API Documentation¶

This is the primary API client to make API calls. It deals with constructing and executing XML-RPC calls against the SoftLayer API. Below are some links that will help to use the SoftLayer API.

>>> import SoftLayer
>>> client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env(username="username", api_key="api_key")
>>> resp = client.call('Account', 'getObject')
>>> resp['companyName']
'Your Company'

Getting Started¶

You can pass in your username and api_key when creating a SoftLayer client instance. However, you can also set these in the environmental variables ‘SL_USERNAME’ and ‘SL_API_KEY’.

Creating a client instance by passing in the username/api_key:

import SoftLayer
client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env(username='YOUR_USERNAME', api_key='YOUR_API_KEY')

Creating a client instance with environmental variables set:

$ export SL_USERNAME=YOUR_USERNAME
$ export SL_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
$ python
>>> import SoftLayer
>>> client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env()

Below is an example of creating a client instance with more options. This will create a client with the private API endpoint (only accessible from the SoftLayer private network) and a timeout of 4 minutes.

client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env(username='YOUR_USERNAME',
                                          api_key='YOUR_API_KEY'
                                          endpoint_url=SoftLayer.API_PRIVATE_ENDPOINT,
                                          timeout=240)

Managers¶

For day-to-day operation, most users will find the managers to be the most convenient means for interacting with the API. Managers abstract a lot of the complexities of using the API into classes that provide a simpler interface to various services. These are higher-level interfaces to the SoftLayer API.

from SoftLayer import VSManager, Client
client = Client(...)
vs = VSManager(client)
vs.list_instances()
[...]

Available managers:

If you need more power or functionality than the managers provide, you can make direct API calls as well.

Making API Calls¶

For full control over your account and services, you can directly call the SoftLayer API. The SoftLayer API client for python leverages SoftLayer’s XML-RPC API. It supports authentication, object masks, object filters, limits, offsets, and retrieving objects by id. The following section assumes you have an initialized client named ‘client’.

The best way to test our setup is to call the getObject method on the SoftLayer_Account service.

client.call('Account', 'getObject')

For a more complex example we’ll retrieve a support ticket with id 123456 along with the ticket’s updates, the user it’s assigned to, the servers attached to it, and the datacenter those servers are in. To retrieve our extra information using an object mask.

Retrieve a ticket using object masks.

ticket = client.call('Ticket', 'getObject',
    id=123456, mask="updates, assignedUser, attachedHardware.datacenter")

Now add an update to the ticket with Ticket.addUpdate. This uses a parameter, which translate to positional arguments in the order that they appear in the API docs.

update = client.call('Ticket', 'addUpdate', {'entry' : 'Hello!'}, id=123456)

Let’s get a listing of virtual guests using the domain example.com

client.call('Account', 'getVirtualGuests',
    filter={'virtualGuests': {'domain': {'operation': 'example.com'}}})

This call gets tickets created between the beginning of March 1, 2013 and March 15, 2013. More information on Object Filters.

NOTE: The value field for startDate and endDate is in [], if you do not put the date in brackets the filter will not work.

client.call('Account', 'getTickets',
    filter={
        'tickets': {
            'createDate': {
                'operation': 'betweenDate',
                'options': [
                    {'name': 'startDate', 'value': ['03/01/2013 0:0:0']},
                    {'name': 'endDate', 'value': ['03/15/2013 23:59:59']}
                ]
            }
        }
    }
)

SoftLayer’s XML-RPC API also allows for pagination.

from pprint import pprint

page1 = client.call('Account', 'getVirtualGuests', limit=10, offset=0)  # Page 1
page2 = client.call('Account', 'getVirtualGuests', limit=10, offset=10)  # Page 2

#Automatic Pagination (v5.5.3+), default limit is 100
result = client.call('Account', 'getVirtualGuests', iter=True, limit=10)
pprint(result)

# Using a python generator, default limit is 100
results = client.iter_call('Account', 'getVirtualGuests', limit=10)
for result in results:
    pprint(result)

NOTE: client.call(iter=True) will pull all results, then return. client.iter_call() will return a generator, and only make API calls as you iterate over the results.

