API requester basic authentication to a RESTful API endpoint

Basic authentication can be used between the z/OS® Connect server and the RESTful API endpoint.

zosConnect-2.0 Applies to zosConnect-2.0.

You can specify credentials for basic authentication for connections between the IBM® z/OS Connect server and the RESTful API endpoint by using the zosconnect_authData element in the server.xml configuration file.  These credentials are different to those used for basic authentication between the CICS, IMS or z/OS application, and the IBM z/OS Connect server.

Diagram shows how the API requester passes the TLS password credentials to the API provider.

Configuring z/OS Connect elements for basic authentication

The following excerpt from a server.xml configuration file shows an example of how to configure basic authentication for the Watson RESTful API.


<zosconnect_authData id="zosconnectBasicAuthConfig"
      password="mypassword"
      user="Fred"/>

<zosconnect_endpointConnection id="watson-api-explorer"  
      host="http://watson-api-explorer.example.net" 
      port="80"            
      authenticationConfigRef="zosconnectBasicAuthConfig"/>

To configure z/OS Connect to call the RESTful API using basic authentication, you must configure the zosconnect_authData and zosconnect_endpointConnection elements.

On the zosconnect_authData element you can use the WebSphere® Liberty profile securityUtility encode command to encode the password for each user. The securityUtility command-line tool is available in the <installation_path>/wlp/bin directory. For more information, see A launch icon to indicate a link opens a new tab or window. securityUtility command in the WebSphere Application Server Liberty documentation.

On the zosconnect_endpointConnection element
  • a host, specifying the HTTP or HTTPS protocol. If you choose to use the HTTPS protocol, you must also specify the sslCertsRef attribute and configure TLS.
  • a port, specifying the target port for the API provider.
  • an authenticationConfigRef, to reference the basic authentication configuration. This attribute should be used in preference to basicAuthRef which is now deprecated.

For more information about the elements shown in the example above, see zosConnect-2.0 Configuration elements in the Reference section.