14 Feb
2020
14 Feb
'20
9:59 a.m.
Hi,
is there an API endpoint I can query for current & predicted traffic
usage?
I know of https://panel.bitfolk.com/xfer/ but rather not scrape ;)
Conrad
14 Feb
14 Feb
11:31 p.m.
Hi Conrad,
On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 09:59:31AM +0000, Conrad Wood wrote:
is there an API endpoint I can query for current &
predicted traffic
usage?
I'm sorry but no there isn't.
There could be one. I must admit I have never designed an API
before, nor written the backend for one. I'm willing to give it a go
but it might be slow to arrive and the first few iterations
scrapped.
Can you recommend any resources for learning how to do this?
For authentication do I really need to go the whole OAuth 2 route or
can API keys be enough?
Let's assume you have authenticated by whatever method. It's
probably best if that be valid for the whole customer record, so
something like this:
GET https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest
…gives you a list of guests. But is that a list of IDs, or a list of
guest names? Let's say it's a list of ID numbers.
GET https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest/1234/xfer
gives you back JSON for the current and predicted amounts in and out
for the current accounting period as well as the period start and
end times for guest id 1234?
This is a big project for someone who has never done it before,
unfortunately.
Cheers,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
15 Feb
15 Feb
8:08 a.m.
On 2020-02-14 23:31+0000, Andy Smith wrote:
Hi Conrad,
On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 09:59:31AM +0000, Conrad Wood wrote:
Yes it's a big project. Is it something that could be open sourced
though, or some open source that could be pulled in? I think you'd be
able to reuse most of it though as it will end up as a library of
reusable functions.
Could the current user portal allow users to generate tokens that could
be used for authentication to report endpoints? Would that make life
easier or harder?
It's not something that I've felt the need for so far, but maybe high
traffic customers need it.
Ed
--
Best regards,
Ed http://www.s5h.net/
is there an API endpoint I can query for current
& predicted traffic
usage?
I'm sorry but no there isn't.
[..]
This is a big project for someone who has never done it before,
unfortunately. 
8:18 a.m.
Hey Andy,
Can you recommend any resources for learning how to do this?
This looks like a good article to get started with learning about RESTful
APIs:
https://www.sitepoint.com/developers-rest-api/
For authentication do I really need to go the whole OAuth 2 route or
> can API keys be enough?
OAuth 2 would probably be best if you're going to be allowing backwards and
forwards communication (for example, letting folk modify account
information) but if you're just using it to query transfer information, API
keys are probably fine (but you'd want to allow customers to rotate them
themselves in case of compromise).
Let's assume you have authenticated by whatever method. It's
> probably best if that be valid for the whole customer record, so
> something like this:
> GET https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest
> …gives you a list of guests. But is that a
list of IDs, or a list of
> guest names?
If you're following REST, you'd want that to return a list of guests with
their individual ID and other details for that record, e.g.
{ id: 1, name: "James" }
Let's say it's a list of ID numbers.
> GET
https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest/1234/xfer
> gives you back JSON for the current and
predicted amounts in and out
> for the current accounting period as well as the period start and
> end times for guest id 1234?
Yeah, that's probably the best way to do it.
This is a big project for someone who has never done it before,
> unfortunately.
It entirely depends on what powers the customer panel or whether you're
building the API app specifically as a separate interface. Ruby on Rails
(the language I use) has a bare bones API mode and their documentation is
pretty good for getting you started.
I'm no expert on APIs, but happy to provide advice if you'd like it :-)
Cheers,
James
11:18 a.m.
On Fri, 2020-02-14 at 23:31 +0000, Andy Smith wrote:
Hi Conrad,
On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 09:59:31AM +0000, Conrad Wood wrote:
I consider API keys perfectly good enough for this style of API.
But before diving into the authentication into more detail.
I'm happy to help where I can.
May I ask where the data comes from? E.g. how is the website build and
the email rendered?
Conrad
is there an API endpoint I can query for current
& predicted
traffic
usage?
I'm sorry but no there isn't.
There could be one. I must admit I have never designed an API
before, nor written the backend for one. I'm willing to give it a go
but it might be slow to arrive and the first few iterations
scrapped.
Can you recommend any resources for learning how to do this?
For authentication do I really need to go the whole OAuth 2 route or
can API keys be enough? 
2:11 p.m.
