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_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.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.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.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.