Custom XML into on-premise ION via HTTPS with basic authentication only

Legacy Contributor

I need to be able to receive a custom XML into an on-premise ION via HTTPS with basic authentication only. Transformation into an EAM supported BOD would occur within ION document flow. First thought was the native IONMessagingService would be suitable but understand OAuth2 is required. Any options on how I might solve this problem?

More info ... I've got a SaaS product with limited posting capability and we cannot stand up intermediate hops for transformations and/or authentication adjustments before ION.

Legacy Contributor

Hi Tim, 

There is no straight forward solution for this use case.. But there are some options. here are my thoughts. 

1. What you already said as - not possible - is the official solution available today. i.e., using REST/ OAuth2 you can do this today. 
2. Instead of looking at IMS via ION API, you can also consider directly pinging the IMS API using a regular IMS connection point. THe only difference is, then you can use OAuth1 (instead of Oauth2). Not sure if that helps in any way. 
3. Other option, just because this is an ION OP setup is - you can use the ION Webservice connector which supports a Basic authentication and allows you to call an API on a schedule. So if you put this step as the first step in your data flow, you can Poll and Pull data on a schedule. Again, I think you are asking for a "Push" pattern where as this option allows you to pull using Basic authentication if you have this API running somewhere already. 

Based on your requirement, i think NONE of the above 3 may end up being relevant. But I wanted to list them out, just in case any of these channels are viable. 

Looking at your requirement as it is, following option may be your best bet yet. But even that require a customization and some risks. 

As you know Infor OS OP runs on a Grid platform. You can also upload regular Java web applications (i.e., 'war' files) in grid. See the grid admin guide: https://support.infor.com/esknowbase/root/DLPublic/48703/iongrid_12.0.2.0_iongridag__en-us.pdf -> Page 87 for details. 

You could consider, writing a simple Java web application which supports Basic auth, manages its own user identity internally, and all it does is to receive the payload in your service and write it to a local folder. All this happens outside of ION. Once the file is in a local folder on the local network, you can let an ION file connection point pick it up and transfer/ send it to where you want with a separate data flow. 

This approach does have its risks - For One, Basic authentication in itself is the most breakable authenticaton over internet. If I am right the password just goes over the wire in plain text (or with an insignificant base 64 encoding). this is why we provide an official interface through better security standards. Secondly you are hosting this web application on the same mothership as OS installation server, Its all well isolated, but you do run the risk of the system competing for hardware resources with this web application or other malicious code that may get injected into this system.. Next to this, you need to expose this web applicaition to external network, thereby directly exposing part of the core OS server. So the security risk is considerable.. But you don't need an additional infrastructure just to develop and host your custom application. 

Hope this opens up some avenues for you. 

Best Regards

Vignesh