NAME

NAME
RT::Extension::REST2 - Adds a modern REST API to RT under /REST/2.0/

INSTALLATION
perl Makefile.PL
make
make install
May need root permissions

Edit your /opt/rt4/etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm
Add this line:

Plugin('RT::Extension::REST2');

Clear your mason cache
rm -rf /opt/rt4/var/mason_data/obj

Restart your webserver

USAGE
Tutorial
To make it easier to authenticate to REST2, we recommend installing
RT::Authen::Token. Visit "Logged in as ___" -> Settings -> Auth Tokens.
Create an Auth Token, give it any description (such as "REST2 with
curl"). Make note of the authentication token it provides to you.

For other authentication options see the section "Authentication
Methods" below.

Authentication
Run the following in a terminal, filling in XX_TOKEN_XX from the auth
token above and XX_RT_URL_XX with the URL for your RT instance.

curl -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queues/all'

This does an authenticated request (using the Authorization HTTP header
with type token) for all of the queues you can see. You should see a
response, typical of search results, like this:

{
"total" : 1,
"count" : 1,
"page" : 1,
"pages" : 1,
"per_page" : 20,
"items" : [
{
"type" : "queue",
"id" : "1",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queue/1"
}
]
}

This format is JSON, which is a format for which many programming
languages provide libraries for parsing and generating.

(If you instead see a response like {"message":"Unauthorized"} that
indicates RT couldn't process your authentication token successfully;
make sure the word "token" appears between "Authorization:" and the auth
token that RT provided to you)

Following Links
You can request one of the provided _urls to get more information about
that queue.

curl -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_QUEUE_URL_XX'

This will give a lot of information, like so:

{
"id" : 1,
"Name" : "General",
"Description" : "The default queue",
"Lifecycle" : "default",
...
"CustomFields" : {},
"_hyperlinks" : [
{
"id" : "1",
"ref" : "self",
"type" : "queue",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queue/1"
},
{
"ref" : "history",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queue/1/history"
},
{
"ref" : "create",
"type" : "ticket",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/ticket?Queue=1"
}
],
}

Of particular note is the _hyperlinks key, which gives you a list of
related resources to examine (following the
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HATEOAS> principle). For example an entry
with a ref of history lets you examine the transaction log for a record.
You can implement your REST API client knowing that any other hypermedia
link with a ref of history has the same meaning, regardless of whether
it's the history of a queue, ticket, asset, etc.

Another ref you'll see in _hyperlinks is create, with a type of ticket.
This of course gives you the URL to create tickets *in this queue*.
Importantly, if your user does *not* have the CreateTicket permission in
this queue, then REST2 would simply not include this hyperlink in its
response to your request. This allows you to dynamically adapt your
client's behavior to its presence or absence, just like the web version
of RT does.

Creating Tickets
Let's use the _url from the create hyperlink with type ticket.

To create a ticket is a bit more involved, since it requires providing a
different HTTP verb (POST instead of GET), a Content-Type header (to
tell REST2 that your content is JSON instead of, say, XML), and the
fields for your new ticket such as Subject. Here is the curl invocation,
wrapped to multiple lines for readability.

curl -X POST
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-d '{ "Subject": "hello world" }'
-H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX'
'XX_TICKET_CREATE_URL_XX'

If successful, that will provide output like so:

{
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/ticket/20",
"type" : "ticket",
"id" : "20"
}

(REST2 also produces the status code of 201 Created with a Location
header of the new ticket, which you may choose to use instead of the
JSON response)

We can fetch that _url to continue working with this newly-created
ticket. Request the ticket like so (make sure to include the -i flag to
see response's HTTP headers).

curl -i -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_TICKET_URL_XX'

You'll first see that there are many hyperlinks for tickets, including
one for each Lifecycle action you can perform, history, comment,
correspond, etc. Again these adapt to whether you have the appropriate
permissions to do these actions.

Additionally you'll see an ETag header for this record, which can be
used for conflict avoidance (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag>).
We'll first try updating this ticket with an *invalid* ETag to see what
happens.

