Lab 1: API-First Console

This lab will focus on demonstrating the API-first capabilities of the F5 Distributed Cloud Console. Students will begin by creating an API token for authenticating to the API, followed by exploring the Distributed Cloud Developer Portal and utilizing it to query a live configuration. Finally, the lab concludes with using Postman to deploy an application.

For the tasks that follow, you should have already noted your individual namespace. If you failed to note it, return to the Introduction section of this lab, follow the instructions provided and note your namespace accordingly. The Delegated Domain and the F5 Distributed Cloud Tenant are listed below for your convenience as they will be the same for all lab attendees.

• Delegated Domain: .lab-app.f5demos.com

• F5 Distributed Cloud Tenant: https://f5-xc-lab-app.console.ves.volterra.io

By following the tasks in the prior Introduction Section, you should now be able to access the F5 Distributed Cloud Console, having set your Work Domain Roles and Skill levels. If you have not done so already, please login to your tenant for this lab and proceed to Task 1.

Task 1: Review Developer Portal

The following steps will allow you to create an API Token and query the Distributed Cloud API utilizing the Developer Portal.

Create API Token from the Distributed Cloud Console
Following the Introduction section instructions, you should now be in the Web App & API Protection configuration window. If, for some reason, you are not in the Web App & API Protection window, use the Select Service in the left-hand navigation, and click Web App & API Protection as shown in the Introduction section, Task 2, Step 9.
In the top right corner of the Distributed Cloud Console, click the User Icon dropdown and select Account Settings.
In the resulting screen, click Credentials under the Peronal Management Heading on the left.
Click Add Credentials.
Fill in the resulting form with the following values Credential Name ID: <namespace>-api-token Credential Type: Select: API Token Expiry Date: Select: <date two days in the future of today’s date> Click Generate.
On the form that appears, copy your API token and save it for use later. Then click Done. Note If you don’t save your API token or you lose it, you will need to generate a new API token. After an API token is generated, it **cannot be retrieved again later*.*

Access the Distributed Cloud Developer Portal
In the top right corner of the Distributed Cloud Console, click the Support dropdown and select API Documentation. Note This takes you to the online documentation for the F5 Distributed Cloud Services API. Here, you can review or download the API specification.
In the resulting screen, click the API Developer Portal link in the top menu.
In the resulting window, enter f5-xc-lab-app in the Please enter your domain text field and click Access portal.
In the resulting screen, click the Authorize link in the top right corner.
In the form that appears, enter your API Token in the Paste your API token field and click Authorize.
In the Dev Portal, scroll through the APIs on the left until you find Namespace and then click Namespace.
Under the default section in schemes, scroll down through the Namespace APIs until you find GET /api/web/namespaces/{name} and click the arrow to expand this API and then click Try it out.
Enter your namespace name in the name field and then click Execute. Note Your namespace name is unique to your deployment. You should have recorded your namespace name in the Introduction Lab Task 2 Step 10. If you don’t remember your namespace, please refer back to the Introduction Lab. Note Your namespace is entered in the name field in this instance because you are requesting details on a namespace object named <namespace>. If you were querying for an object contained within your namespace you would enter the name of the object in the name field and your namespace name in the namespace field.
Review the Response body data. You may have to scroll down slightly to show the Response body data depending on your screen resolution. Note The parameters you entered in the name field were used to execute the API query and limit the returned values. Parameters can also be used when creating new objects.

Task 2: Create A Proxy Configuration Using Postman

The following steps will create a Health Check, an Origin Pool and an HTTP Load Balancer utilizing Postman to post JSON definitions to the Distributed Cloud API. For this task, you will be using a Windows 10 client that is part of the UDF deployment. The Windows 10 client has Postman pre-installed to save time in the lab. To install and utilize postman outside of the lab, visit https://www.postman.com/downloads/.

An RDP client is recommended to access the Windows 10 client. Current versions of Microsoft Windows should include an RDP client pre-installed. If you are using an operating system other than Windows, below are documentation and download links for installing an RDP client.

Operating System	Documentation and Download Link
macOS	Remote Desktop Mac
iOS/iPadOS	Remote Desktop iOS
Android/Chrome OS	Remote Desktop Android
Linux	Remote Desktop Linux

If you are unable to install an RDP client, or cannot connect via RDP to the Windows 10 host, you can use the WebRDP jump host within the UDF environment to access the Windows 10 client via a web browser. Here are instructions for connecting to the Windows 10 client via RDPClient. Here are instructions for connecting to the Windows 10 client via WebRDP.

The username and password for the Windows 10 host are:

Username	Password
labuser	F5L@bUser!

