Sugar Network/API

This page describes the API that Sugar Network clients use to interact with Sugar Network server. See also a guide to basic Sugar Network concepts and its twin page from technical point of view. Besides, visit the introduction page.

Overview

To better understand this API, see technical explanation of the conceptual level and objects model in particular.

The API operates with Sugar Network resources that are collections of objects. All objects are identified by global unique identifiers, GUIDs. Resources might support common actions. While processing requests, server might generate events. Besides, API provides extra resources that are not Sugar Network objects.

The API is RESTful and being served via HTTP(S) using JSON notation. The common RESTful request url format is:

http[s]://<SERVER>[/<RESOURCE>[/<GUID>[/<PROPERTY>]]][?[cmd=<COMMAND>][&<ARGUMENT>=<VALUE>..]]

When:

• SERVER, particular Sugar Network API server;
• RESOURCE, name one of the existing resources;
• GUID, the RESOURCE's particular object;
• PROPERTY, particular property of GUID object;
• COMMAND, optional command name; combination of HTTP request method (GET, POST, PUT, or, DELETE) and [possibly empty] COMMAND composes the requested action;
• ARGUMENTs and VALUEs depend on particular action.

If request needs to send data, it should send Python dictionary converted to JSON notation.

In most cases, server replies with dictionary in JSON notation. If request was failed, the replied dictionary will contain request, with original request, and error, with error message, keys. In the rest of cases, response might be variable.

API servers

These are standard Sugar Network API servers publicly available.

• api-devel.network.sugarlabs.org
  Development server that is being updated to keep it synchronized with this document; it does not contain important data and free for any experiments;

• api-testing.network.sugarlabs.org
  Recent stable release with data that is being used in pilots; do not create temporal content here, use devel server instead;

• localhost:5001
  default url to get access to local data served from local application.

Sugar Network resources

The following diagram shows the full list of objects implemented by the Sugar Network API.

Sugar Network objects

Property types

Generally, Sugar Network objects' property types correspond to JSON types. The only exceptions mentioned in the following list:

• enum, is an enumerated type when a value is a string from the predefined list of constants;
• markdown, is a string formatted in the Markdown syntax;
• blob, is a file represented by string value which is a SHA-1 digest of file's content; the file itself can be obtained from the GET /blobs/DIGEST request;
• aggregated, is a list of JSON objects which has special API to treat its items; each aggregated item has a unique identifier; items might be created not only by the object's authors.

Resource.author

A dictionary of authors working on the corresponding resource. Keys are Sugar Network User guids, or, if particular author is not registered in the Sugar Network, full user names. Values are dictionaries with the following keys:

• name
  Full author's name;
• role
  An integer which is a bit-wise ORed value of the following constants:
  • 0x1, author is registered in the Sugar Network (and guid key is set);
  • 0x10000, author is the original author of the corresponding resource; if it is not set, user is only a maintainer, e.g., an uploader of a book which has its original authors;
• avatar
  An url to author's avatar.

Resource.status

This is a system level property which can be set only by node editors. It is a list of "badges" editors set depending on the object quality. Currently supported statuses are:

• featured, the object is popped up by node editors.

Resource.pins

This property makes sense only for objects provided from a local proxy. The property is intended to store local user's preferences or statuses remote object has in local environment. Currently supported values are:

• favorite, set if a user has "stared" the object;
• checkin, applied to Context objects only, set if a user has "pinned" the context to keep its most recent version permanently in the local system;
• stale, applied to Context objects only, set if previously checked-in Context might have more fresh releases on the node; it is not possible to filter Contexts by this value;
• inprogress, applied to Context objects only, set if the Context is in the process of downloading content from the node; it is being temporally set before launching the Context or checking it in; it is not possible to filter Contexts by this value.

Context.type

• activity, Sugar application;
• book, books in various forms;
• group, a social group of related activities;
• talks, sub-type to mix-in offline discussion forum;
• project, sub-type to mix-in issue tracker and polling functionality.

Context type specifies how context, and all related resources, can be used. For example, activity type assumes activity bundles uploaded to the Context.releases property, or, Post.type depends on Context type it was created for.

Context.releases

Contexts with activity or book types might have releases, i.e., activity or book versions that users can download. The releases property is aggregated where each item describes one particular version. There is no need in working with the releases property directly, there are high-level API commands to upload and download releases.

Post.type

Choose Post types according to Context types the Post belongs to.

• topic, general purpose discussion; talks Contexts;
• artefact, object generated by Context application; activity Contexts;
• issue, problem with the Context; project Contexts;
• poll, a poll within the Context; project Contexts;
• post, a comment for a parent Post object; Context type independent.

Post.topic

Only post type Post objects belong to a parent Post which guid should be specified in the topic property. The system design assumes only a two-level Posts hierarchy.

Post.resolution

Post types issue and poll topics might have a resolution to expose the current status. The only way to change topic resolution is creating a dependent post with resolution property set.