Updating Tickets
For updating tickets we use the PUT verb, but otherwise it looks much
like a ticket creation.

curl -X PUT
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-H "If-Match: invalid-etag"
-d '{ "Subject": "trial update" }'
-H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX'
'XX_TICKET_URL_XX'

You'll get an error response like {"message":"Precondition Failed"} and
a status code of 412. If you examine the ticket, you'll also see that
its Subject was not changed. This is because the If-Match header advises
the server to make changes *if and only if* the ticket's ETag matches
what you provide. Since it differed, the server refused the request and
made no changes.

Now, try the same request by replacing the value "invalid-etag" in the
If-Match request header with the real ETag you'd received when you
requested the ticket previously. You'll then get a JSON response like:

["Ticket 1: Subject changed from 'hello world' to 'trial update'"]

which is a list of messages meant for displaying to an end-user.

If you GET the ticket again, you'll observe that the ETag header now has
a different value, indicating that the ticket itself has changed. This
means if you were to retry the PUT update with the previous (at the
time, expected) ETag you would instead be rejected by the server with
Precondition Failed.

You can use ETag and If-Match headers to avoid race conditions such as
two people updating a ticket at the same time. Depending on the
sophistication of your client, you may be able to automatically retry
the change by incorporating the changes made on the server (for example
adding time worked can be automatically be recalculated).

You may of course choose to ignore the ETag header and not provide
If-Match in your requests; RT doesn't require its use.

Replying/Commenting Tickets
You can reply to or comment a ticket by POSTing to _url from the
correspond or comment hyperlinks that were returned when fetching the
ticket.

curl -X POST
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-d '{
"Subject" : "response",
"Content" : "What is your issue?",
"ContentType": "text/html",
"TimeTaken" : "1"
}'
-H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX'
'XX_TICKET_URL_XX'/correspond

Replying or commenting a ticket is quite similar to a ticket creation:
you send a POST request, with data encoded in JSON. The difference lies
in the properties of the JSON data object you can pass:

Subject
The subject of your response/comment, optional

Content
The content of your response/comment, mandatory unless there is a
non empty Attachments property to add at least one attachment to the
ticket (see "Add Attachments" section below).

ContentType
The MIME content type of your response/comment, typically text/plain
or /text/html, mandatory unless there is a non empty Attachments
property to add at least one attachment to the ticket (see "Add
Attachments" section below).

TimeTaken
The time, in minutes, you've taken to work on your response/comment,
optional.

Status
The new status (for example, "open", "rejected", etc.) to set the
ticket to. The Status value must be a valid status based on the
lifecycle of the ticket's current queue.

CustomRoles
A hash whose keys are custom role names and values are as described
below:

For a single-value custom role, the value must be a string
representing an email address or user name; the custom role is set
to the user with that email address or user name.

For a multi-value custom role, the value can be a string
representing an email address or user name, or can be an array of
email addresses or user names; in either case, the members of the
custom role are set to the corresponding users.

CustomFields
A hash similar to the CustomRoles hash, but whose keys are custom
field names that apply to the Ticket; those fields are set to the
supplied values.

TxnCustomFields
A hash similar to the CustomRoles hash, but whose keys are custom
field names that apply to the Transaction; those fields are set to
the supplied values.

Add Attachments
You can attach any binary or text file to your response or comment by
specifying Attachements property in the JSON object, which should be a
JSON array where each item represents a file you want to attach. Each
item is a JSON object with the following properties:

FileName
The name of the file to attach to your response/comment, mandatory.

FileType
The MIME type of the file to attach to your response/comment,
mandatory.

FileContent
The content, *encoded in MIME Base64* of the file to attach to your
response/comment, mandatory.

The reason why you should encode the content of any file to MIME Base64
is that a JSON string value should be a sequence of zero or more Unicode
characters. MIME Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme widely used
(for eg. by web browser) to send binary data when text data is required.
Most popular language have MIME Base64 libraries that you can use to
encode the content of your attached files (see MIME::Base64 for Perl).
Note that even text files should be MIME Base64 encoded to be passed in
the FileContent property.

