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Related topics:

This page is intended for developers which want to start using the Magnolia REST features. We will show how to setup Magnolia in order to use all the REST functions provided by Magnolia. We quickly explain the available REST endpoints. And we give you an idea how you can test and use these endpoints.


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Short version - all in 10' ;^)

This section is a brief summary of the most important things from the sections below. Here we will not go into details but mention the most important points. 

  • Set up Magnolia with version 5.6 or higher, you may want to use a preconfigured Magnolia bundle.
  • Make sure the bundle contains at least the Magnolia REST modules magnolia-rest-integration, magnolia-rest-services, magnolia-rest-content-delivery. Optionally also add magnolia-rest-tools (in this case make sure that you have properly configured the swagger api base path).
  • ...

Setup

We assume you are using Magnolia bundle with version 5.6 or higher and you know how you can:

  • Install Magnolia
  • Set the magnolia.resources.dir property in the magnolia.properties file.
  • Start and stop Magnolia.
Bestpractice

We recommend to have one common directory for the magnolia.resources.dir on both webapps magnoliaAuthor and magnoliaPublic. We will use that later on for a shared configuration.

If you are completely new to Magnolia, follow Setup a Magnolia bundle with all REST modules - step by step.

Required modules

These three modules listed below are required to use all Magnolia REST features within a productive context. 

  • magnolia-rest-integration
  • magnolia-rest-services
  • magnolia-rest-content-delivery

When using a preconfigured preconfigured Magnolia bundle - your webapp(s) already contain(s) these three modules. When using a custom webapp or bundle, make sure your custom setup contains the  module listed above. See REST module - Installing if you need help to install the Magnolia REST modules.

While developing new features, it can be helpful to use the magnolia-rest-tools which enable the swagger UI tools. Have a look at enabling swagger UI tools.

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using-swagger-tools
Enabling swagger UI tools - magnolia-rest-tools

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PageWithExcerpt_enabling and using swagger

If you do not want to usw the swagger tools- skip the next sections and proceed with reading about security.

Installing the magnolia-rest-tools module

To enable swagger you must add magnolia-rest-tools to your webapp(s). 

With Maven

add the folowwing snippet to the pom file of your webapp:

Artifact maven dependencies snippet
groupIdinfo.magnolia.rest
artifactIdmagnolia-rest-tools

With a downloaded bundle

If you are running a preconfigured Magnolia Tomcat bundle:

  • Stop the Tomcat server (if it was alrewady started).
  • Download the Rest tools bundle 
    Artifact resource link
    groupIdinfo.magnolia.rest
    artifactIdmagnolia-rest-tools
    label$artifactId.zip
    renderTypedownload_link
    versionSNAPSHOT
    resourceTypeZIP
    .
  • Unzip the download and copy* all the files to 
    • $tomcat/webapps/magnoliaAuthor/WEB-INF/lib
    • $tomcat/webapps/magnoliaPublic/WEB-INF/lib (if the direcory already exists).

*) The zip file may contain .jar files which are already present in the WEB-INF/lib folder of your webapps.

Set the Swagger API base path

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MultiExcerptNamesetting-swagger-base-path

The Swagger API explorer tool searches for the API at a path set in /modules/rest-tools/config/apiBasepath. The default value is  http://localhost:8080/.rest . The value for this property must match the following pattern:

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<protocol>://<hostname>:<port>/<context>/.rest

When using one of Magnolia's preconfigured bundles running on localhost, set the property to  http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor/.rest .

Set the path to where REST services reside on your system. If you run the standard Magnolia bundle and work on the author instance, set the path to  http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor/.rest .

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Node nameValue

Mgnl f
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Mgnl f
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Mgnl f
config


Mgnl p
apiBasepath

http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor/.rest


After setting the base path, restart Magnolia.

Swagger is in Dev > REST Tools.

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Setup a Magnolia bundle with all REST modules - step by step

This section provides a step by step series of instructions to setup a Magnolia bundle which contains all REST modules inclusing magnolia-rest-tools to use the swagger UI tools. The procedure is using the Magnolia CLI. If you are an experienced Magnolia user, you can skipt this and setup Magnolia by your prefered style.

