Get Started

Objectives

By completing the guides in this Quick Start series, you can easily get up and running with API Connectivity Manager.

This series covers the following topics:

  1. Setting up an environment with API Gateway & Developer Portal clusters.
  2. Onboarding F5 NGINX Plus instances onto the clusters.
  3. Publishing an API proxy with or without an OpenAPI spec.

Requirements

To complete the instructions in this series, you must meet the following requirements:

  1. Install API Connectivity Manager and Developer Portal on separate hosts.

  2. Install a supported version of NGINX Plus on one or more hosts to serve as the API Gateway.

  3. Install the njs module on your NGINX data plane and Dev Portal hosts.

  4. You have SSH access and sudo permissions for the NGINX data plane host(s).

  5. You have an API Connectivity Manager user account with permission to READ, CREATE, UPDATE, and DELETE on the following API Connectivity Manager features:

    • Infrastructure
    • Services

How to Access the REST API

You can use tools such as curl or Postman to interact with the API Connectivity Manager REST API. The API URL follows the format https://<NMS_FQDN>/api/acm/<API_VERSION> and must include authentication information with each call. For more information about authentication options, please refer to the API Overview.

For example:

curl --location --request POST 'https://{{nms-fqdn}}/api/acm/v1/services/workspaces/{{workspaceName}}' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <access token>' \
--data-raw ''

Variables

The examples provided in these guides use a set of common variables. You should replace these variables – or define a set of values for them in your API client – with information relevant to your environment before trying to use them. The variables used in the examples are described in the table below.

Variable Definition
nms-fqdn The fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the host running NGINX Management Suite.
This is also referred to as the “management plane” host.
backendIp The IP address or hostname of a backend server running an API service.
nginxInstance The IP address or hostname of an NGINX data plane instance.
devPortalIp The IP address or hostname of the instance hosting the Developer Portal.
username Your account username.
password Your account password.
instanceGroupName The name of the API Gateway. This name is recorded as an Instance Group name by the NGINX Agent.
infraWorkspaceName The name of the Infrastructure Workspace that you want to work in.
proxyWorkspaceName The name of the Service Workspace that you want to work in.
proxyName The name of the Proxy that you want to create, read, update, or delete.
environmentName The name of the Environment that you want to work in.
environmentHostname The hostname of the API Gateway.
devPortalName The resource name of the Developer Portal Proxy.
portalDocsName The resource name of the API Docs.
portalInstanceGroupName The resource name of the Developer Portal.
portalClusterHostname The hostname for the Developer Portal.
clusterName The proxy cluster name for the Developer Portal or API Gateway.