This article has been depreciated, for current information on working with FME and REST, see the FME Server REST API Training course.
A common requirement when leveraging web services inside other apps is the need to deal with two security concepts:
- Authorization
- Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
These concepts apply to FME Server web services as well, regardless of whether they are RPC or REST-based.
Create Repository
FME Server enforces usage policies for workspaces at the level of the repository. By granting a policy to use a repository you are authorizing access to use all of the workspaces in that repository. So, before you can authorize use of workspaces, you must first create a repository.
- Open the FME Server Web User Interface > Home > Run Workspace
- Click the New button to create the repository
- Repository Name: webservices
Authorize External Applications
To use a FME Server web service, the requesting client must be authorized. So far you have accessed the web services using the same web browser that you logged into the Web User Interface. So, the authorization for the web service was already established. However, the web service we’re building won’t require an explicit login by the user (it could if we wanted to). So you will need a token to authorize the web service calls. You should use a dedicated user and token for this project.
- Open the FME Server Web User Interface > Manage > Administration > Security
Create a new user:
- User Name: parkservice
- Full Name: Park Service Account
- Password: fordemoonly
- Create a new role:
- Role Name: parkservice
- Users: parkservice
- Configure Role Policies:
- Role: parkservice
- Remove all policies.
- Allow: Data Streaming, Job Submitter and Token Security Services
- Allow Run and Read for: webservices repository
- click ‘Apply Changes’
- Open the token interface:
- http://<host>:<port>/fmetoken/
- Enter username/password as above.
- Set the expiration to 720 days (this is the default maximum lifetime of a token)
- Click Generate
Record the token for later use. If you forget the token, come here later, login and click View instead of Generate.
Allow Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
To allow web apps from separate hosts (i.e. origins) to use web services provided by FME Server you need to configure FME Server to allow that host access using the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) filter.- Open the FME Server Web User Interface > Manage > Administration > CORS
- Click Load Template > Allow Specific Hosts
- For Allowed Origins, delete the existing URLs and add the base URL where your web app will be served from.
- Click Save and Apply