Here's a Perl example to send an image and a plain text file attached to
a comment:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use LWP::UserAgent;
use JSON;
use MIME::Base64;
use Data::Dumper;

my $url = 'http://rt.local/REST/2.0/ticket/1/comment';

my $img_path = '/tmp/my_image.png';
my $img_content;
open my $img_fh, '<', $img_path or die "Cannot read $img_path: $!\n";
{
local $/;
$img_content = <$img_fh>;
}
close $img_fh;
$img_content = MIME::Base64::encode_base64($img_content);

my $txt_path = '~/.bashrc';
my $txt_content;
open my $txt_fh, '<', glob($txt_path) or die "Cannot read $txt_path: $!\n";
{
local $/;
$txt_content = <$txt_fh>;
}
close $txt_fh;
$txt_content = MIME::Base64::encode_base64($txt_content);

my $json = JSON->new->utf8;
my $payload = {
Content => 'I want two attachments',
ContentType => 'text/html',
Subject => 'Attachments in JSON Array',
Attachments => [
{
FileName => 'my_image.png',
FileType => 'image/png',
FileContent => $img_content,
},
{
FileName => '.bashrc',
FileType => 'text/plain',
FileContent => $txt_content,
},
],
};

my $req = HTTP::Request->new(POST => $url);
$req->header('Authorization' => 'token 6-66-66666666666666666666666666666666');
$req->header('Content-Type' => 'application/json' );
$req->header('Accept' => 'application/json' );
$req->content($json->encode($payload));

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $res = $ua->request($req);
print Dumper($json->decode($res->content)) . "\n";

Encoding the content of attachments file in MIME Base64 has the drawback
of adding some processing overhead and to increase the sent data size by
around 33%. RT's REST2 API provides another way to attach any binary or
text file to your response or comment by POSTing, instead of a JSON
request, a multipart/form-data request. This kind of request is similar
to what the browser sends when you add attachments in RT's reply or
comment form. As its name suggests, a multipart/form-data request
message contains a series of parts, each representing a form field. To
reply to or comment a ticket, the request has to include a field named
JSON, which, as previously, is a JSON object with Subject, Content,
ContentType, TimeTaken properties. Files can then be attached by
specifying a field named Attachments for each of them, with the content
of the file as value and the appropriate MIME type.

The curl invocation is quite straightforward:

curl -X POST
-H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data"
-F 'JSON={
"Subject" : "Attachments in multipart/form-data",
"Content" : "I want two attachments",
"ContentType": "text/html",
"TimeTaken" : "1"
};type=application/json'
-F 'Attachments=@/tmp/my_image.png;type=image/png'
-F 'Attachments=@/tmp/.bashrc;type=text/plain'
-H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX'
'XX_TICKET_URL_XX'/comment

Summary
RT's REST2 API provides the tools you need to build robust and dynamic
integrations. Tools like ETag/If-Match allow you to avoid conflicts such
as two people taking a ticket at the same time. Using JSON for all data
interchange avoids problems caused by parsing text. Hypermedia links
inform your client application of what the user has the ability to do.

Careful readers will see that, other than our initial entry into the
system, we did not *generate* any URLs. We only *followed* links, just
like you do when browsing a website on your computer. We've better
decoupled the client's implementation from the server's REST API.
Additionally, this system lets you be informed of new capabilities in
the form of additional hyperlinks.

Using these tools and principles, REST2 will help you build rich,
robust, and powerful integrations with the other applications and
services that your team uses.

Endpoints
Currently provided endpoints under /REST/2.0/ are described below.
Wherever possible please consider using _hyperlinks hypermedia controls
available in response bodies rather than hardcoding URLs.

For simplicity, the examples below omit the extra options to curl for
SSL like --cacert.

