Create a User API Issue

[harrison]

Trying to use the create a user API with powershell.  I"ve used other API's without a problem (sis import, etc).

I keep getting an error "unprocessable_entity".  I"ve double-checked the url and all appears to be fine.

Using the Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet which I've used before.

https://utm.beta.instructure.com/api/v1/accounts/1/users?pseudonym[unique_id]=canstu1&pseudonym[sis_... CanvasTest&user[skip_registration]=true&pseudonym[integration_id]=960551234&communication_channel[address]=canstu1@utm.edu&communication_channel[skip_confirmation]=true&user[skip_registration]=true&pseudonym[send_confirmation]=true

I hope I'm missing the obvious, but can't see it!  Anyone have an idea?

Bruce Harrison

Univ. of Tennessee at Martin

[garth]

 @harrison ​ I literally copied and pasted your parameters into the exact same API call against my instance and it works fine.  Maybe there is a privs issue?

Hope that helps.

[harrison]

Really weird.  I tried it from Firefox with the REST plugin and another tab logged in.  It should be authenticated I thought. Error didn't seem to imply authentication was a problem.

i was doing this on the beta system, wonder if that makes a difference?

will continue to play, at least I know rules is good!  Thanks.

bruce

[garth]

Not authentication ,  user privs.

Does your account have privs to create new users?  Are you a full admin?

[harrison]

Yes, my account is a full admin...

[garth]

That is strange.  I am able to produce an error if I don't increment the [integration_id] param, but it is not the error you have reported.  I am not able to produce the error "unprocessable_entity".

I tried executing as a GET command, and got an expected response.

I tried executing as a PUT command, and got the expected "Page error" response.

If I send the POST command with incorrect token, I get the expected response of "Invalid access token."

If I try to create a duplicate user I get a response: "ID already in use for this account and authentication provider"

So in the end I'm not sure how you are generating the error you are reporting.

Can you post a screen shot of the error?

[harrison]

I get the same error message from my Powershell script.  I run other scripts from this same machine, etc. that work fine with APIs.

[garth · Accepted solution]

Looking at your screen shot, I see "Authorization: Basic...."

It should be "Authorization: Bearer..."

When I submit using "Basic" I do not get that same error, but it certainly doesn't work.

Try "Bearer" and let me know what happens.

[harrison]

Yep!  that was it.  When i specified Bearer and entered my token, it works fine from Firefox REST plugin

Weird thing is, my powershell script is doing that but gets the error.  Will investigate further...

thanks!

bruce

[garth]

Excellent, I love it when it's something easy : )

[harrison]

Found an interesting thing about powershell too.  If a Invoke-Webrequest call fails it does not return any status codes or other info.  It throws an exception in powershell that you must catch with the try/catch construct !  The userid I'm experimenting with was at one time in Canvas, so I was getting a 400 return code.  If you dig into the error message, it says that sis_user_id was already in use.  Oh well.... live and learn

Bruce

[garth]

 @harrison ​ I published a .NET project that you might be interested in.

It logs detailed results of each API call, and might be useful in the future, if you are comfortable with C#.

• .NET - Canvas API Implementation​

It's meant as a starter kit, with examples, to allow others to add API calls and functionality to meet their needs.

Anyway, the logging might be of interest to you for future testing.

[harrison]

Thanks, I'll take a look.  I normally work in C#, but we've started using powershell for a lot of automation in the shop.  It works so easily with our AD infrastructure, etc.  I believe you can use .NET calls in powershell too.

Bruce

[llawson]

You definitely can use .NET calls in PowerShell -- that is what PowerShell objects are comprised of after all If you're feeling creative, you can probably make use of PS's Active Directory cmdlets against your Canvas instance.

I too have found a fair amount of tasks in Canvas that can be automated with a few lines of PowerShell. Saves a lot of time if the code is reusable.

[harrison]

True, I have several blocks of code to do Canvas things that get reused in various scripts.

You speak of using AD cmdlets with Canvas.  Is AD behind canvas?  I know it all runs on AWS, but it never dawned on me that AD is involved!  What is the database that Canvas uses?  MS SQL ?

[garth]

I have gone through the exercise of getting Canvas installed and running.

Canvas provides a community edition with an install guide here:

• Home · instructure/canvas-lms Wiki · GitHub

The database is Postgres

[llawson]

Sorry for the misleading comment Bruce. AD is in no way integrated with Canvas, BUT if your AD and Canvas users have similar characteristics then you could come up with some creative provisioning solutions. From what I have seen it may be in the best interest of higher ed institutions to communicate their SIS with Canvas. Just wanted to point out you can pipe the output you get from AD queries into a REST method to the Canvas API