essential components of each request are a URL and the XML structure. The URL represents the REST resource and the XML specifies various request and response parameters.

Below is a description of the URLs and XML code for each of the available API calls. The base URL is https://www.alertsite.com/restapi and must precede the Path shown for the call. For instance, to send a Login request, the full URL would be https://www.alertsite.com/restapi/user/login. These are production URLs.

Please note that the response may contain XML tags that are not used with all monitor types and will be blank.

Each API function will include a request header and response header:

• HTTP Header on Login Request only

  User-Agent	AlertSite REST Client/1.0
  Content-Type	text/xml

• HTTP Header on All Other Client Requests

  User-Agent	AlertSite REST Client/1.0
  Content-Type	text/xml
  Cookie	as_sessionid=5ermggi6zfnkgur34wop2mkm5mzdit7es6hkf6kbdeuwh727tplzodt4uommzygp; domain=.alertsite.com; path=/; secure

• Server Response Header

  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Connection	close
  Set-Cookie	as_sessionid=5ermggi6zfnkgur34wop2mkm5mzdit7es6hkf6kbdeuwh727tplzodt4uommzygp; domain=.alertsite.com; path=/; secure
  Date	Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:17:53 GMT
  Client-SSL-Cert-Issuer	/C=ZA/ST=Western Cape/L=Cape Town/O=Thawte Consulting cc/OU=Certification Services Division/CN=Thawte Premium Server CA/[email protected]
  Client-ssl-cipher	AES256-SHA
  Client-peer	204.2.244.15:443
  Client-date	Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:17:56 GMT
  Client-ssl-warning	Peer certificate not verified
  Content-type	text/xml
  Client-ssl-cert-subject	/C=US/ST=Florida/L=Boca Raton/O=Boca Internet Technologies, Inc./CN=www.alertsite.com'
  Server	Apache

See AlertSite Status Codes.

Admin and Co-Admins can see which users accessed AlertSite APIs and when they did it last on the Manage Users screen.