Tickets
GET /tickets?query=<TicketSQL>
search for tickets using TicketSQL

GET /tickets?simple=1;query=<simple search query>
search for tickets using simple search syntax

POST /tickets
search for tickets with the 'query' and optional 'simple' parameters

POST /ticket
create a ticket; provide JSON content

GET /ticket/:id
retrieve a ticket

PUT /ticket/:id
update a ticket's metadata; provide JSON content

DELETE /ticket/:id
set status to deleted

POST /ticket/:id/correspond
POST /ticket/:id/comment
add a reply or comment to the ticket

GET /ticket/:id/history
retrieve list of transactions for ticket

POST /tickets/bulk
create multiple tickets; provide JSON content(array of hashes)

PUT /tickets/bulk
update multiple tickets' metadata; provide JSON content(array of hashes)

Ticket Examples
Below are some examples using the endpoints above.

# Create a ticket, setting some custom fields
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '{ "Queue": "General", "Subject": "Create ticket test",
"Requestor": "[email protected]", "Cc": "[email protected]",
"Content": "Testing a create",
"CustomFields": {"Severity": "Low"}}'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/ticket'

# Update a ticket, with a custom field update
curl -X PUT -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '{ "Subject": "Update test", "CustomFields": {"Severity": "High"}}'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/ticket/6'

# Correspond a ticket
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '{ "Content": "Testing a correspondence", "ContentType": "text/plain" }'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/ticket/6/correspond'

# Correspond a ticket with a transaction custom field
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '{ "Content": "Testing a correspondence", "ContentType": "text/plain",
"TxnCustomFields": {"MyField": "custom field value"} }'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/ticket/6/correspond'

# Comment on a ticket
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/plain" -u 'root:password'
-d 'Testing a comment'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/ticket/6/comment'

# Comment on a ticket with custom field update
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '{ "Content": "Testing a comment", "ContentType": "text/plain", "CustomFields": {"Severity": "High"} }'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/ticket/6/comment'

# Comment on a ticket with custom role update
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '{ "Content": "Testing a comment", "ContentType": "text/plain", "CustomRoles": {"Manager": "[email protected]"} }'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/ticket/6/comment'

Transactions
GET /transactions?query=<JSON>
POST /transactions
search for transactions using L</JSON searches> syntax

GET /ticket/:id/history
GET /queue/:id/history
GET /queue/:name/history
GET /asset/:id/history
GET /user/:id/history
GET /user/:name/history
GET /group/:id/history
get transactions for record

GET /transaction/:id
retrieve a transaction

Attachments and Messages
GET /attachments?query=<JSON>
POST /attachments
search for attachments using L</JSON searches> syntax

GET /transaction/:id/attachments
get attachments for transaction

GET /attachment/:id
retrieve an attachment

Image and Binary Object Custom Field Values
GET /download/cf/:id
retrieve an image or a binary file as an object custom field value

Queues
GET /queues/all
retrieve list of all queues you can see

GET /queues?query=<JSON>
POST /queues
search for queues using L</JSON searches> syntax

POST /queue
create a queue; provide JSON content

GET /queue/:id
GET /queue/:name
retrieve a queue by numeric id or name

PUT /queue/:id
PUT /queue/:name
update a queue's metadata; provide JSON content

DELETE /queue/:id
DELETE /queue/:name
disable queue

GET /queue/:id/history
GET /queue/:name/history
retrieve list of transactions for queue

Assets
GET /assets?query=<JSON>
POST /assets
search for assets using L</JSON searches> syntax

POST /asset
create an asset; provide JSON content

GET /asset/:id
retrieve an asset

PUT /asset/:id
update an asset's metadata; provide JSON content

DELETE /asset/:id
set status to deleted

GET /asset/:id/history
retrieve list of transactions for asset

Assets Examples
Below are some examples using the endpoints above.