Utilize Postman to Send API Calls to the Distributed Cloud Console
From the Windows 10 client deployed as part of the UDF, open Postman.
Click on Environments on the left side of Postman and then select Appworld - XC Automation. Fill in the variables with the corresponding values for your lab environment and then click Save. api-token: <api-token> tenant: f5-xc-lab-app namespace: <namespace>
Select Collections from the left side of Postman and then expand Appworld - XC Automation and select Get My Namespace and click Send.
Review the results in the Body section of Postman. You should see a 200 OK response code and the name of your namespace should appear in the metadata. These results should match the results from Task 1 step 16.
Select Create Health Check under the Appworld - XC Automation collection and select Body. Review the JSON in the Body section. This data is what is sent to the Distributed Cloud API to create a new Health Check.
Click Send to create the Health Check.
Review the results in the Body section of Postman. You should see a 200 OK response code.
Select Create Origin Pool under the Appworld - XC Automation collection and select Body. Review the JSON in the Body section. This data is what is sent to the Distributed Cloud API to create a new Origin Pool.
Click Send to create the Origin Pool.
Review the results in the Body section of Postman. You should see a 200 OK response code.
Select Create HTTP Load Balancer under the Appworld - XC Automation collection and select Body. Review the JSON in the Body section. This data is what is sent to the Distributed Cloud API to create a new HTTP Load Balancer.
Click Send to create the HTTP Load Balancer.
Review the results in the Body section of Postman. You should see a 200 OK response code.

Task 3: Review & Test Proxy Configuration

The following steps will review the configuations created using Postman in the Distributed Cloud Console. The configuration will then be tested utilizing a web browser to access the web appliaction.

Verify the Objects Created with Postman
From the Windows 10 client deployed as part of the UDF, open Chrome.
Click on the XC Console bookmark to be taken to the XC Console login.
Enter your e-mail address in the Email form and password in the Password form and click Sign In.
Within the Distributed Cloud dashboard, select the Multi-Cloud App Connect tile.
In the resulting screen, expand the Manage menu and click Load Balancers and then select Health Checks*.
From the Health Checks page, locate the Health Check that you created via Postman. Click the ellipsis under Actions and select Manage Configuration.
From the resulting screen, review the Health Check configuration data and then click JSON.
Review the resulting JSON data. This JSON matches JSON from the body section of Postman request that created the Health Check. Note There may be slight variations in the JSON because you don’t need to post default values when calling the API. If you want to automate a task in Distributed Cloud, but are unsure of the required JSON, you can configure a test object via the GUI and then use this JSON tab to get the corresponding JSON config.
Click Cancel and Exit to close out the Health Check configuration.
Under the Multi-Cloud App Connect Manage menu, select Load Balancers and then click on Origin Pools.
From the Origin Pools page, locate the Origin Pool that you created via Postman. Click the ellipsis under Actions and select Manage Configuration.
From the resulting screen, review the Origin Pool configuration data and then click JSON.
Review the resulting JSON data. This JSON matches JSON from the body section of Postman request that created the Origin Pool. Note There may be slight variations in the JSON because you don’t need to post default values when calling the API. If you want to automate a task in Distributed Cloud, but are unsure of the required JSON, you can configure a test object via the GUI and then use this JSON tab to get the corresponding JSON config.
Click Cancel and Exit to close out the Origin Pool configuration.
Under the Multi-Cloud App Connect Manage menu, select Load Balancers and then click on HTTP Load Balancers.
From the HTTP Load Balancers page, locate the HTTP Load Balancer that you created via Postman. Click the ellipsis under Actions and select Manage Configuration.
From the resulting screen, review the HTTP Load Balancer configuration data and then click JSON.
Review the resulting JSON data. This JSON matches JSON from the body section of Postman request that created the HTTP Load Balancer. Note There may be slight variations in the JSON because you don’t need to post default values when calling the API. If you want to automate a task in Distributed Cloud, but are unsure of the required JSON, you can configure a test object via the GUI and then use this JSON tab to get the corresponding JSON config.
Click Cancel and Exit to close out the Load Balancer configuration.

Verify the Demo Shop App is Accessible Via a Web Browser
Open a new tab in your Chrome browser and enter the following URL http://<namespace>-demoshop.lab-app.f5demos.com Note This illustrates that you are able to configure the delivery of an application via the Distributed Cloud API utilizing Postman.

End of Lab 1

This concludes Lab 1. In this lab, you learned about the Distributed Cloud Developer Portal and how it can help you test API calls. You then expanded upon that knowledge and utilized Postman to deploy a Health Check, Origin Pool, and HTTP Load Balancer. Next, you verified the configuration that was pushed to the Distributed Console. Finally, you verified the application you published was available from a web browser. A brief presentation will be shared prior to the beginning of Lab 2.