xAPI Guide > Using xAPI via HTTP

The xAPI HTTP protocol details are documented in your device’s API Reference Guide, as shown on page 43 of RoomKit's Reference Guide 9.5, for example:

Basically:

• Your device exposes an HTTP/HTTPS server for REST API requests
• Data are exchanged as text/xml payloads, and Basic Auth is used for authentication
• The /getxml?location= URI path is used to retrieve status information
• The /putxml URI path lets you POST configuration and command requests

anchorPrerequisites and Configuration

anchorRetrieve the current value of the device's standby status via HTTP

In the steps below, you will need to specify user credentials in the Authorization header. xAPI requires these credentials be in the Basic Authentication standard format. For this tutorial, we have pre-generated the Authorization header value for you, based on the 'integrator:integrator' username and password: Basic aW50ZWdyYXRvcjppbnRlZ3JhdG9y

If you are using a different username/password combination, you can use an online service such as Base64Encode to encode the 'username:password' combo (note the required :).

Or, on a Mac/Linux system, you can also generate this password with the following terminal command:

echo -n "myuser:mypassword" | base64

For cURL users

cURL is a flexible command line tool for making HTTP requests. If you have cURL available on your PC, open a terminal and enter the command below (replacing with your device’s IP address and credentials, if different):

curl --insecure -X GET "https://{device_ip}/getxml?location=/Status/Standby" -u myuser:mypassword

this should return something like:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Status product="Cisco Codec" version="ce9.3.0.344d3cf" apiVersion="4">
  <Standby>
    <State>Standby</State>
  </Standby>
</Status>

Notice how the information returned is similar to what you saw via SSH, though in XML format.

For Postman users

Postman has a nice GUI for testing and playing with HTTP and REST APIs.

In Postman, go ahead and create/send a new GET request pointed at your device’s https://{device_ip}/getxml?location=/Status/Standby endpoint, with an Authorization header value: Basic aW50ZWdyYXRvcjppbnRlZ3JhdG9y

You should receive an XML response body similar to what you got from cURL above.

anchorNext Steps

Next, let's use a 'real' programming language to perform some xAPI operations.