# Create an Asset
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '{"Name" : "Asset From Rest", "Catalog" : "General assets", "Content" : "Some content"}'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/asset'

# Search Assets
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u 'root:password'
-d '[{ "field" : "id", "operator" : ">=", "value" : 0 }]'
'https://myrt.com/REST/2.0/assets'

Catalogs
GET /catalogs/all
retrieve list of all catalogs you can see

GET /catalogs?query=<JSON>
POST /catalogs
search for catalogs using L</JSON searches> syntax

POST /catalog
create a catalog; provide JSON content

GET /catalog/:id
GET /catalog/:name
retrieve a catalog by numeric id or name

PUT /catalog/:id
PUT /catalog/:name
update a catalog's metadata; provide JSON content

DELETE /catalog/:id
DELETE /catalog/:name
disable catalog

Users
GET /users?query=<JSON>
POST /users
search for users using L</JSON searches> syntax

POST /user
create a user; provide JSON content

GET /user/:id
GET /user/:name
retrieve a user by numeric id or username (including its memberships and whether it is disabled)

PUT /user/:id
PUT /user/:name
update a user's metadata (including its Disabled status); provide JSON content

DELETE /user/:id
DELETE /user/:name
disable user

GET /user/:id/history
GET /user/:name/history
retrieve list of transactions for user

Groups
GET /groups?query=<JSON>
POST /groups
search for groups using L</JSON searches> syntax

POST /group
create a (user defined) group; provide JSON content

GET /group/:id
retrieve a group (including its members and whether it is disabled)

PUT /group/:id
update a groups's metadata (including its Disabled status); provide JSON content

DELETE /group/:id
disable group

GET /group/:id/history
retrieve list of transactions for group

User Memberships
GET /user/:id/groups
GET /user/:name/groups
retrieve list of groups which a user is a member of

PUT /user/:id/groups
PUT /user/:name/groups
add a user to groups; provide a JSON array of groups ids

DELETE /user/:id/group/:id
DELETE /user/:name/group/:id
remove a user from a group

DELETE /user/:id/groups
DELETE /user/:name/groups
remove a user from all groups

Group Members
GET /group/:id/members
retrieve list of direct members of a group

GET /group/:id/members?recursively=1
retrieve list of direct and recursive members of a group

GET /group/:id/members?users=0
retrieve list of direct group members of a group

GET /group/:id/members?users=0&recursively=1
retrieve list of direct and recursive group members of a group

GET /group/:id/members?groups=0
retrieve list of direct user members of a group

GET /group/:id/members?groups=0&recursively=1
retrieve list of direct and recursive user members of a group

PUT /group/:id/members
add members to a group; provide a JSON array of principal ids

DELETE /group/:id/member/:id
remove a member from a group

DELETE /group/:id/members
remove all members from a group

Custom Fields
GET /customfields?query=<JSON>
POST /customfields
search for custom fields using L</JSON searches> syntax

POST /customfield
create a customfield; provide JSON content

GET /catalog/:id/customfields?query=<JSON>
POST /catalog/:id/customfields
search for custom fields attached to a catalog using L</JSON searches> syntax

GET /class/:id/customfields?query=<JSON>
POST /class/:id/customfields
search for custom fields attached to a class using L</JSON searches> syntax

GET /queue/:id/customfields?query=<JSON>
POST /queue/:id/customfields
search for custom fields attached to a queue using L</JSON searches> syntax

GET /customfield/:id
retrieve a custom field, with values if type is Select

GET /customfield/:id?category=<category name>
retrieve a custom field, with values filtered by category if type is Select

PUT /customfield/:id
update a custom field's metadata; provide JSON content

DELETE /customfield/:id
disable customfield

Custom Field Values
GET /customfield/:id/values?query=<JSON>
POST /customfield/:id/values
search for values of a custom field using L</JSON searches> syntax

POST /customfield/:id/value
add a value to a custom field; provide JSON content

GET /customfield/:id/value/:id
retrieve a value of a custom field

PUT /customfield/:id/value/:id
update a value of a custom field; provide JSON content

DELETE /customfield/:id/value/:id
remove a value from a custom field

Custom Roles
GET /customroles?query=<JSON>
POST /customroles
search for custom roles using L</JSON searches> syntax

GET /customrole/:id
retrieve a custom role

Miscellaneous
GET /
produces this documentation

GET /rt
produces system information

JSON searches
Some resources accept a basic JSON structure as the search conditions
which specifies one or more fields to limit on (using specified
operators and values). An example:

curl -si -u user:pass https://rt.example.com/REST/2.0/queues -XPOST --data-binary '
[
{ "field": "Name",
"operator": "LIKE",
"value": "Engineering" },

{ "field": "Lifecycle",
"value": "helpdesk" }
]
'

The JSON payload must be an array of hashes with the keys field and
value and optionally operator.