Resolutions for issue Post objects:

• unconfirmed, newly created issue;
• new, confirmed issue;
• needinfo, posted information about the issue is insufficient, more details needed;
• resolved, the issue is resolved, closed;
• unrelated, the issue does not related to the Context, closed;
• obsolete, the issue is already solved in recent Context releases, closed;
• duplicate, the issue is a duplicate, closed.

Resolutions for poll Post objects:

• open, the poll is open for votes;
• closed, the poll is closed for votes.

Authentication

Right now, the only way to be authenticated on a Sugar Network server is running sugar-network-service on client side and use API it provides.

TODO

Authorization

Read-only access is available for anonymous requests, except special content like machine serial numbers. But to proceed any changes, clients need to be authenticated.

Right after creating any Sugar Network object, its author becomes the only user who can process any object modifications afterwards. Authority information will be auto set in authority property which is a dictionary of User guids and integers with roles information. Authority can be changed (by users already mentioned in the authority property) by the following commands:

PUT /RESOURCE/GUID?cmd=useradd&user=USER&role=ROLE

Add another user who can modify the corresponding object.

PUT /RESOURCE/GUID?cmd=userdel&user=USER

Remove user from the authority list. It is not possible to remove yourself.

TODO

Common actions

List of actions common of all resources.

POST /<RESOURCE>

Create new resource object.

Dictionary to send:

RESOURCE's properties.

Dictionary keys to receive:

• guid, with globally unique identifier that specifies created object.

PUT /<RESOURCE>/<GUID>

Modify resource object. By default, might be called only by GUID creator.

Dictionary to send:

RESOURCE's properties to modify.

DELETE /<RESOURCE>/<GUID>

Delete resource object. The real destroying won't happen, the object will be hidden. The garbage collection of hidden objects will be processed by Network administrators. By default, might be called only by GUID creator.

GET /<RESOURCE>?offset=<INTEGER>&limit=<INTEGER>[&query=<STRING>][&reply=<PROP>[,..]][&order_by=[+|-]<PROP>][&group_by=<PROP>][&<QUERY_PROP>=<VALUE>[&...]]

Find resource objects.

Where:

• offset, int
  start index to return entries from;
• limit, int
  do not return more then specified value;
• query, str
  search request in Xapian notation with the following additions:
  • if property is boolean, integer or datetime, it supports searching by ranges: <PROP>:[<START>]..[<END>];
  • the statement <PROP>:=["]<VALUE>["] means (<THE-REST_QUERY>) AND <EXACT-PROP-SEARCH> with searching PROP for exact VALUE; it is different to regular <PROP>:<VALUE> where VALUE might be a substring of exact PROP value;
• QUERY_PROP, str
  supplement query with filtering by property value, the resulting query string will be QUERY_PROP=VALUE AND (query);
• reply, str
  coma separated list of RESOURCE properties to return; by default, return only guid property;
• order_by, str
  property to sort the resulting list by; if starts with the -, the order is descending, otherwise it is ascending;
• group_by, str
  property name to group resulting list by.

Dictionary keys to receive:

• total, total number in requested query (the reply might contain only portion restricted by limit request argument);
• result, an array of dictionaries with resource object properties, dictionaries contain at least guid property.

GET /<RESOURCE>/<GUID>[?reply=<PROP>[,..]]

Return properties for particular resource object.

Dictionary keys to receive:

• properties that were specified in reply argument(s), at least guid.

GET /<RESOURCE>/<GUID>/<PROPERTY>

Return property value for particular resource object.

Data to receive:

• property value in JSON notation.

Notifications

It is possible to subscribe to server events. Notification will happen using HTML5 Server-sent events (SSE).

To start subscription, send the following request:

GET /?cmd=subscribe[&only_commits=1]

Where:

• only_commits,
  subscribers can be notified only with commit events; that is useful to minimize interactions between server and clients.

Response will be served with text/event-stream MIME type for default SSE message type. SSE message will be a JSONified object with the following, at least, attributes:

• event
  event type.

Usage statistics

In order to collect usage statistics gathered in local users' environment by sugar-client, API provides related commands for User Sugar Network resource.

GET /user/GUID?cmd=stats-info

Returns a dictionary with RRD configuration settings for local stats collecting process that user side should use to avoid problems while uploading stats to the server.

POST /user/GUID?cmd=stats-upload

Upload statistics. Request content should be in JSON notation and be a dictionary of:

• name name of RRD database to upload stats to;
• values an array of timestamp, row tuples when row is a dictionary of database field names and values.

GNU/Linux packages metadata

There is a special Project resource, Packages. This project is intended to support a metadata database for all GNU/Linux packages that are being used as dependencies for activities Sugar Network provides.

Every entry in the Packages project is a map of native package names to a particular GNU/Linux distribution. So, activities mention only Packages entry name as a dependency. Afterwards, on a client side, a Packages entry name will be resolved to a package name according to the local distribution and it will be passed to the PackageKit to install corresponding dependency.

Packages project might be considered as a temporal solution when, and if, AppStream's MetadataNotes will be reused in the future.

