The API

Quick start for PHP developers

  1. Read the #Authorization section below to understand the requirements.
  2. Follow "Adding a new client application"
  3. Download and use the FileRun PHP API Client library: https://github.com/filerun/api-client

Quick start

You can download an example Postman project here.

Import it and start testing with our demo: https://filerun.com/demo

Swagger/OpenAPI basic specification file: https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis-docs/filerun/api/1.0.0

Enabling the API

To enable the API:

  1. Sign-in to your FileRun installation, as superuser
  2. Open the control panel
  3. Browse to API
  4. Click the Enable API checkbox and click Save changes

Important note: To use the FileRun API, your webserver needs to be configured with an SSL certificate. The URL of the FileRun installation needs to start with HTTPS. Unsecured HTTP connections will be refused, as it represents a serious security vulnerability.

Get a free SSL certificate here: https://letsencrypt.org

Authorization

The FileRun API uses the OAuth 2.0 protocol for authentication and authorization.

If you are new to OAuth2, here you can find a good article about it here: https://aaronparecki.com/articles/2012/07/29/1/oauth2-simplified

Testing without SSL

You can enable access via HTTP instead of HTTPS, from the FileRun control panel, under API.

Warning: This disables the entire security of the API. Your FileRun users private information will be at risk. Do not use it for production!

Adding a new client application

Before you can start using OAuth2 with your application, you'll need to tell FileRun a bit of information about the application. Follow these steps:

  1. Login to FileRun as superuser.
  2. Open the control panel and navigate to API > Clients.
  3. Click "Add" and fill in the form.
  4. FileRun will generate a "client id" and a "client secret". Make a note of these two, as you will need to set them in your application.

Obtain an access token

Before your application can access private data using a FileRun API, it must obtain an access token that grants access to that API. A single access token can grant varying degrees of access to multiple APIs. A variable parameter called "scope" controls the set of resources and operations that an access token permits. During the access-token request, your application sends one or more values in the "scope" parameter.

There are several ways to make this request, and they vary based on the type of application you are building. For example, a web-based application might request an access token using a browser redirect to FileRun, while an application installed on a device that has no browser uses web service requests.

Some requests require an authentication step where the user logs in with their FileRun account. After logging in, the user is asked whether they are willing to grant the permissions that your application is requesting. This process is called *user consent*.

If the user grants the permission, the FileRun Authorization Server sends your application an access token (or an authorization code that your application can use to obtain an access token). If the user does not grant the permission, the server returns an error.

The authorization sequence begins when your application redirects a browser to a specific FileRun URL; the URL includes query parameters that indicate the type of access being requested.

For web applications

This method is called in OAuth 2.0 terms "the authorization code flow".

Authentication Endpoint URL: /oauth2/authorize/ (HTTP GET)

The set of query string parameters supported by the FileRun Authorization Server for web server applications are:

Parameter Value Description
response_type code Determines whether the FileRun OAuth 2.0 endpoint returns an authorization code. Web server applications should use code.
client_id The "client id" you obtain from the FileRun control panel Identifies the client that is making the request. The value passed in this parameter must exactly match the value shown in the FileRun Control Panel
redirect_uri One of the "redirect uri" values listed for this application Determines where the response is sent. The value of this parameter must exactly match one of the values listed for your application in the FileRun control panel, including the http or https scheme, case, and trailing '/').
scope Space-delimited set of permissions that the application requests. Identifies the FileRun API access type that your application is requesting.
state Any string Provides any state that might be useful to your application upon receipt of the response. The FileRun Authorization Server roundtrips this parameter, so your application receives the same value it sent. To mitigate against cross-site request forgery (CSRF), it is strongly recommended to include an anti-forgery token in the state, and confirm it in the response.

An example request URL is shown below, with line breaks for readability.

GET https://www.your-site.com/filerun/oauth2/authorize/?
  scope=email%20profile&
  state=SOME-RANDOM-DATA&
  redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.your-app.com%2Fdo-something-with-the-code&
  response_type=code&
  client_id=f9c6f82cb3e872a20e6a310f33a9c450

You web application will be redirecting the users to a similar URL. FileRun then handles the user authentication and consent. The result is an authorization code, which your application can exchange for an "access token" and a "refresh token".

Handling the response

The response will be sent to the "redirect_uri" as specified in the request URL. If the user approves the access request, then the response contains an authorization code and the state parameter (if included in the request). If the user does not approve the request, the response contains an error message.

Important: if your response endpoint renders an HTML page, any resources on that page will be able to see the authorization code in the URL. Scripts can read the URL directly, and all resources may be sent the URL in the Referrer HTTP header. Carefully consider if you want to send authorization credentials to all resources on that page (especially third-party scripts such as social plugins and analytics). To avoid this issue, we recommend that the server first handle the request, then redirect to another URL that doesn't include the response parameters.

Getting the access token

After your web application receives the authorization code, it should exchange it for an access token and a refresh token, by making an HTTP POST request to the following URL:

Token Endpoint URL: /oauth2/token/ (HTTP POST)

Parameters:

Parameter Description
code The authorization code returned from the initial request.
client_id The "client id" obtained from the FileRun control panel
client_secret The client secret obtained from the FileRun control panel.
redirect_uri One of the redirect URIs listed for this project in the
grant_type As defined in the OAuth 2.0 specification, this field must contain a value of "authorization_code".

