CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptrest
Adam
Adam

Reputation: 55

Urls for REST methods

I'm trying to get my head around the correct way to represent the following methods in a restful manner...

Say I have x amount of servers and they run Windows, Linux and Unix.

Each server can have a ping, shutdown and user action ran against them.

The API has no knowledge of the server so a request would have to provide the IP address along with server type, and action type (which it does know about).

With that in mind, these simple URLs come to mind but aren't restful in the slightest:

/192.168.1.3/Linux/ping 
/192.168.1.5/windows/shutdown

Should I go down the restful route? Or is the above ok for a simple web API?

If restful would it look this?

GET /servertypes/{servertypeId}/actions/{actionId}?serverip=192.168.1.4

Upvotes: 1

Views: 86

Answers (2)

toniedzwiedz
toniedzwiedz

Reputation: 18563

In my opinion, you should rethink your design.

You're effectively overriding the semantics of HTTP methods by placing the command names in the URLs, which are meant to represent scoping information. GET requests should not lead to changes of state. Ignoring the underlying protocol is not considered RESTful.

What you have here looks like an RPC model that doesn't really fit the principles of REST. It seems to me that you're trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

You should also ask yourself if it's really necessary to expose the underlying OS. Do you want to call system-specific commands? Should it be possible to run any executable or just a couple of common ones? Should you care if it's grep on a UNIX machine or findstr on a Windows box? Does the client care if they use a Windows or a Linux machine?

You could go for a simple pattern similar to what Uzar Sajid suggested. It would probably work alright. Just don't call it RESTful cause it's not.

Upvotes: 0

Uzair Sajid
Uzair Sajid

Reputation: 2175

This seems to make more sense to me:

GET /servertypes/{servertypeId}/{serverip}/{action}

Upvotes: 2

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