Expand
titleClick here to expand to see the step by step procedure

#1 Get the shell and choose a directory to work with

Open a shell and change to directory of your choice. In our example, we use the directory ~/dev/mgnl-rest-test-base.

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cd ~/dev/mgnl-rest-test-base

#2 Downloading a bundle with CLI jumpstart

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mgnl jumpstart

Jumpstart downloads and extracts the latest version of magnolia-community-demo-bundle which comes with Tomcat server. Use the -e option to get the magnolia-enterprise-pro-demo-bundle - which will prompt for enterprise credentials. See jumpstart for further options.

Jumpstart also sets the property magnolia.resources.dir in the file magnolia.properties - which is fine.

When the execution of jumpstart is done, your directory looks like this:

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mgnl-rest-test-base/
├── apache-tomcat
├── light-modules
└── magnolia.zip

We will need the light-modules folder later on. Please do not start the tomcat so far.

#3 Adding the magnolia-rest tools to the bundle

 Download the Rest tools bundle 

Artifact resource link
groupIdinfo.magnolia.rest
artifactIdmagnolia-rest-tools
label$artifactId.zip
renderTypedownload_link
versionSNAPSHOT
resourceTypeZIP
into a temporary folder. Unzip it. Copy all the files of the unzipped folder into ~/dev/mgnl-rest-test-base/apache-tomcat/webapps/magnoliaAuthor/WEB-INF/lib. Some of the files may already be there, that's fine.

#4 Start Magnolia

You are ready to start Magnolia - actually the Tomcat server - for the first time. Go to our "root" directory ans start with the CLI command start:

Code Block
cd ~dev/mgnl-rest-test-base
mgnl start

Give Magnolia some time. On the first start up Magnolia installs some configurations for a bunch of modules, etc. pp.

#5 Login on the author context

Open your favorite browser, open the URL http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor/ and login as user superuser with the password superuser. Now you are nearly done. Play around a little bit with Magnolia. Also go to the public context with the URL http://localhost:8080/magnoliaPublic/.

#6 Set the swagger base api path

In order to properly use the swagger UI tools - which are used for development only - we must adapt one property in the configuration.

On the UAdmin - open the Configuration app and open the node /modules/rest-tools/config. (You can use the URL http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor/.magnolia/admincentral#app:configuration:browser;/modules/rest-tools/config:treeview: to go there directly.)

Open the folder config and edit the property apiBasepath. Give it the value http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor/.rest .

This property is one of the rare one which requires a server restart to make the change effective.

#7 Restart Magnolia

Go to the shell where you have started Magnolia.

To stop the server - press cmd + C (on a mac) or ctrl + C (on Windows). Give the server some time to properly shutdown.

Now start it again:

Code Block
cd ~dev/mgnl-rest-test-base
mgnl start


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Security settings

We have warned you

Note

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.

Please read and understand REST security before enabling and using the REST endpoints on a productive environment.

In the context of this tutorial to get started, you will use users with roles provided by the default setup of the the Magnolia bundle.

Using superuser on the author context - for testing reasons only!

On the author context use the superuser is granted:

  • Read/Write access for the path / on every JCR workspace - granted by the role  superuser.
  • Web access for the HTTP methods 
    Mgnl get
    , 
    Mgnl put
    , 
    Mgnl post
     and 
    Mgnl delete
     for the path /magnoliaAuthor/.rest* - granted by the role rest-admin.

Note that superuser is given a lot of power. Use it carefully! 

Using anonymous user on the public context

The public context typically is visited by users which do not authenticate. Nevertheless, such visits are done as anonymous user - which also has some permissions.

On the public context anonymous user is granted:

  • Read access on the path / for the JCR workspaces website, dam, googleSitemaps, category, tours
  • Web access for the HTTP method 
    Mgnl get
     on the path  path /magnoliaAuthor/.rest/delivery/*

As you can see, anonymous user only has read access and can only access the Delivery endpoint. That is sufficient for the moment.

On a productive environment - we highly recommend to create custom REST roles granting specific access for specific use cases.

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Testing the setup

..

The endpoints - an overview

...

My first REST request

..

Getting familiar with tools