Additional resources

In addition to direct Sugar Network resources, API provides related content.

packagekit-backend-presolve

In order to provide GNU/Linux-distribution-agnostic launches of activities, Sugar Network API supports packagekit-backend-presolve users.

API server provides the following kinds of urls:

• GET /packages
  list all supported platforms;
• GET /packages/<PLATFORM>
  list all supported packages for a particular platform;
• GET /packages/<PLATFORM>/<PACKAGE>
  pre-solved dependency graph for a particular package.

Where:

• PLATFORM
  one of supported packagekit-backend-presolve platforms, e.g., OLPC-13.0.1;
• PACKAGE
  a name of the particular package.

Using Packages' metadata, Sugar Network will automatically generate dependency graphs for packagekit-backend-presolve.

Local access

If already mentioned resources are being provided from a network server, it is possible to get access to localhost resources served using the same API by local process launched beforehand. The reasons to provide API from local host:

• Provide assess to original local Sugar Network data;
• Transparent treating of offline accessible Sugar Network remote data;
• Be a unified (with network server API) IPC method to Sugar Network client process.

Mountpoints

To differentiate what particular Sugar Network source is needed, requests might have mountpoint argument which can be one of the following values:

• /
  Default mountpoint if argument was not specified; get access to remote resources, i.e., local API provider is a kind of proxy to a network server; before proxying client requests, local API provider authenticates users on a network server (for now, it is the only way to be authenticated on remote server);
• ~
  Local Sugar Network content located in ~/.sugar/PROFILE/network directory;
• PATH
  Absolute path in local files system to a directory with Sugar Network content, e.g., it might be content on mounted disk, /media/DISK.

There are the following mountpoints related commands:

GET /?cmd=mounts

Returns a list of all accessible mountpoints. List items are dictionaries with the following keys:

• mountpoint, mountpoint;
• name, i18n name of the mountpoint;
• private, boolean flag; True if the mountpoint is accessible only from localhost.

Cloned resources

/ mountpoint resources might be cloned to local storage to be available in offline and out of Sugar Network.

Cloning is available only for the following resources:

• Context with type property equals to activity
  most recent activity Implementation will be placed to ~/Activities directory;
• Context with type property equals to content
  most recent content Implementation will be stored in Sugar Journal;
• Artifact resources
  artifact will be stored in Sugar Journal.

To track what data is cloned, there are read-only resource properties (for both / and ~ mountpoints) that make sense only for API provided from the local process:

• favorite bool
  resources bookmarked by local user; bookmarked [and cloned] activities will appear in Home View in Sugar Shell;
• clone int
  cloning status: 0, not cloned; 1, cloning is in progress; 2 resource is cloned.

To control cloning, there are API commands:

PUT /RESOURCE/GUID?cmd=favorite

Change favorite status. PUT content should be favorite status.

PUT /RESOURCE/GUID?cmd=clone[&force=FORCE]

Change cloning status for the specified resource. PUT content should be cloning status. If FORCE is passed, cloning will happen even if local copy already exists.

Launch activities

All activities, not only from ~ mountpoint, can be launched as-is.

GET /context/GUID?cmd=launch[&args=ARG][&activity_id=ACTIVITY_ID][&object_id=OBJECT_ID][&uri=URI][&color=COLOR][&no_spawn=NO_SPAWN]

• ARG, command line argument to pass to launched activities, repeat ARG for each argument;
• ACTIVITY_ID, internal activity id which will be auto set if omitted;
• OBJECT_ID, Journal object id to resume;
• URI, URL to resume if activity supports this functionality;
• COLOR, coma separated pair of Sugar colors to assign to activity object;
• NO_SPAWN, if specified, HTTP connection will not be closed until exiting activity process.

~ mountpoint activities will be launched as-is from ~/Activities directory. For / mountpoint, activities will be downloaded from the server and kept in cache directory. It is possible that during preparing for launching will be installed activity dependencies.

Access to the Journal

It is possible to get access to local Sugar Journal using special, journal, resource. API to Journal is restricted only to read-only access:

GET /journal?offset=INTEGER&limit=INTEGER[&query=STRING][&order_by=[+|-]PROP][&QUERY_PROP=VALUE[&...]]
GET /journal/JOURNAL_ID[?reply=PROP[,..]]
GET /journal/JOURNAL_ID/PROPERTY

This kind of access might be useful when local applications cannot use DBus sugar-datastore API, e.g., Javascript applications.

Usage

Being a RESTful, Sugar Network API can be used in any way how regular HTTP requests can be handled. But for command-line access, there is a handy tool, sugar-network, that takes care about Sugar Network specific like lunching local API (if it is not already available) to get access to local data.

The sugar-network command-line format is, call sugar-network --help for more detailed info:

sugar-network GET|POST|PUT|DELETE PATH ARG=VALUE [..]

• PATH, is an url path;
• ARG=VALUE, request arguments as they being passed to in url.

Getting involved

• Submit your bug report or feature request.
• Browse our implementation discussions, and post your feedback. (You should join this discussion list in order to avoid having your messages postponed for moderation.)