development skills in order to become a more efficient
network engineer with coding skills.
Note
Chapter 7 provides more detail on HTTP and CRUD
functions as well as response codes.RESTful API Authentication
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, it is important to
able to interact with a software controller using RESTful
APIs and to be able to test code to see if the desired
outcomes are accomplished when executing the code.
Keep in mind that APIs are software interfaces into an
application or a controller. Many APIs require
authentication; such APIs are just like devices in that the
user needs to authenticate to gain access to utilize the
APIs. Once a user has authenticated, any changes that a
developer has access to make via the API are then able to
impact the application. This means if a RESTful API call
is used to delete data, that data will be removed from the
application or controller just as if a user were logged into
the device via the CLI and deleted it. It is best practice to
use a test lab or a Cisco DevNet sandbox while learning
or practicing API concepts to prevent accidental impacts
in a production or lab environment.
Note
Cisco DevNet is covered in Chapter 1, “Introduction to
Cisco DevNet Associate Certification.”Basic Authentication
Basic authentication, illustrated in Figure 6-4, is one of
the simplest and most common authentication methods