Results can be sorted by using multiple query parameter arguments
orderby and order. Each orderby query parameter specify a field to be
used for sorting results. If the request includes more than one orderby
query parameter, results are sorted according to corresponding fields in
the same order than they are specified. For instance, if you want to
sort results according to creation date and then by id (in case of some
items have the same creation date), your request should specify
?orderby=Created&orderby=id. By default, results are sorted in ascending
order. To sort results in descending order, you should use order=DESC
query parameter. Any other value for order query parameter will be
treated as order=ASC, for ascending order. The order of the order query
parameters should be the same as the orderby query parameters.
Therefore, if you specify two fields to sort the results (with two
orderby parameters) and you want to sort the second field by descending
order, you should also explicitely specify order=ASC for the first
field: orderby=Created&order=ASC&orderby=id&order=DESC. orderby and
order query parameters are supported in both JSON and TicketSQL
searches.

The same field is specified more than one time to express more than one
condition on this field. For example:

[
{ "field": "id",
"operator": ">",
"value": $min },

{ "field": "id",
"operator": "<",
"value": $max }
]

By default, RT will aggregate these conditions with an OR, except for
when searching queues, where an AND is applied. If you want to search
for multiple conditions on the same field aggregated with an AND (or an
OR for queues), you can specify entry_aggregator keys in corresponding
hashes:

[
{ "field": "id",
"operator": ">",
"value": $min },

{ "field": "id",
"operator": "<",
"value": $max,
"entry_aggregator": "AND" }
]

Results are returned in the format described below.

Example of plural resources (collections)
Resources which represent a collection of other resources use the
following standard JSON format:

{
"count" : 20,
"page" : 1,
"pages" : 191,
"per_page" : 20,
"next_page" : "<collection path>?page=2"
"total" : 3810,
"items" : [
{ … },
{ … },
…
]
}

Each item is nearly the same representation used when an individual
resource is requested.

Object Custom Field Values
When creating (via POST) or updating (via PUT) a resource which has some
custom fields attached to, you can specify the value(s) for these
customfields in the CustomFields property of the JSON object parameter.
The CustomFields property should be a JSON object, with each property
being the custom field identifier or name. If the custom field can have
only one value, you just have to speciy the value as JSON string for
this custom field. If the customfield can have several value, you have
to specify a JSON array of each value you want for this custom field.

"CustomFields": {
"XX_SINGLE_CF_ID_XX" : "My Single Value",
"XX_MULTI_VALUE_CF_ID": [
"My First Value",
"My Second Value"
]
}

Note that for a multi-value custom field, you have to specify all the
values for this custom field. Therefore if the customfield for this
resource already has some values, the existing values must be including
in your update request if you want to keep them (and add some new
values). Conversely, if you want to delete some existing values, do not
include them in your update request (including only values you wan to
keep). The following example deletes "My Second Value" from the previous
example:

"CustomFields": {
"XX_MULTI_VALUE_CF_ID": [
"My First Value"
]
}

To delete a single-value custom field, set its value to JSON null (undef
in Perl):

"CustomFields": {
"XX_SINGLE_CF_ID_XX" : null
}

New values for Image and Binary custom fields can be set by specifying a
JSON object as value for the custom field identifier or name with the
following properties:

FileName
The name of the file to attach, mandatory.

FileType
The MIME type of the file to attach, mandatory.

FileContent
The content, *encoded in MIME Base64* of the file to attach,
mandatory.

The reason why you should encode the content of the image or binary file
to MIME Base64 is that a JSON string value should be a sequence of zero
or more Unicode characters. MIME Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding
scheme widely used (for eg. by web browser) to send binary data when
text data is required. Most popular language have MIME Base64 libraries
that you can use to encode the content of your attached files (see
MIME::Base64 for Perl). Note that even text files should be MIME Base64
encoded to be passed in the FileContent property.

