appendix: http-api (#215)

Operational requests and configuration management requests.

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+.. _http-api:
+
+########
+HTTP-API
+########
+
+Enabling HTTP-API
+-----------------
+
+VyOS HTTP API can be enabled through the ``set service https api`` command.
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+  set service https api debug
+  set service https api keys id MY-HTTP-API-ID key MY-HTTP-API-PLAINTEXT-KEY
+  set service https listen-address 192.168.122.127
+
+The local API process listens on localhost:8080, and nginx exposes it on 192.168.122.127:443 in this example.
+
+Operational requests
+--------------------
+
+In our example, we are creating a dummy interface and assigning an address to it:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+  curl -k -X POST -F data='{"op": "set", "path": ["interfaces", "dummy", "dum1", "address"], "value": "203.0.113.76/32"}' -F key=MY-HTTP-API-PLAINTEXT-KEY https://192.168.122.127/configure
+
+The ``/configure`` endpoint takes a request serialized in JSON. The only HTTP method it uses is POST. Request data is passed in the ``data=`` field and the API key is passed in the ``key=`` field. Key identifiers from the config are purely informational and the application doesn't need to know them, they only appear in the server logs to avoid exposing keys in log files, you only need the key itself.
+
+Since internally there is no distinction between a path and a value, you can omit the value field and include the value in the path like it's done in the shell commands:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+  curl -k -X POST -F data='{"op": "set", "path": ["interfaces", "dummy", "dum10", "address", "203.0.113.99/32"]}' -F key=MY-HTTP-API-PLAINTEXT-KEY https://192.168.122.127/configure
+
+Separate value field make the semantics more clear though, and also makes it easier to create a command template once and update it with different values as needed.
+
+You can pass the ``set``, ``delete`` or ``comment`` command to it. The API will push the command to the session and commit.
+
+
+Configuration management requests
+---------------------------------
+
+When saving or loading a configuration, the endpoint is ``/config-file`` and you can pass the ``save`` or ``load`` command.
+
+If you don't specify the file when saving, it saves to ``/config/config.boot``. Here's an example:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+  # curl -k -X POST -F key=MY-HTTP-API-PLAINTEXT-KEY -Fdata='{"op": "save", "file": "/config/config.boot"}' https://192.168.122.127/config-file
+