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Using Ansible URI module with SonarQube tokens

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RedHat Ansible is a very flexible configuration management tool that comes with a variety of built in modules. One of these modules, ansible.builtin.uri, is provided as an alternative to using “curl” commands through the ansible.builtin.shell or ansible.builtin.command modules. However, the module documentation does not provide a specific example of how to use the URI module when leveraging token based authentication. This blog post shows examples of how this can be done using SonarQube API calls.

Example #1: User Name and Password authentication

When using the URI module for SonarQube API calls with user-name and password authentication  (which can be retrieved from Ansible Vault if desired) it is necessary to provide the “user:” and “password:” fields as well as the “force_basic_auth”.  In this example we will generate a new token for the provided default user using a unique token name:

# generate a new user token for this session using the project_key - name: Generate a SonarQube Session Token ansible.builtin.uri: url: http://{{sonar_url}}:9000/api/user_tokens/generate user: "{{sonar_user_name}}" password: "{{sonar_user_pwd}}" method: POST force_basic_auth: yes body_format: form-urlencoded body: name: "{{project_key}}" register: get_sonor_output no_log: true - set_fact: sonar_admin_token="{{ get_sonor_output.json.token }}"

The return result will contain the newly generated token under the json{} section which can be stored to a variable using ‘set_fact’:

"json": {
            "createdAt": "2022-05-31T20:34:12+0000",
            "login": "admin",
            "name": "costar125",
            "token": "4f12fd916c878f936e9bf3f04fc460ee4b225be3"
        },

By storing this token into a “fact” variable it can be used in subsequent API calls.

Example #2: Token based authentication – creating a project

In order to use a SonarQube derived token, the API expects the token in the “user:” field.  However, the “password:” field must also be provided and be left as a ‘null’.  This forces the URI module to generate a password-less API call that SonarQube is expecting.  In this example, we use the token generated above to authenticate the API call in order to create a new SonarQube project.  Note that if the project already exists it will generate an error.  This can be avoided by a previous task API call to get all projects (using the unique project key) and then validate using a ‘when’ clause that the new project is not already present

- name: Get SonarQube Projects ansible.builtin.uri: url: http://{{sonar_url}}:9000/api/projects/search user: "{{sonar_admin_token}}" password: "" method: GET force_basic_auth: yes body_format: form-urlencoded body: projects: "{{project_key}}" no_log: false register: get_sonar_projects - set_fact: check_project_name="{{ get_sonar_projects.json.components | json_query(query) }}" vars: query: "[?name=='{{ project_name }}'].name"

- name: Create SonarQube Project ansible.builtin.uri: url: http://{{sonar_url}}:9000/api/projects/create user: "{{sonar_admin_token}}" password: "" method: POST force_basic_auth: yes body_format: form-urlencoded body: name: "{{project_name}}" project: "{{project_key}}" visibility: public register: create_sonor_output no_log: false when: check_project_name is not search(project_name|string)

 

Example #3: Token based authentication – revoking the token

Finally, if the token is not to be used further it can be revoked in the same manner that it was created:

# revoke the session token - name: Revoke a SonarQube Session Token ansible.builtin.uri: url: http://{{sonar_url}}:9000/api/user_tokens/revoke user: "{{sonar_admin_token}}" password: "" method: POST force_basic_auth: yes body_format: form-urlencoded body: name: "{{project_key}}" status_code: [200, 204] register: get_sonor_output no_log: true

In this blog post we explored how the Ansible URI module can be used to a) generate a new security token, b) pass a security token to SonarQube APIs to create a new project (if not already present), and c) to revoke the newly created token at the end of the Ansible session.  In these examples the SonarQube API call expected the token in the ‘user:’ field with a null password.  Other API calls may require the “password:” field to contain the token and ignore the user field.  Check your documentation carefully to see which approach is being used for the specific API calls.

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Benjamin Lieberman, Director

Ben Lieberman is currently a Director in the Perficient Inc., Custom Development and DevSecOps (CDDO) delivery group. Dr. Lieberman has over twenty five years of software and systems development experience across a wide range of industries, including financial, government, telecommunications, life sciences, travel services, and space launch systems. He is highly experienced on multiple software development topics, including requirements analysis, system analysis and design, secure systems development, configuration management, and automated build/deployment (aka DevSecOps). He also has direct development experience in multiple languages including Python, Java, C#, C++, and Salesforce (APEX) coding languages, and works directly with development teams on agile delivery practices. Dr. Lieberman is an accomplished professional writer with a book (“The Art of Software Modeling”, Auerbach Publishing) and over three dozen professional IT articles to his credit. Dr. Lieberman holds a doctorate degree in Biophysics and Genetics from the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Center, Denver, Colorado.

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