"CustomFields": {
"XX_SINGLE_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_CF_ID_XX" : {
"FileName" : "image.png",
"FileType" : "image/png",
"FileContent": "XX_BASE_64_STRING_XX"
},
"XX_MULTI_VALUE_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_CF_ID": [
{
"FileName" : "another_image.png",
"FileType" : "image/png",
"FileContent": "XX_BASE_64_STRING_XX"
},
{
"FileName" : "hello_world.txt",
"FileType" : "text/plain",
"FileContent": "SGVsbG8gV29ybGQh"
}
]
}

Encoding the content of image or binary files in MIME Base64 has the
drawback of adding some processing overhead and to increase the sent
data size by around 33%. RT's REST2 API provides another way to upload
image or binary files as custom field alues by sending, instead of a
JSON request, a multipart/form-data request. This kind of request is
similar to what the browser sends when you upload a file in RT's ticket
creation or update forms. As its name suggests, a multipart/form-data
request message contains a series of parts, each representing a form
field. To create or update a ticket with image or binary file, the
multipart/form-data request has to include a field named JSON, which, as
previously, is a JSON object with Queue, Subject, Content, ContentType,
etc. properties. But instead of specifying each custom field value as a
JSON object with FileName, FileType and FileContent properties, each
custom field value should be a JSON object with UploadField. You can
choose anything you want for this field name, except *Attachments*,
which should be reserved for attaching files to a response or a comment
to a ticket. Files can then be attached by specifying a field named as
specified in the CustomFields property for each of them, with the
content of the file as value and the appropriate MIME type.

Here is an exemple of a curl invocation, wrapped to multiple lines for
readability, to create a ticket with a multipart/request to upload some
image or binary files as custom fields values.

curl -X POST
-H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data"
-F 'JSON={
"Queue" : "General",
"Subject" : "hello world",
"Content" : "That damned printer is out of order again!",
"ContentType": "text/html",
"CustomFields" : {
"XX_SINGLE_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_CF_ID_XX" => { "UploadField": "FILE_1",
"XX_MULTI_VALUE_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_CF_ID" => [ { "UploadField": "FILE_2" }, { "UploadField": "FILE_3" } ]
}
};type=application/json'
-F 'FILE_1=@/tmp/image.png;type=image/png'
-F 'FILE_2=@/tmp/another_image.png;type=image/png'
-F 'FILE_3=@/etc/cups/cupsd.conf;type=text/plain'
-H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX'
'XX_RT_URL_XX'/tickets

If you want to delete some existing values from a multi-value image or
binary custom field, you can just pass the existing filename as value
for the custom field identifier or name, no need to upload again the
content of the file. The following example will delete the text file and
keep the image upload in previous example:

"CustomFields": {
"XX_MULTI_VALUE_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_CF_ID": [
"image.png"
]
}

To download an image or binary file which is the custom field value of a
resource, you just have to make a GET request to the entry point
returned for the corresponding custom field when fetching this resource,
and it will return the content of the file as an octet string:

curl -i -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX' 'XX_TICKET_URL_XX'

{
[…]
"XX_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_CF_ID_XX" : [
{
"content_type" : "image/png",
"filename" : "image.png",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/download/cf/XX_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_OCFV_ID_XX"
}
],
[…]
},

curl -i -H 'Authorization: token XX_TOKEN_XX'
'XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/download/cf/XX_IMAGE_OR_BINARY_OCFV_ID_XX'
> file.png

Paging
All plural resources (such as /tickets) require pagination, controlled
by the query parameters page and per_page. The default page size is 20
items, but it may be increased up to 100 (or decreased if desired). Page
numbers start at 1. The number of pages is returned, and if there is a
next or previous page, then the URL for that page is returned in the
next_page and prev_page variables respectively. It is up to you to store
the required JSON to pass with the following page request.

Disabled items
By default, only enabled objects are returned. To include disabled
objects you can specify find_disabled_rows=1 as a query parameter.

