To log in from the API Designer user interface for
IBM® API Connect, you will
need the host name of the management server and the user name and password associated with your API
Manager account.
About this task
API Designer provides a
secure login to a management server for staging and publishing APIs and Products. You log in to the
same host that was configured for API Manager and use your API Manager user name and password. You
will need an account on API Manager and membership in a provider organization to access the API Designer.
You can also use the Explorer tab to see how your APIs look to a consumer
in the Developer Portal. You
can check the descriptions of the different artifacts, and refine any schemas or examples, and you
can also use the Try it tool to test the behavior of the API.
Note:
- Configuration changes that are made in API Manager are not available in API Designer concurrently. You
will need to log out of API Designer and log back in to
access any updates.
- Set
SKIP_IBMID_LOGIN=true
as an environment variable to bypass the IBM ID login
screen for API Designer. This
applies to users who are working on an internal network, without access to external networks.
Procedure
To log in to API Designer, complete the
following steps:
-
Download and extract API Designer, as described in
Installing the toolkit.
- Start the API Designer user interface by
running the application from the location where you extracted the contents of the toolkit compressed
file.
Note: If you see a message stating that credentials cannot be found, download new credentials as
explained in
Downloading the toolkit.
- Optional: If you see the Accept License page, click the URL read
the license agreement, then click the button to accept the license. This prompt appears only one
time. It does not appear once you have accepted the license on the current system.
- Optional: If you see the IBM ID login page, enter your IBM customer ID.
Note: You won't receive the IBM ID page if you are already authorized, or if you have set the
SKIP_IBMID_LOGIN
environment variable to true
.
- Open a directory on your local file system to store the API and Product specifications
that you create in API Designer. The system defaults to a previously-accessed directory.
If you want to switch to a different directory after logging in, click
Switch directory on the menu bar in the header.
Note: If you want to use an OpenAPI definition file from elsewhere, downloaded from an external
website for example, rather than created by using
API Connect, don't copy the
file into your
API Designer
directory.
Such an API will not be visible in the API Designer user interface if it
doesn't contain the API Connect specific sections that are required by API Designer.
Instead, copy
the OpenAPI definition file to another folder, then import it into API Designer; the import operation
adds the necessary API Connect
specific sections; see Adding a REST API by importing an OpenAPI definition file.
For more information on the API Connect specific sections in
an OpenAPI definition file, see IBM extensions to the OpenAPI specification.
- If this is the first time you have logged in, establish a connection to API Connect by
completing the following steps:
- For subsequent log ins, select the appropriate cloud where you will
be working. You can select from any previous cloud connections.
- When more than one cloud connection is configured, you can switch
clouds when developing APIs and Products. See Switching clouds from API Designer.
Note: If you are using an OIDC user
registry that supports single sign-on (SSO), you cannot switch clouds to log in to the same user
registry with a different user ID. You must first restart the API Designer application so that
you are logged out of the registry, then select the required cloud connection.
- Click Add Another Cloud to add another cloud
connection. Enter the URL, user name and password, and user registry to add the cloud
connection.
Note: If you are using an OIDC user registry that supports single
sign-on (SSO), and you are already logged in, you cannot add a new cloud connection to log in to the
same user registry with a different user ID. You must first restart the API Designer application so that
you are logged out of the registry, then add the new cloud connection.
- Delete a cloud connection by selecting the trash can
icon.
- API Designer will
launch with the organization set to your provider organization in the
selected cloud. If you have accounts for multiple provider organizations, it will default to the
first organization in alphabetical order.
- To choose another provider organization, select it from the drop-down list.