This article explains how to scan a standalone API target with Probely.
How does the API scanning work?
To scan an API, we need its specification, the schema. You can define it with an URL pointing to the schema or uploading it to Probely. The former has the advantage of us fetching the schema before every scan, ensuring we always get the most up-to-date version.
Probely supports APIs with different authentication methods. You can set a fixed API key in a custom header or configure a login endpoint from which you obtain an authentication token.
You can also define custom parameter values that replace those found in the schema. This allows you to override example values or to ensure domain-specific values are properly filled.
How do I scan an API?
Scanning an API is a simple three-step process:
Add an API target
Configure the API target
Start the scan
This article describes these steps in detail, covering multiple authentication scenarios.
1. Adding an API target
Go to https://plus.probely.app/targets/add to add a target.
Set the URL field to the API base URL, i.e., the domain from which your API is actually serving clients.
In Is this an API target?, select between an OpenAPI or a Postman Collection.
In the case of a Postman Collection, make sure it is already configured before adding the API target. Learn more about it here.
Then, choose between entering your API schema URL or uploading it. We support both JSON and YAML schemas. However, setting the schema URL has the advantage of Probely fetching it before a scan, so we always scan the API's latest version.
Example of how to add an API target
When setting the API, if the server defined in the schema is not within the scope of the target, a warning will appear. You can then opt to ignore the server tag value from the OpenAPI schema file and use the target URL instead.
2. Configure an API target
After adding (and verifying, if needed) the API target, go to its settings where there are some differences when compared with a non-API target, namely:
The Target Authentication section is replaced with API Target Authentication
There's a new API Scanning Settings section, where the schema and custom values are set
There's no Seeds List section as we only crawl and scan endpoints defined in the schema
There's no Extra Hosts section as this only makes sense for web applications
Configure the API Authentication
If the API requires authentication, the configuration depends on whether the API target was configured as OpenAPI or Postman Collection:
Configure the API Scanning Settings
In the API Scanning Settings section, you can override or set values for the endpoint parameters described in the schema.
Our scanning engine has a set of predetermined values for the most common parameters, such as email, address, and dates.
If we cannot infer the adequate value for a parameter, we use a default value. You can override that behavior by setting specific values, such as email and the product_id, as shown in the example below:
Setting a custom email and product_id
3. Start the scan
Just press Scan Now, and the scan will start in a few seconds. You can follow the scan progress on the scan page.
Afterward, you can download a coverage report in CSV format that lists the endpoints parsed from the schema and the respective HTTP response code. The coverage report is a good tool to help you understand if there were endpoints that failed.
To learn more about the coverage report, click here.