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How to configure and scan an API
How to configure and scan an API
Configure Probely to scan an API defined by an OpenAPI or Postman Collection, including endpoints behind complex authentication schemes.
Tiago Mendo avatar
Written by Tiago Mendo
Updated over a week ago

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:

  1. Add an API target

  2. Configure the API target

  3. Start the scan

This article describes these steps in detail, covering multiple authentication scenarios.

1. Adding an API target

Set the URL field to the API base URL, i.e., the domain from which your API is actually serving clients.

At Is this an API target?, select either OpenAPI or Postman Collection, and then choose between entering your API schema URL or uploading it. We support both JSON and YAML schemas.

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 target, go to its settings.

The settings differ if you are configuring an OpenAPI or a Postman Collection API:

  • for Postman, please configure the authentication in the Collection itself, and skip to step 3.

  • for OpenAPI, follow the next steps.

API targets have a few different settings when compared with a non API target:

  • Target Authentication is replaced with API Target Authentication

  • adds API Scanning Settings, where the schema and custom values are set

  • no seeds list setting: we only crawl and scan endpoints defined in the schema

  • no extra hosts setting: this only makes sense for web applications

Let's go over these settings:

API Target Authentication (OpenAPI only)

Scenario 1: you have a fixed API key that must be placed in all requests, in a header.

This is the simplest scenario, as you only need to add a Custom Header with the appropriate header name, Authorization in this example, and its value.

Scenario 1: authenticate with a fixed API key in a header

Scenario 2: you have a fixed API key that must be placed in a specific parameter.
In the API Scanning Settings section, add an API Parameter Custom Value, with the field's name and the respective value. The value should be your API key.

You can add multiple entries if your API key location varies. For instance, if you use key for GETs and token for POSTs, add both fields with the same value. Probely will use the right one for each endpoint.

Scenario 2: authenticate with a fixed API key in a parameter

Scenario 3: obtain a token from an API endpoint.

In this scenario, you get the API token from an endpoint that authenticates you, for instance, with a pair of credentials, such as username + password.

This authenticating pattern is often found on APIs that support web applications: the user authenticates himself with his username and password, obtaining a token used on all requests thereafter.

Scenario 3: use a token obtained from an API endpoint

Go to the API Target Authentication section on the target settings and fill in the appropriate values:

  • Authentication Media Type: the content type of the payload/request to the authentication endpoint

  • Login URL: the authentication URL

  • Authentication Payload: the content to send to the Login URL. The request uses the POST method.

Click Fetch to perform the authentication. If the authentication fails, an error will be displayed. If the authentication succeeds, the Token Field Name will list the fields obtained in the authentication response. Choose the field that contains the authentication token.

Next, at Place Token In, choose where to place the token in the API requests. For most cases, the token is placed in a header. The other available option is cookie.

At Field Name, enter the name of the header or cookie that will hold the token.

Optionally, set a Value Prefix for the token value. This is often needed for JWTs. For instance, if your API requires you to send a header Authorization: JWT <token>, set the following values:

  • Field Name: Authorization
    without the colon ( :) separator

  • Value Prefix: JWT
    note the space in the end so that the JWT and the token are properly separated

Press Save.

API Scanning Settings (OpenAPI only)

Here 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.

Afterwards, 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.

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