The REST Listicator

• Web Server based app which responds to REST HTTP Requests
• Features
  • List management
  • User management
  • Feature-Toggles to configure the app

The application has been deployed to Heroku

You can run the application locally or run it from a cloud system.

The application has been deployed to Heroku at

• https://rest-list-system.herokuapp.com/listicator/

The cloud version will:

• reset the shared default lists every 5 minutes.
• allocate a unique session when /sessionid is called with 2 minutes of inactivity

Multi-User Support

By default all requests use the 'global' set of data. This makes the application easy to use for single users and multiple users can access this, although they will be amending each others data.

If a user wants a unique session, perhaps because they want to automate and have deterministic results without interference from other users they must use a X-SESSIONID header.

GET /sessionid e.g. GET http://localhost:55752/listicator/listicator/sessionid

Install and Running Locally

download the jar from TestingApp Releases on Github

• run by typing:
  • java -jar <insertnameofjarfilehere>.jar
  • e.g. if you downloaded rest-list-system.jar then it would be java -jar rest-list-system.jar

If you double click it then it will be running in the background on port 4567 - you might have to use task manager to kill the Java VM that it is running on to exit.

Built in Users

Three users are created by default with different permissions: superadmin, admin, user - all have the default password set to password

Use Basic authentication to use these users.

• username: superadmin, password: password
• username: admin, password: password
• username: user, password: password

Command Line Arguments For Local Execution

• -port=1234 set the port to supplied integer (defaults to 4567)
• -bugfixes=false (defaults to true)
• -resettimmer=MILLISECONDS e.g. -resettimmer=1000
  • sets the default list application timer, by default locally this is 0 as single user mode is inferred
  • on the cloud this is set to 5 minutes (300000 milliseconds)
  • this can also be configured by setting and environment variable or property called RestListicatorApiResetMillis
• -maxsessionseconds=SECONDS e.g. -maxsessionseconds=60
  • sets the individual session created by /sessionid to be deleted after 60 seconds of inactivity
  • this can also be configured by setting and environment variable or property called RestListicatorMaxSessionSeconds

End Points Summary

• /heartbeat - is the server alive?
• /lists - manage the List entities - create, amend lists
• /lists/{guid} - create, amend, delete a List
• /users - user management - create, delete
• /users/{username}/password - amend a User's password
• /users/{username}/apikey - amend a User's api key
• /feature-toggles - superadmin can toggle app features on and off
• /sessionid - get a unique sessionid to isolate your testing from other users, use the session id in a X-SESSIONID header

NOTE:
if you see {username} or {guid} mentioned in the end point documentation.
This means "replace {username} with an actual username"
e.g. /users/{username}/apikey would be /users/admin/apikey

The end points may be nested in a sub path e.g. /listicator/heartbeat

Check with your system admin to find out how the application has been configured.

On heroku the requests are of the form:

• GET https://rest-list-system.herokuapp.com/listicator/heartbeat

Running locally it is likely to be (by default):

• GET https://localhost:55752/listicator/heartbeat

End Points

Heartbeat

• /heartbeat
  • GET - return 200 to indicate server is running

e.g.

curl -i -X GET http://localhost:55752/listicator/heartbeat

curl -v -X GET http://localhost:55752/listicator/heartbeat

Lists

• /lists
  • GET
    • return all the lists in the system
  • POST
    • requires authorized and authenticated user
    • create a list with partial payload e.g. {title:'my title'}
  • PUT
    • requires authorized and authenticated user
    • create a list with full payload i.e. title, description, guid, createdDate, amendedDate

Lists Examples

Note: continuation character on mac is \ and on Windows it is ^

curl -X GET ^
  http://localhost:55752/listicator/lists ^
  -H "accept: application/json"

'GET /lists'

Accept: application/json

{
    "lists": [
        {
            "guid": "d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6",
            "title": "title",
            "description": "",
            "createdDate": "2017-07-19-15-53-14",
            "amendedDate": "2017-07-19-15-53-14"
        }
    ]
}

curl -X GET ^
  http://localhost:55752/listicator/lists ^
  -H "accept: application/xml"

Accept: application/xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<lists>
    <list>
        <guid>d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6</guid>
        <title>title</title>
        <description></description>
        <createdDate>2017-07-19-15-53-14</createdDate>
        <amendedDate>2017-07-19-15-53-14</amendedDate>
    </list>
</lists>

List

• /lists/{guid}
  • GET - return the details of a particular list
    • can filter list with ?title=exactTitle
    • can filter list with ?title="partialTitle"
  • PUT - amend a list or create a new list when supplied with full details of the list
  • POST - amend details of a list
    • user must be authenticated
    • only user with appropriate permission can amend a list
      • admin can amend any, user can ammend unowned, and lists they own
    • resource will be created if it does not exist
  • PATCH - partial amend of a list
    • user must be authenticated
    • only user with appropriate permission can delete a list
    • resource must exist
  • DELETE - delete a list
    • user must be authenticated
    • only user with appropriate permission can delete a list
      • admin can delete any list
      • users can delete their own, or unowned, or admin created lists
• /lists/{guid}?without={fieldlist}
  • GET - return the details of a particular list but without the fields in the comma separated fieldlist e.g. guid,title

List Examples

curl -X GET \
  http://localhost:55752/listicator/lists/d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6 \
  -H 'accept: application/json'

GET /lists/{guid}

Accept: application/json

{
    "guid": "d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6",
    "title": "title",
    "description": "",
    "createdDate": "2017-07-19-15-53-14",
    "amendedDate": "2017-07-19-15-53-14"
}

curl -X GET ^
  http://localhost:55752/listicator/lists/d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6 ^
  -H 'accept: application/xml'

Accept: application/xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<list>
    <guid>d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6</guid>
    <title>title</title>
    <description></description>
    <createdDate>2017-07-19-15-53-14</createdDate>
    <amendedDate>2017-07-19-15-53-14</amendedDate>
</list>

POST /lists

With a body

{title:'my title custom'}

Would create a list - try experimenting with the different fields: guid, description, createdDate, amendedDate etc.