Fields
When fetching search results you can include additional fields by adding
a query parameter fields which is a comma seperated list of fields to
include. You must use the camel case version of the name as included in
the results for the actual item.

You can use additional fields parameters to expand child blocks, for
example (line wrapping inserted for readability):

XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/tickets
?fields=Owner,Status,Created,Subject,Queue,CustomFields
&fields[Queue]=Name,Description

Says that in the result set for tickets, the extra fields for Owner,
Status, Created, Subject, Queue and CustomFields should be included. But
in addition, for the Queue block, also include Name and Description. The
results would be similar to this (only one ticket is displayed in this
example):

"items" : [
{
"Subject" : "Sample Ticket",
"id" : "2",
"type" : "ticket",
"Owner" : {
"id" : "root",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/user/root",
"type" : "user"
},
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/ticket/2",
"Status" : "resolved",
"Created" : "2018-06-29:10:25Z",
"Queue" : {
"id" : "1",
"type" : "queue",
"Name" : "General",
"Description" : "The default queue",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/queue/1"
},
"CustomFields" : [
{
"id" : "1",
"type" : "customfield",
"_url" : "XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/customfield/1",
"name" : "My Custom Field",
"values" : [
"CustomField value"
},
}
]
}
{ … },
…
],

If the user performing the query doesn't have rights to view the record
(or sub record), then the empty string will be returned.

For single object URLs like /ticket/:id, as it already contains all the
fields by default, parameter "fields" is not needed, but you can still
use additional fields parameters to expand child blocks:

XX_RT_URL_XX/REST/2.0/ticket/1?fields[Queue]=Name,Description

Authentication Methods
Authentication should always be done over HTTPS/SSL for security. You
should only serve up the /REST/2.0/ endpoint over SSL.

Basic Auth
Authentication may use internal RT usernames and passwords, provided via
HTTP Basic auth. Most HTTP libraries already have a way of providing
basic auth credentials when making requests. Using curl, for example:

curl -u 'username:password' /path/to/REST/2.0

Token Auth
You may use the RT::Authen::Token extension to authenticate to the REST
2 API. Once you've acquired an authentication token in the web
interface, specify the Authorization header with a value of "token" like
so:

curl -H 'Authorization: token …' /path/to/REST/2.0

If the library or application you're using does not support specifying
additional HTTP headers, you may also pass the authentication token as a
query parameter like so:

curl /path/to/REST/2.0?token=…

Cookie Auth
Finally, you may reuse an existing cookie from an ordinary web session
to authenticate against REST2. This is primarily intended for
interacting with REST2 via JavaScript in the browser. Other REST
consumers are advised to use the alternatives above.

Conditional requests (If-Modified-Since, If-Match)
You can take advantage of the Last-Modified headers returned by most
single resource endpoints. Add a If-Modified-Since header to your
requests for the same resource, using the most recent Last-Modified
value seen, and the API may respond with a 304 Not Modified. You can
also use HEAD requests to check for updates without receiving the actual
content when there is a newer version. You may also add an
If-Unmodified-Since header to your updates to tell the server to refuse
updates if the record had been changed since you last retrieved it.

ETag, If-Match, and If-None-Match work similarly to Last-Modified,
If-Modified-Since, and If-Unmodified-Since, except that they don't use a
timestamp, which has its own set of tradeoffs. ETag is an opaque value,
so it has no meaning to consumers (unlike timestamps). However,
timestamps have the disadvantage of having a resolution of seconds, so
two updates happening in the same second would produce incorrect
results, whereas ETag does not suffer from that problem.

Status codes
The REST API uses the full range of HTTP status codes, and your client
should handle them appropriately.

AUTHOR
Best Practical Solutions, LLC <[email protected]>

BUGS
All bugs should be reported via email to
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> or via the web at
rt.cpan.org
<http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=RT-Extension-REST2>.

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
This software is Copyright (c) 2015-2020 by Best Practical Solutions,
LLC.

This is free software, licensed under:

The GNU General Public License, Version 2, June 1991