Get Ready to Use the SAP HANA Cockpit REST API

You will first need to log in to the cockpit machine, for example using PuTTY with your host and port number.

Run su - h4cadm to switch to the operating system user and enter your password.
Navigate to the XSA binaries folder:

cd /hana/shared/H4C/xs/bin/

Run the ./xs-admin-login command and enter your XSA admin user password.
The expected output should be similar to the following image:

Note: if you installed the cockpit’s persistence on an existing SAP HANA system, make sure you use the correct organization and space names by running the command xs login -o <org_name> -s <space_name>.

The service key that you need for authentication and authorization uses is a block of JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) code; you store it in a file that your application can load and use.

Run the following command to generate a service key, replacing <tool-name> with a name of your choice:

xs create-service-key cockpit-uaa <tool-name>-cockpit-uaa

Store your generated service key in a .json file by entering the command:

xs service-key cockpit-uaa <tool-name>-cockpit-uaa > <tool-name>-service-key.json

You have now created your own service key file! Open and edit it by running the command:

edit <tool-name>-service-key.json

Finally, press Insert and remove the lines before and after the curly brackets.
The original file should take this similar form:

Getting service key "demo-cockpit-uaa" for service instance "cockpit-uaa" ...

{
  "tenantmode" : "dedicated",
  "clientid" : "sb-cockpit!i1",
  "verificationkey" : "<REDACTED>",
  "xsappname" : "cockpit!i1",
  "identityzone" : "uaa",
  "identityzoneid" : "uaa",
  "clientsecret" : "<REDACTED>",
  "url" : https://host:30032/uaa-security
}

OK

Change it to look similar to this form:

{
  "tenantmode" : "dedicated",
  "clientid" : "sb-cockpit!i1",
  "verificationkey" : "<REDACTED>",
  "xsappname" : "cockpit!i1",
  "identityzone" : "uaa",
  "identityzoneid" : "uaa",
  "clientsecret" : "<REDACTED>",
  "url" : https://host:30032/uaa-security
}

Press Esc and then type :wq to save and exit the editing mode. Copy/move your service key file to the computer that will run the API endpoints.

To call an API endpoint, you will need to know your port number for the app cockpit-adminui-svc.
Issue the following command:

xs apps | grep cockpit-adminui-svc

The output should look similar to this and your port number for cockpit-adminui-svc is the number at the end of the URL.

For the cockpit GET API endpoints GroupsForUserGet and GroupResourcesGet specifically, you will need your port number for cockpit-landscape-svc. Run the following command to obtain this number when necessary:

xs apps | grep cockpit-landscape-svc

OAuth tokens are granted to cockpit users, so you must identify a cockpit user you can employ to run the cockpit APIs. In order to obtain an OAuth token, you will use the service key that you just created.

Create a new file on your Python IDE. Make sure that it is saved in the same folder as the service key file that you just created.

Copy the following code to this file to import the necessary packages to run cockpit API functions. Make sure that you have installed these packages into your Python IDE before running the program.

import requests
import json
import urllib3

Enter the following function to generate an OAuth token for later use:

def getServiceKeyJSON(fileName):
    contents = open(fileName).read()
    return json.loads(contents)

def get_oauth_token(client, service_key):
    serviceKeyJSON = getServiceKeyJSON(service_key)

    oauthURI = serviceKeyJSON['url'] + '/oauth/token'
    oauthResponse = client.post(oauthURI, verify=False, data={
        'grant_type': 'password',
        'username': COCKPIT_USER_NAME,      # Replace with your cockpit username (e.g. COCKPIT_ADMIN)
        'password': COCKPIT_USER_PASSWORD,  # Replace with your cockpit user's password
        'client_id': serviceKeyJSON['clientid'],
        'client_secret': serviceKeyJSON['clientsecret']
    })

    authorization = 'Bearer ' + oauthResponse.json()['access_token']
    return authorization

def get_header(authorization):
  return {'Authorization': authorization,
          'Content-Type': 'application/json'}

Copy the following code to disable warnings, get a handle on the client session and finally, obtain the OAuth token. Replace <host.domain.com> and with your own identities, and demo-service-key.json with the name of your own service key file.

baseURL = 'https://' + '<host.domain.com>' + ':' + '<port for cockpit-adminui-svc>'
urllib3.disable_warnings(urllib3.exceptions.InsecureRequestWarning)
client = requests.Session()
authorization = get_oauth_token(client, 'demo-service-key.json')

You are now ready to use the SAP HANA cockpit API REST endpoints.