Here’s how to create a new Cloud Compute Instance using SoftLayer_Virtual_Guest.createObject. Be warned, this call actually creates an hourly virtual server so this will have billing implications.

client.call('Virtual_Guest', 'createObject', {
        'hostname': 'myhostname',
        'domain': 'example.com',
        'startCpus': 1,
        'maxMemory': 1024,
        'hourlyBillingFlag': 'true',
        'operatingSystemReferenceCode': 'UBUNTU_LATEST',
        'localDiskFlag': 'false'
    })

Debugging¶

If you ever need to figure out what exact API call the client is making, you can do the following:

NOTE the print_reproduceable method produces different output for REST and XML-RPC endpoints. If you are using REST, this will produce a CURL call. IF you are using XML-RPC, it will produce some pure python code you can use outside of the SoftLayer library.

# Setup the client as usual
client = SoftLayer.Client()
# Create an instance of the DebugTransport, which logs API calls
debugger = SoftLayer.DebugTransport(client.transport)
# Set that as the default client transport
client.transport = debugger
# Make your API call
client.call('Account', 'getObject')

# Print out the reproduceable call
for call in client.transport.get_last_calls():
    print(client.transport.print_reproduceable(call))

Dealing with KeyError Exceptions¶

One of the pain points in dealing with the SoftLayer API can be handling issues where you expected a property to be returned, but none was.

The hostname property of a SoftLayer_Billing_Item is a good example of this.

For example.

# Uses default username and apikey from ~/.softlayer
client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env()
# iter_call returns a python generator, and only makes another API call when the loop runs out of items.
result = client.iter_call('Account', 'getAllBillingItems', iter=True, mask="mask[id,hostName]")
print("Id, hostname")
for item in result:
    # will throw a KeyError: 'hostName' exception on certain billing items that do not have a hostName
    print("{}, {}".format(item['id'], item['hostName']))

The Solution¶

Using the python dictionary’s .get() is great for non-nested items.

print("{}, {}".format(item.get('id'), item.get('hostName')))

Otherwise, this SDK provides a util function to do something similar. Each additional argument passed into utils.lookup will go one level deeper into the nested dictionary to find the item requested, returning None if a KeyError shows up.

itemId = SoftLayer.utils.lookup(item, 'id')
itemHostname = SoftLayer.utils.lookup(item, 'hostName')
print("{}, {}".format(itemId, itemHostname))

API Reference¶

SoftLayer Python API Client¶

SoftLayer API bindings

Usage:

>>> import SoftLayer
>>> client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env(username="username",
                                              api_key="api_key")
>>> resp = client.call('Account', 'getObject')
>>> resp['companyName']
'Your Company'

license: MIT, see LICENSE for more details.

SoftLayer.API¶

SoftLayer API bindings

license: MIT, see LICENSE for more details.

class SoftLayer.API.BaseClient(auth=None, transport=None, config_file=None)[source]¶

Base SoftLayer API client.

Parameters

auth – auth driver that looks like SoftLayer.auth.AuthenticationBase
transport – An object that’s callable with this signature: transport(SoftLayer.transports.Request)

authenticate_with_password(username, password, security_question_id=None, security_question_answer=None)[source]¶

Performs Username/Password Authentication

Parameters

username (string) – your SoftLayer username
password (string) – your SoftLayer password
security_question_id (int) – The security question id to answer
security_question_answer (string) – The answer to the security question

call(service, method, *args, **kwargs)[source]¶

Make a SoftLayer API call.

Parameters

method – the method to call on the service
*args – (optional) arguments for the remote call
id – (optional) id for the resource
mask – (optional) object mask
filter (dict) – (optional) filter dict
headers (dict) – (optional) optional XML-RPC headers
compress (boolean) – (optional) Enable/Disable HTTP compression
raw_headers (dict) – (optional) HTTP transport headers
limit (int) – (optional) return at most this many results
offset (int) – (optional) offset results by this many
iter (boolean) – (optional) if True, returns a generator with the results
verify (bool) – verify SSL cert
cert – client certificate path

Usage:

>>> import SoftLayer
>>> client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env()
>>> client.call('Account', 'getVirtualGuests', mask="id", limit=10)
[...]

iter_call(service, method, *args, **kwargs)[source]¶

A generator that deals with paginating through results.