On Fri, 14 Feb 2020, 23:31 Andy Smith, <andy(a)bitfolk.com> wrote:
Hi Conrad,
On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 09:59:31AM +0000, Conrad Wood wrote:
I would strongly recommend defining the API in OpenAPI V3.
I found it pretty easy to get going with. This also allows you to build an
open specification which can be shared in version control, the
documentation as a hosted static site, but also allows you to build stubs
in pretty much every language.
This means you could write it down, generate some code and fill in the
blanks.
And we can use that same document to generate our own code and integrate it
how we like.
As a note OpenAPI was previously Swagger but was wrapped up in a load of
trademarks and closed source stuff. OpenAPI is much more... Open.
Sorry, sounds like an advert, but it is pretty cool.
Matt
is there an API endpoint I can query for current
& predicted traffic
usage?
I'm sorry but no there isn't.
There could be one. I must admit I have never designed an API
before, nor written the backend for one. I'm willing to give it a go
but it might be slow to arrive and the first few iterations
scrapped.
Can you recommend any resources for learning how to do this?
For authentication do I really need to go the whole OAuth 2 route or
can API keys be enough?
Let's assume you have authenticated by whatever method. It's
probably best if that be valid for the whole customer record, so
something like this:
GET https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest
…gives you a list of guests. But is that a list of IDs, or a list of
guest names? Let's say it's a list of ID numbers.
GET https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest/1234/xfer
gives you back JSON for the current and predicted amounts in and out
for the current accounting period as well as the period start and
end times for guest id 1234?
This is a big project for someone who has never done it before,
unfortunately.
Cheers,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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users mailing list
users(a)lists.bitfolk.com
https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users 
3:11 p.m.
Hi Andy,
For authentication do I really need to go the whole OAuth 2 route or
can API keys be enough?
I don't want to rock the boat as opinions seem to be divided on this
topic.. but honestly, if set up properly using TLS and such, API keys are
absolutely fine for this use case. It is true that OAuth 2 brings a lot to
the table, but it's something that can and should be added later on. If
security is a concern, it's trivial to restrict an API key to only certain
endpoints / actions, or to whitelist IPs.
Let's assume you have authenticated by whatever method. It's
probably best if that be valid for the whole customer record, so
something like this:
GET https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest
…gives you a list of guests. But is that a list of IDs, or a list of
guest names? Let's say it's a list of ID numbers.
If JSON, there's no reason why you can't return a list containing both the
ID and its 'friendly name'. If you can envisage ever needing to change a
guest name, then it's probably better to use an ID / UUID and use it as per
your example below.
Some interesting reading on the topic:
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/api-design-choosing-between-name…
GET https://api.bitfolk.com/v1/guest/1234/xfer
gives you back JSON for the current and predicted amounts in and out
for the current accounting period as well as the period start and
end times for guest id 1234?
Sounds about right.
This is a big project for someone who has never done
it before,
unfortunately.
Web is my thing and I've been doing a lot of this stuff lately, especially
React + REST gateways. I know that others have offered but I'm also more
than happy to donate a bit of time to Bitfolk if you need a hand
(crowdsourced feature?), either advice or code / implementation. Personally
I use a node stack (e.g. Express or Restify) which can be super lightweight
/ simple / quick to set up, and being javascript the code is pretty easy to
follow / extend for people who have had any level of experience with js.
Regardless of the stack used, if you could make and document some kind of
agnostic raw back-end interface in whatever language you prefer (e.g. a CLI
perl script with parameters that dumps the relevant data to STDOUT? or
basic perl HTTP interface?) which can easily be mocked. Then it would be
easy for contibutors to create and harden an API interface without needing
access to any of your systems. Once ready, you can just review / test /
deploy on your end.
Message me off list if you're interested :)
Cheers,
Luke
5:41 p.m.
Conrad Wood asked:
is there an API endpoint I can query for current &
predicted traffic
usage?
Apologies for being dim, but why not measure the traffic on the VPS
itself? The prediction is a guess, whatever you do, and you can do the
(data so far this billing period / days so far) * days in billing period
sum with any adjustments you like yourself.
Ian
1771
days inactive
1772
days old
7 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Andy Smith -
Conrad Wood -
Ed -
Ian -
James Gregory-Monk -
Luke Taylor -
Matthew Copperwaite