ody / puppetlabs-http_request

A task for making HTTP requests.

http_request

Table of Contents

1. Description
2. Requirements
3. Parameters
4. Usage
   • Making a request
   • Making a JSON request
   • Adding headers
   • Adding a body

Description

This module includes a task for making HTTP and HTTPS requests.

Requirements

This task requires Ruby to be installed on the target it runs on.

Parameters

base_url

REQUIRED. The fully qualified URL scheme to make requests to.

• Type: String[1]

body

The request body. If json_endpoint is true, must be able representable as JSON. If json_endpoint is false, must be a string.

• Type: Optional[Data]

cacert

An absolute path to the CA certificate.

• Type: Optional[String[1]]

cert

An absolute path to the client certificate.

• Type: Optional[String[1]]

follow_redirects

If true, automatically follows redirects.

• Type: Boolean
• Default: true

headers

A map of headers to add to the payload.

• Type: Optional[Hash[String, String]]

json_endpoint

If true, parses the request and response bodies as JSON and sets the Content-Type header to application/json.

• Type: Boolean
• Default: false

key

An absolute path to the RSA keypair.

• Type: Optional[String[1]]

max_redirects

The maximum number of redirects to follow when follow_redirects is true.

• Type: Integer[1]
• Default: 20

method

The HTTP method to use.

• Type: Enum[delete, get, post, put]
• Default: get

path

The path to append to the base_url.

• Type: Optional[String[1]]

Usage

The only required parameter for the http_request task is url, which is the fully qualified URL scheme to make a request to. By default, the task will make a GET request.

Making a request

The simplest usage of this task is to make a GET request by only setting the url parameter:

• Unix-like shell command

  $ bolt task run http_request --targets localhost base_url=http://httpbin.org/get

• PowerShell command

  > Invoke-BoltTask -Name 'http_request' -Targets 'localhost' base_url=http://httpbin.org/get

• Plan step

  parameters:
    targets:
      type: TargetSpec
  
  steps:
    - name: request
      task: http_request
      targets: $targets
      parameters:
        base_url: 'http://httpbin.org/get'
  
  return: $request

Making a JSON request

If you are making a request to a JSON endpoint, you can configure the task to automatically convert the body to JSON, set the request headers, and parse the response body as JSON. To enable this behavior, set the json_endpoint parameter to true.

• Unix-like shell command

  $ bolt task run http_request --targets localhost base_url=http://httpbin.org/get json_endpoint=true

• PowerShell command

  > Invoke-BoltTask -Name 'http_request' -Targets 'localhost' base_url=http://httpbin.org/get json_endpoint=true

• Plan step

  parameters:
    targets:
      type: TargetSpec
  
  steps:
    - name: request
      task: http_request
      targets: $targets
      parameters:
        base_url: 'http://httpbin.org/get'
        json_endpoint: true
  
  return: $request.first.value['body']['headers']['User-Agent']

Adding headers

You can send custom headers as part of a request using the headers parameter. This parameter accepts a map of header names to values.

To add headers to a request from the command line, pass the headers as JSON to the headers parameter:

• Unix-like shell command

  $ bolt task run http_request --targets localhost base_url=http://httpbin.org/get headers='{"Content-Type":"application/json"}'

• PowerShell command

  > Invoke-BoltTask -Name 'http_request' -Targets 'localhost' base_url=http://httpbin.org/get headers='{"Content-Type":"application/json"}'

• Plan step

  parameters:
    targets:
      type: TargetSpec
  
  steps:
    - name: request
      task: http_request
      targets: $targets
      parameters:
        base_url: 'http://httpbin.org/get'
        headers:
          Content-Type: application/json
  
  return: $request

Adding a body

You can add a body to the request using the body parameter. This parameter accepts a string value. If you need to send data in a specific format, such as JSON, you should format the data before running the task.

To send a body in the request from the command line, pass the data to the body parameter:

• Unix-like shell command

  $ bolt task run http_request --targets localhost base_url=http://httpbin.org/post method=post body=hello

• PowerShell command

  > Invoke-BoltTask -Name 'http_request' -Targets 'localhost' base_url=http://httpbin.org/post method=post body=hello

• Plan step

  parameters:
    targets:
      type: TargetSpec
  
  steps:
    - name: request
      task: http_request
      targets: $targets
      parameters:
        base_url: 'http://httpbin.org/post'
        method: post
        body: hello
  
  return: $request