Routing API Requests for "Try It Out"

API Hub for Portal lets you send "try it out" requests directly from your browser to the target server or proxy the requests through the API Hub for Portal server. As a rule of thumb, use a browser to access local APIs and a proxy for Internet-facing APIs.

You can change the routing mode at the top of the APIs. The selected option is saved in the browser’s localStorage and applies to all APIs you test from this browser.

routing_requests_1.png

Routing requests via API Hub for Portal proxy (default)

This is the preferred mode for Internet-facing APIs. "Try it out" requests from the browser are first sent to the API Hub for Portalserver, which forwards the requests to the target API server. Responses from the API server are sent back to the API Hub for Portalserver and then to your browser. This approach avoids browser restrictions for cross-domain HTTP requests.

Routing_requests_via_SwaggerHub_Portal_proxy.png

Benefits:

  • No need for CORS support on the API server.

  • Supports user-defined parameters in the Cookie header.

Requirements:

  • The API server must be on the public Internet and allow connections from our API addresses.

Limitations:

  • The request timeout is not configurable and is set to 30 seconds

  • Proxied "try it out" requests are sent through the API Hub for Portal cloud servers. If privacy or ownership of infrastructure is a concern, use routing via browser instead.

Routing requests via browser

In this mode, "try it out" requests are sent directly from the web page to the API server by using JavaScript.

Routing requests via browser

Benefits:

  • Supports both Internet-facing servers and local servers.

  • Requests are sent directly from your browser to the API server, without going through any intermediate infrastructure.

  • Requests are sent with browser cookies (but not with user-defined cookie parameters).

Requirements:

Limitations:

  • Cannot send requests to HTTP (non-secure) servers from API Hub for Portal, because the browsers block access to insecure content from secure web pages.

  • Cannot send user-defined values in the Cookie header and other forbidden request headers.

  • Response headers displayed after "try it out" are restricted by the Access-Control-Expose-Headers response header. If this header is missing, only simple response headers are displayed.

  • The Set-Cookie response header is not displayed due to browser security restrictions.

Troubleshooting "try it out" requests

TypeError: Failed to fetch 

When routing requests via browser, this error happens if:

  • the API server does not support CORS

  • request is sent from an https:// web page to an http:// (non-secure) server.

To avoid the issue, change the routing mode to Routing requests via secure proxy.

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