Parameters

service – the name of the SoftLayer API service
method – the method to call on the service
limit (integer) – result size for each API call (defaults to 100)
*args – same optional arguments that Service.call takes
**kwargs – same optional keyword arguments that Service.call takes

SoftLayer.API.Client(**kwargs)[source]¶

Get a SoftLayer API Client using environmental settings.

Deprecated in favor of create_client_from_env()

class SoftLayer.API.IAMClient(auth=None, transport=None, config_file=None)[source]¶

IBM ID Client for using IAM authentication

Parameters

auth – auth driver that looks like SoftLayer.auth.AuthenticationBase
transport – An object that’s callable with this signature: transport(SoftLayer.transports.Request)

authenticate_with_iam_token(a_token, r_token=None)[source]¶

Authenticates to the SL API with an IAM Token

Parameters

a_token (string) – Access token
r_token (string) – Refresh Token, to be used if Access token is expired.

authenticate_with_passcode(passcode)[source]¶

Performs IBM IAM SSO Authentication

Parameters: passcode (string) – your IBMid password

authenticate_with_password(username, password, security_question_id=None, security_question_answer=None)[source]¶

Performs IBM IAM Username/Password Authentication

Parameters

username (string) – your IBMid username
password (string) – your IBMid password

call(service, method, *args, **kwargs)[source]¶: Handles refreshing IAM tokens in case of a HTTP 401 error

refresh_iam_token(r_token, account_id=None, ims_account=None)[source]¶: Refreshes the IAM Token, will default to values in the config file

class SoftLayer.API.Service(client, name)[source]¶

A SoftLayer Service.

Parameters

client – A SoftLayer.API.Client instance
str (name) – The service name

call(name, *args, **kwargs)[source]¶

Make a SoftLayer API call

Parameters

service – the name of the SoftLayer API service
method – the method to call on the service
*args – same optional arguments that BaseClient.call takes
**kwargs – same optional keyword arguments that BaseClient.call takes
service – the name of the SoftLayer API service

Usage:

>>> import SoftLayer
>>> client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env()
>>> client['Account'].getVirtualGuests(mask="id", limit=10)
[...]

iter_call(name, *args, **kwargs)[source]¶

A generator that deals with paginating through results.

Parameters

method – the method to call on the service
chunk (integer) – result size for each API call
*args – same optional arguments that Service.call takes
**kwargs – same optional keyword arguments that Service.call takes

Usage:

>>> import SoftLayer
>>> client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env()
>>> gen = client.call('Account', 'getVirtualGuests', iter=True)
>>> for virtual_guest in gen:
...     virtual_guest['id']
...
1234
4321

SoftLayer.API.create_client_from_env(username=None, api_key=None, endpoint_url=None, timeout=None, auth=None, config_file=None, proxy=None, user_agent=None, transport=None, verify=True)[source]¶

Creates a SoftLayer API client using your environment.

Settings are loaded via keyword arguments, environemtal variables and config file.

Parameters

username – an optional API username if you wish to bypass the package’s built-in username
api_key – an optional API key if you wish to bypass the package’s built in API key
endpoint_url – the API endpoint base URL you wish to connect to. Set this to API_PRIVATE_ENDPOINT to connect via SoftLayer’s private network.
proxy – proxy to be used to make API calls
timeout (integer) – timeout for API requests
auth – an object which responds to get_headers() to be inserted into the xml-rpc headers. Example: BasicAuthentication
config_file – A path to a configuration file used to load settings
user_agent – an optional User Agent to report when making API calls if you wish to bypass the packages built in User Agent string
transport – An object that’s callable with this signature: transport(SoftLayer.transports.Request)
verify (bool) – decide to verify the server’s SSL/TLS cert. DO NOT SET TO FALSE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THE IMPLICATIONS.

Usage:

>>> import SoftLayer
>>> client = SoftLayer.create_client_from_env()
>>> resp = client.call('Account', 'getObject')
>>> resp['companyName']
'Your Company'

SoftLayer.exceptions¶

Exceptions used throughout the library

license: MIT, see LICENSE for more details.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.ApplicationError(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Application Error.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.IAMError(fault_code, fault_string, url=None)[source]¶: Errors from iam.cloud.ibm.com

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.InternalError(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Internal Server Error.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.InvalidCharacter(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: There was an invalid character.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.InvalidMethodParameters(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Invalid method paramters.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.MethodNotFound(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Method name not found.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.NotWellFormed(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Request was not well formed.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.ParseError(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Parse Error.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.RemoteSystemError(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: System Error.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.ServerError(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Server Error.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.SoftLayerAPIError(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶

SoftLayerAPIError is an exception raised during API errors.

