Http And Https Support With The Ace - Cisco 4700M Administration Manual

Information About XML
You can use XML to do the following:
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This section contains the following topics:
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HTTP and HTTPS Support with the ACE

The ACE and an NMS can easily send and receive an XML document containing configuration
commands or output results by using standard Internet protocols, such as HTTP or secure HTTP
(HTTPS), as the transfer protocol. HTTPS uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to provide encrypted
communication between the management client and the ACE.
The administrator of the system designates a website as the entry point to the API, and all requests and
queries are made through those URLs. This website also provides the DTDs that define the XML for
requests, queries, and responses.
The XML input is submitted through the data portion of an HTTP POST request. A field named "xml"
contains the XML string that defines the request or query. The response to this HTTP POST represents
a pure XML response with either a success or failure indicator for a request or the response to a query.
When you use XML to transfer configuration data and results, the NMS connects to the ACE and sends
a new configuration in an XML document to the ACE over HTTP or HTTPS. The ACE then applies the
new configuration.
The following example shows the HTTP conversation between the client and the server, as related to the
XML implementation on the ACE:
******** Client **************
POST /bin/xml_agent HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic VTpQ
Content-Length: 95
xml_cmd=<request_xml>
<interface type="vlan" number="80">
<access-group access-type="input" name="acl1"/>
<ip_address address="60.0.0.145" netmask="255.255.255.0"/>
<shutdown sense="no"/>
</interface>
<show_running-config/>
</request_xml>
******** Server **************
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 21
Cisco 4700 Series Application Control Engine Appliance Administration Guide
8-2
Provide a mechanism using XML to transfer, configure, and monitor objects in the ACE. This XML
capability allows you to easily shape or extend the CLI query and reply data in XML format to meet
different specific business needs.
Transfer show command output from the ACE CLI interface in an XML format for statistics and
status monitoring. This capability allows you to query and extract data from the ACE.
Use the ACE XML DTD schema for formatting CLI queries or parsing the XML results from the
ACE to enable third-party software development through XML communications.
Provide remote user authentication through AAA.
Provide session and context management by the global administrator and other privileged users that
have the Admin user role.
HTTP and HTTPS Support with the ACE
HTTP Return Codes
Document Type Definition
Chapter 8 Configuring the XML Interface
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