A successful response to a request contains the following fields:

Parameter Description
access_token The token that needs to be sent to the FileRun API for a regular request.
refresh_token A token that may be used to obtain a new access token. Refresh tokens expire in 30 days.
expires_in The remaining lifetime of the access token. Access tokens expire in 60 minutes.
token_type Identifies the type of token returned. At this time, this field will always have the value Bearer.

Here's how an example response looks like:

 1{
 2    "access_token":"PJIeg5uIs31JBmTGmcUFap6Gv2xhJQs84IqetJeL",
 3    "token_type":"Bearer",
 4    "expires_in":3600,
 5    "refresh_token":"Sj5267kclpjhrvT0pdcE8mVbYxoZTu3u8flqg5cY"
 6}

The application should store the refresh token for future use and use the access token to access the FileRun API. Once the access token expires, the application uses the refresh token to obtain a new one.

For installed applications

This method is called in OAuth 2.0 terms the "resource owner credentials flow". It is also known as the "password" flow.

Desktop and mobile application, if they cannot redirect the user to the FileRun URL for authentication and providing consent, they usually just prompt the users for their FileRun username and password.

The process requires just a direct HTTP POST call to the token endpoint (/oauth2/token/), with the following parameters:

Parameter Description
username The FileRun user account username.
password The FileRun user account password.
scope Space-delimited set of permissions that the application requests. Identifies the FileRun API access type that your application is requesting. Each API method that your application will be using requires a certain scope. See that further down in the documentation.
client_id The "client id" obtained from the FileRun control panel
client_secret The client secret obtained from the FileRun control panel.
redirect_uri One of the redirect URIs listed for this application inside the FileRun control panel.
grant_type As defined in the OAuth 2.0 specification, this field must contain a value of "password".

Please see the above section Getting the access token for handling the response.

Note: This type of authorization is protected against brute force attacks, just as the regular FileRun login. If you type in the wrong password too many times, the FileRun user account will get deactivated.

Example

curl -X POST -d "username=john&password=love123&scope=upload&client_id=FileRun0000000000000000000Mobile&client_secret=0000000000000000NoSecret0000000000000000&redirect_uri=http://localhost&grant_type=password" https://demo.filerun.com/oauth2/token/

Refreshing the access token

As access tokens expire, you will need to get fresh one once in a while. You do that by making a HTTP call to the following URL:

Refresh Token Endpoint URL: /oauth2/token/

Parameters:

Parameter Description
client_id The "client id" obtained from the FileRun control panel
client_secret The client secret obtained from the FileRun control panel.
grant_type As defined in the OAuth 2.0 specification, this field must contain a value of "refresh_token".
refresh_token The refresh token you have received along with the access token.

A successful response to a request will be identical to the response you receive when you are requesting an initial access token (See Getting the access token).

Note: Save refresh tokens in secure long-term storage and continue to use them as long as they remain valid.

Calling the FileRun API with the access token

After your application obtains an access token, you can use the token to make calls to the FileRun API on behalf of a given user account. To do this, include the access token in a request to the API by including the "Authorization: Bearer" HTTP header.

Example:

GET /filerun/api.php/account/info HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Bearer 8vDeNtzJ8Nf1P0fH1YsvIubOMGttXpqOmupl3oD1
Host: www.your-site.com

Where 8vDeNtzJ8Nf1P0fH1YsvIubOMGttXpqOmupl3oD1 is the access token received on the previous step.

For most API calls, the server reply will contain a JSON object in the response body. Successful requests will have a property named "success" with the boolean value "true". For failed requests, the "success" value will be set to "false" and the "error" property will be populated with an textual description of the problem. For tasks which are supposed to provide information, such as attaching a web link to a file, the property "data" will be populated if the operation was successful.

Access tokens are valid only for the set of operations and resources described in the scope of the token request. For example, if an access token is issued for the purpose of listing directory contents (scope=list), it cannot be used for accessing the user's profile information (scope=profile). You can, however, send that access token to the FileRun API multiple times for similar operations.

Access tokens have limited lifetimes (around 1 hour). If your application needs access to the FileRun API beyond the lifetime of a single access token, it can use the obtained refresh token to get a new access token.

Revoking app authorization (for users)

Users can see the authorizations made for the various apps, inside the "Account Settings" and can revoke them from the same location at any time.

Sandbox: Test your software

Feel free to use our online demo for testing your application: https://filerun.com/demo

Here's something to help you with this process:https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis-docs/filerun/api/1.0.0

Troubleshooting

"Check the "access_token" parameter"

If you cannot get past the error "The request is missing a required parameter, includes an invalid parameter value, includes a parameter more than once, or is otherwise malformed. Check the "access_token" parameter.", although you have checked and your HTTP request includes the "Authorization" header with a valid "Bearer" token, perhaps PHP doesn't get the variable $_SERVER['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] populated. In which case, if you are running Apache, make sure you have the following code inside the .htaccess file:

 1RewriteEngine On
 2RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .+
 3RewriteRule .* - [[E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]]

If you are using a virtual host, make sure the above is inside the Virtualhost tag, not in Directory tag.