PATCH /lists/{guid}

Where {guid} would be an actual guid value e.g. d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6

{
    "guid": "d4625287-989a-4454-b01a-cb99545a87a6",
    "title": "title2",
}

_currently does not comply with https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7396 _

Users

• /users
  • GET - return usernames of all users
    • can be filtered with ?username=exactmatch e.g. ?username=admin
    • can be filtered with ?username="partialmatch" e.g. ?username="adm"

curl -X GET http://localhost:55752/listicator/users

• /users
  • POST - creat a user with username and password
    • calling user must be authenticated
    • calling user must be admin or have CREATE_USER permissions
    • username must be minimum of 6 chars
    • password must be minimum of 6 chars
    • 201 returned on success
    • 409 returned if user already exists

curl -X POST \
  http://localhost:55752/listicator/users \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'authorization: Basic YWRtaW46cGFzc3dvcmQ=' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{username:"username", password:"password"}'

User

• /users/{username}
  • GET - return details of a user
    • user must be authenticated
    • user can only get their own details, not those of anyone else
    • admin users can get details of any user

curl -X GET http://localhost:55752/listicator/users/superadmin ^
 -H "authorization: Basic YWRtaW46cGFzc3dvcmQ="

• /users/{username}/password
  • PUT - set the password
    • user must be authenticated
    • user can only set their own details, not those of anyone else
    • admin users can set details of any user
    • password must be 6 characters minimum
    • payload is a partial user object containing the password
    • payload type must be set in the content-type header or assumes JSON
    • returns 204 No Content if successful

PUT /users/{username}/password

XML:

<user><password>newPassword</password></user>

JSON:

{password:'newPassword'}

• /users/{username}/apikey
  • PUT - set the API AuthKey
    • user must be authenticated
    • user can only set their own details, not those of anyone else
    • admin users can set details of any user
    • apikey must be 10 characters minimum
    • payload is a partial user object containing the password
    • payload type must be set in the content-type header or assumes JSON
    • returns 204 No Content if successful

PUT /users/{username}/apikey

XML:

<user><apikey>newApiKeyIsThisYes</apikey></user>

JSON:

{apikey:'newApiKeyIsThisYes'}

• /feature-toggles
  • GET - return status of all feature toggles
    • user must be authenticated
  • POST - amend a list of feature toggles
    • user must be authenticated
    • only user with appropriate permission can set feature toggles

Payload representation

• Content-Type

  • Use the Content-Type header to specify the format of the payload as either XML or JSON
  • A value of application/json means the payload is represented as JSON
  • A value of application/xml means the payload is represented as XML
  • A 400 error will be returned if the payload can not be converted into the appropriate representation
  • If no Content-Type is supplied then the application assumes a JSON representation.

• Accept

  • Use the Accept header to specify the format of the desired response
  • A value of application/json means you want to receive JSON
  • A value of application/xml means you want to receive XML

Authentication

• Some requests require an authenticated user.
• The system accepts Simple Basic Authentication
  • an Authentication header with the value Basic followed by the username:password base 64 encoded
• The system also accepts a custom header X-API-AUTH with a value of the api key defined for each user. the api key is visible to the user when they make a GET request for their user details

Verbs

• The system accepts the X-HTTP-Method-Override header to allow clients that don't support verbs such as PATCH

General

• OPTIONS can be used on all endpoints to receive the Allow header with the allowed verbs.
• 404 is returned if the end point is not recognised
• 405 is returned if a method which is not mentioned in Allow is used on an an endpoint
• 500 is returned in the event of an unhandled condition in the server - this should never occur

Known Bugs

The system has been coded with some known bugs - these are all fixed by default. If you would like to test your testing skills then start with -bugfixes=false to have the known bugs present in the application.

See if you can find them.

java -jar rest-list-system.jar -bugfixes=false

Details

This application has been written by Alan Richardson

Copyright Compendium Developments Ltd

Source code is available as part of "The Evil Tester's Compendium of Testing Apps" with source on Github.

Deployed to Heroku at rest-list-system.herokuapp.com/listicator/

Recommended tools for exploratory testing of REST API:

• Insomnia
• Postman

If you are interested in learning how to test APIs then you might find the book by Alan Richardson called "Automating and Testing a REST API" useful.

The book has a support page with many videos and sample code.

More Details About the Author

• www.eviltester.com - Software Testing Blogs and Articles
• www.compendiumdev.co.uk - Consultancy & Training
• digitalonlinetactics.com - Online Marketing Blog
• uk.linkedin.com/in/eviltester
• twitter.com/eviltester
• patreon.com/eviltester - I release a lot of exclusive training content on Patreon