Provides faultCode and faultString properties.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.SoftLayerError[source]¶: The base SoftLayer error.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.SpecViolation(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: There was a spec violation.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.TransportError(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Transport Error.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.Unauthenticated[source]¶: Unauthenticated.

exception SoftLayer.exceptions.UnsupportedEncoding(fault_code, fault_string, *args)[source]¶: Encoding not supported.

SoftLayer.decoration¶

Handy decorators to use

license: MIT, see LICENSE for more details.

SoftLayer.decoration.retry(ex=(<class 'SoftLayer.exceptions.ServerError'>, <class 'SoftLayer.exceptions.ApplicationError'>, <class 'SoftLayer.exceptions.RemoteSystemError'>), tries=4, delay=5, backoff=2, logger=None)[source]¶

Retry calling the decorated function using an exponential backoff.

http://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2009/11/trying-out-retry-decorator-python/ original from: http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonDecoratorLibrary#Retry

Parameters

ex – the exception to check. may be a tuple of exceptions to check
tries – number of times to try (not retry) before giving up
delay – initial delay between retries in seconds. A random 0-5s will be added to this number to stagger calls.
backoff – backoff multiplier e.g. value of 2 will double the delay each retry
logger – logger to use. If None, print

SoftLayer.utils¶

Utility function/classes.

license: MIT, see LICENSE for more details.

class SoftLayer.utils.IdentifierMixin[source]¶

Mixin used to resolve ids from other names of objects.

This mixin provides an interface to provide multiple methods for converting an ‘indentifier’ to an id

resolve_ids(identifier)[source]¶

Takes a string and tries to resolve to a list of matching ids.

What exactly ‘identifier’ can be depends on the resolvers

Parameters: identifier (string) – identifying string
Returns list

class SoftLayer.utils.NestedDict[source]¶

This helps with accessing a heavily nested dictionary.

Dictionary where accessing keys that don’t exist will return another NestedDict object.

to_dict()[source]¶

Converts a NestedDict instance into a real dictionary.

This is needed for places where strict type checking is done.

class SoftLayer.utils.UTC[source]¶

UTC timezone.

dst(_)[source]¶: datetime -> DST offset as timedelta positive east of UTC.

tzname(_)[source]¶: datetime -> string name of time zone.

utcoffset(_)[source]¶: datetime -> timedelta showing offset from UTC, negative values indicating West of UTC

SoftLayer.utils.build_filter_orderby(orderby)[source]¶

Builds filters using the filter options passed into the CLI.

It only supports the orderBy option, the default value is DESC.

SoftLayer.utils.clean_dict(dictionary)[source]¶: Removes any None entires from the dictionary

SoftLayer.utils.clean_splitlines(string)[source]¶: Returns a string where is replaced with

SoftLayer.utils.clean_string(string)[source]¶

Returns a string with all newline and other whitespace garbage removed.

Mostly this method is used to print out objectMasks that have a lot of extra whitespace in them because making compact masks in python means they don’t look nice in the IDE.

Parameters: string – The string to clean.
Returns string: A string without extra whitespace.

SoftLayer.utils.clean_time(sltime, in_format='%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z', out_format='%Y-%m-%d %H:%M')[source]¶

Easy way to format time strings

Parameters

sltime (string) – A softlayer formatted time string
in_format (string) – Datetime format for strptime
out_format (string) – Datetime format for strftime

SoftLayer.utils.console_color_themes(theme)[source]¶: Colors in https://rich.readthedocs.io/en/stable/appendix/colors.html?highlight=light_pink1#standard-colors

SoftLayer.utils.days_to_datetime(days)[source]¶

Returns the datetime value of last N days.

Parameters: days (int) – From 0 to N days
Returns int: The datetime of last N days or datetime.now() if days <= 0.

