uportal-messages

This messaging microservice is intended for use with uportal-home.

uPortal messages include both notifications and announcements, and can be tailored for audiences as small as one person.

What is a message?

A message is an announcement or notification which can be targeted to an entire user population, a subset of the population, or a single user.

This microservice processes messages in json form. Details of json format are here

Configuration

Set the source of your messages in the application.properties file. In this example, we've selected a json file in our resources directory.

message.source=classpath:messages.json

To Build

This project uses maven. $ mvn package will build a warfile for deployment.

To run locally, $ mvn spring-boot:run will compile and run this microservice.

Endpoints

/

Implemented in MessagesController.

Responds:

{"status":"up"}

Description: This endpoint returns a small json object indicating that the status of the application is healthy.

/messages

Implemented in MessagesController.

Responds: A JSON object containing messages filtered to the viewing user and the current context.

description: Intended as the primary endpoint for servicing typical users. The idea is to move all the complication of message resolution server-side into this microservice so that a typical client can request this data and uncritically render it.

Currently filters to:

• Applicable to the current local date-time. (Messages can have not-before and not-after date-times, specified in ISO format, as in 2018-02-14 or 2018-02-14:09:46:00), AND
• Applicable to the user's groups. (Messages can be limited to user groups.)

Expectations:

• isMemberOf header conveying semicolon-delimited group memberships. (This practice is typical in UW-Madison Shibboleth SP implementation.) Fails gracefully yet safely: if this header is not present, considers the user a member of no groups.

Versioning: The details of the filtering are NOT a semantically versioned aspect of the API. That is to say, what is versioned here is that /messages returns the messages appropriate for the requesting user. Increasing sophistication in what "appropriate" means is not a breaking change.

Security: WARNING: Does not apply any access control other than filtering to messages applicable to the user's groups. If additional access control is needed (it may not be needed), implement it at the container layer.

/message/{id}

Implemented in MessagesController.

Responds:

• A JSON representation of the message with the given id, or
• 404 NOT FOUND if no message with requested id, or
• 403 FORBIDDEN if message exists but is expired, premature, or the requesting user is not in its audience.

Description: Intended as view on a specific message.

/admin/allMessages

Implemented in MessagesController.

Responds: A JSON object, containing every known message, regardless of all criteria.

Description: Intended as an administrative or troubleshooting view on the data.

Security: WARNING: Does not apply any access control. Implement access control at the container layer. Whatever access control is appropriate, apply it to the /admin/allMessages path at e.g. the httpd layer. The /admin prefix is intended to facilitate this.

/admin/message/{id}

Implemented in MessagesController.

Responds:

• A JSON representation of the message with the given id, or
• 404 NOT FOUND if no message with requested id

Description: Intended as an administrative or troubleshooting view on the data for a specific message.

Security: WARNING: Does not apply any access control. Implement access control at the container layer. Whatever access control is appropriate, apply it to the /admin/message path at e.g. the httpd layer. The /admin prefix is intended to facilitate this.