Authenticating and Obtaining a Session ID

Before being able to request any data, one needs to authenticate with the API and get a session ID. The session ID can be retrieved either as part of the JSON response, or else as a cookie.

If authentication is not done, further requests will be rejected. If a POST request for a report is done and no authentication has been made, a 401 error code will be returned. If the same request is done using GET, instead of an error, a 302 redirect is returned to the authentication page.

You use the following POST request to authenticate a user by verifying username and password.

POST /auth/login

This authentication request has the following properties.

Request Properties

Property	Description
Request JSON Object	• user (string)—The username of your Usage Intelligence user account • password (string)—The corresponding password of your Usage Intelligence user account • useCookies (boolean)—Optional parameter to specify whether the response should set a cookie (if true), or include the session ID as part of the JSON response (if false). Default is false.
Request Headers	• Content-Type—Can be set to application/json or text/javascript  • Accept—Should be set to text/javascript
Response Headers	• Content-Type—Will contain text/javascript
Status Codes	• 200 OK—OK (no error) • 400 Bad Request—Malformed request • 403 Forbidden—Wrong credentials supplied
Response JSON Object	• status (string)—Contains OK if successful or SYNTAX ERROR or AUTH ERROR. • reason (string)—Present only if status is not OK. Contains error message (reason). • sessionId (string)—Present only if status is OK and useCookies is false. Contains session ID to be used in all further requests.

Example Request

POST /auth/login  HTTP/1.1

Host: api.revulytics.com

Content-Type: application/json

Accept: application/json

 

{

    "user": "testuser@test.com",

    "password": "mypassword1",

    "useCookies": false

}

Example Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: application/json

 

{

  "status": "OK",

  "sessionId": "VSB8E2BzSC2eZSJm4QmTpA"

}