SoftLayer.utils.decode_stacked(document, pos=0, decoder=<json.decoder.JSONDecoder object>)[source]¶

Used for converting CLI output to JSON datastructures. Specially for unit tests

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27907633/how-to-extract-multiple-json-objects-from-one-file

Example:

split_output = []
# Converts Rich JSON output to actual JSON data. JSON UTIL
for table in utils.decode_stacked(result.output):
    split_output.append(table)

SoftLayer.utils.dict_merge(dct1, dct2)[source]¶

Recursively merges dct2 and dct1, ideal for merging objectFilter together.

Parameters

dct1 – A dictionary
dct2 – A dictionary

Returns

dct1 + dct2

SoftLayer.utils.event_log_filter_between_date(start, end, utc)[source]¶

betweenDate Query filter that SoftLayer_EventLog likes

Parameters

start (string) – lower bound date in mm/dd/yyyy format
end (string) – upper bound date in mm/dd/yyyy format
utc (string) – utc offset. Defaults to ‘+0000’

SoftLayer.utils.event_log_filter_greater_than_date(date, utc)[source]¶

greaterThanDate Query filter that SoftLayer_EventLog likes

Parameters

date (string) – lower bound date in mm/dd/yyyy format
utc (string) – utc offset. Defaults to ‘+0000’

SoftLayer.utils.event_log_filter_less_than_date(date, utc)[source]¶

lessThanDate Query filter that SoftLayer_EventLog likes

Parameters

date (string) – upper bound date in mm/dd/yyyy format
utc (string) – utc offset. Defaults to ‘+0000’

SoftLayer.utils.format_comment(comment, max_line_length=60)[source]¶

Return a string that is length long, added a next line and keep the table format.

Parameters

comment (string) – String you want to add next line
max_line_length (int) – max length for the string

SoftLayer.utils.format_event_log_date(date_string, utc)[source]¶

Gets a date in the format that the SoftLayer_EventLog object likes.

Parameters

date_string (string) – date in mm/dd/yyyy format
utc (string) – utc offset. Defaults to ‘+0000’

SoftLayer.utils.is_ready(instance, pending=False)[source]¶

Returns True if instance is ready to be used

Parameters

instance (Object) – Hardware or Virt with transaction data retrieved from the API
pending (bool) – Wait for ALL transactions to finish?

Returns bool

SoftLayer.utils.lookup(dic, key, *keys)[source]¶

A generic dictionary access helper.

This helps simplify code that uses heavily nested dictionaries. It will return None if any of the keys in *keys do not exist.

>>> lookup({'this': {'is': 'nested'}}, 'this', 'is')
nested

>>> lookup({}, 'this', 'is')
None

SoftLayer.utils.query_filter(query)[source]¶

Translate a query-style string to a ‘filter’.

Query can be the following formats:

Case Insensitive: ‘value’ OR ‘= value’ Contains ‘value’ OR ‘^= value’ Begins with value ‘value’ OR ‘$= value’ Ends with value ‘*value’ OR ‘_= value’ Contains value
Case Sensitive: ‘~ value’ Contains ‘!~ value’ Does not contain ‘> value’ Greater than value ‘< value’ Less than value ‘>= value’ Greater than or equal to value ‘<= value’ Less than or equal to value

Parameters: query (string) – query string

SoftLayer.utils.query_filter_date(start, end)[source]¶

Query filters given start and end date.

:param start:YY-MM-DD :param end: YY-MM-DD

SoftLayer.utils.query_filter_orderby(sort='ASC')[source]¶

Returns an object filter operation for sorting

Parameters: sort (string) – either ASC or DESC

SoftLayer.utils.resolve_ids(identifier, resolvers)[source]¶

Resolves IDs given a list of functions.

Parameters

identifier (string) – identifier string
resolvers (list) – a list of functions

Returns list

SoftLayer.utils.table_color_theme(theme)[source]¶: Define result table colors

SoftLayer.utils.timestamp(date)[source]¶

Converts a datetime to timestamp

Parameters: date (datetime) –
Returns int: The timestamp of date.

SoftLayer.utils.trim_to(string, length=80, tail='...')[source]¶

Returns a string that is length long. tail added if trimmed

Parameters

string (string) – String you want to trim
length (int) – max length for the string
tail (string) – appended to strings that were trimmed.

SoftLayer.utils.verify_date(date)[source]¶

Verify if the date format is correct

Parameters: date (string) – A date in format string

:return a exception if the date is not the correct format