Authenticating with OAuth v2

Before you start

MailUp REST API follows OAuth 2.0 specification and authorizes only the applications that specify a pair of valid access keys ("Client ID" and "Client Secret") in the authentication process. 

How to get API access keys

To get your access keys, you must register your application by following this procedure:  

• Request a MailUp Developer account.
  
• Log into your MailUp Developer account and click on the "Developer" tab in the navigation bar on the left. You can now request your MailUp API keys by pressing the "+" button and filling out the form. You will be asked to fill out a brief form.
• Then press the "Request keys" button. 
• Finally, you get to a page that contains the "Access keys". You can copy those keys and paste them in your application. When registering your application, you can ignore the "Request publication" button

Basic concepts

Make sure you clearly understand the role of access keys, developer accounts and MailUp user credentials. These notes should be useful:

• Access keys identify a software application (e.g. a plugin for Salesforce that uses MailUp REST API).
  • Access keys are used according to the roles of "client ID" and "client secret" in OAUTH 2.0 specifications.
  • You can use them with any MailUp account, regardless the developer account they were created from.
• A developer account is a free account provided by MailUp to let you either generate one the access keys or to test your application. You cannot generate access keys using a regular account.
  • By requesting a pair of keys, you register your application. So you have to provide details about it and its author.
  • You may also use this developer account to edit the details of your previously registered application(s) and also to apply for adding your application to MailUp's Integration Catalog.
  • A developer account cannot be converted into a production account and you cannot purchase a subscription plan for it. Use it just for the purposes stated above. 
  • You should design your application in such a way that switching from your developer account to a paid production account is very easy. You should be able to switch by simply changing the user credentials in your application. 
• User credentials are the username and the password that identify an user of a specific MailUp account
  • When you start using an application, you are asked to provide the credentials of the MailUp account your application has to be connected to. Only at this moment you are linking a pair of access keys to a MailUp user
  • Since the allowed relationships between access keys and MailUp users are "many-to-many", you can use the same access keys with several MailUp accounts.

Let's get started

Once you get the access keys and you have in mind the basic concepts stated above, you are ready to start developing your application. Authentication with OAuth 2.0 is not a walk in the park, the recommended approach is to check out a piece of working code form Samples and Wrappers.

Anyway, if you are not familiar with any of the programming language of our samples, or if you want to know more, you can have a look at the following chapter and also at the pages it refers to.

Technical reference

Authorization and authentication

The MailUp REST API uses OAuth v2 as the authorization and authentication method for validating access to the API resources.

• Your application will be authorized to communicate with MailUp using a pair of access keys ("Client ID" and "Client Secret") that you have previously generated by means of a "developer account".
• Users of your application will be authenticated using their regular MailUp user credentials

The following endpoints have to be used:

• https://services.mailup.com/Authorization/OAuth/LogOn (to start the authorization code grant flow) 
• https://services.mailup.com/Authorization/OAuth/Token (to get or refresh an access token)
  
  

In case an error occurs during the authorization process, HTTP 400 status code is returned. HTTP 200 or 302 is returned in case of successful authorization. Error descriptions and formats are stated in the OAuth2 protocol documentation, so please refer to it for further details. 

Depending on how authorization requests are made, responses can be JSON messages, form encoded data or query string parameters. The OAuth v2 protocol better defines the response data format, according to the different flows. Being OAuth v2 a framework, several authorization flows are supported; they are named "Grants" and can be listed as follows:

• Authorization code grant;
• Implicit grant;
• Resource owner password grant;
• Client credentials grant.

MailUp authorization server can support all of these OAuth v2 grant flows, however we recommend using the "Authorization code grant flow". In a few very special scenarios, e.g. in case of trusted internal application, other flows can be implemented. 

Authorization code grant (recommended) 

Authorization code grant (aka "3-legged") is a little bit more complex than the others, but it is robust and safe. In particular, authentication is done on a MailUp page. For your client application there is no need of storing user credentials, which may become invalid if you change your password. You simply have to call that page passing both the application keys and the URL of your callback page the authentication tokens are returned to. Once you have the tokens you can go on with them. You can use them whenever you need to access to an API resource. You just only have to refresh the access token when it expires. There is no need of any further authorization flow unless you have to connect your application to a different MailUp user.

curl "https://services.mailup.com/Authorization/OAuth/LogOn?client_id=MYCLIENTID&client_secret=MYCLIENTSECRET&response_type=code&redirect_uri=MYCALLBACKURL"
 
Examples:
- MYCALLBACKURL=http://127.0.0.1:8080/rest/index.html
- MYCLIENTID=0a111fe1-aaaa-bbbb-cccc-f33d3d3efcd3
- MYCLIENTSECRET=f00b000e-aaaa-bbbb-cccc-8f2a92111dde
 
Note: you have to provide a callback page that accepts POST parameters in this format:
	{ "access_token":"MYACCESSTOKEN", "expires_in":900, "refresh_token":"MYREFRESHTOKEN"}

Resource Owner Password Grant 

Using the Resource Owner Password Grant (aka "password flow") you can call a resource and immediately get the tokens in the response. There are some warnings you should care about:

• password may change, if you save it on your client your application may stop working when stored password is no more valid
• if you store the password on your client you are responsible of keeping it safe

curl -X POST -d "grant_type=password&client_id=MYCLIENTID&client_secret=MYCLIENTSECRET&username=MYUSERNAME&password=MYPASSWORD" /
		https://services.mailup.com/Authorization/OAuth/Token


Examples:
- MYUSERNAME=m1234
- MYCLIENTID=0a111fe1-aaaa-bbbb-cccc-f33d3d3efcd3
- MYCLIENTSECRET=f00b000e-aaaa-bbbb-cccc-8f2a92111dde

Response:
{	"access_token":"MYACCESSTOKEN",
	"expires_in":900,
	"refresh_token":"MYREFRESHTOKEN"}
 

Resource access

After passing the authorization process, the client application impersonates a MailUp user. Then, the resources the user is enabled to get or set are accessible by calling related API endpoints. For more detailed information about available resources and related API methods, please refer to the specific documentation of the REST API Resources. 

 According to OAuth v2 specification, an access token needs to be provided in the request's HTTP header in order to access protected information/resources. MailUp API requires using the "Bearer Token". Please check out the example below or refer to the RFC 6750 page for details.

curl -H "Authorization:Bearer MYACCESSTOKEN" /
		-H "Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded" MYRESOURCEENDPOINT 
 
Examples:
- MYRESOURCEENDPOINT = https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/ConsoleService.svc/Console/List/1/Groups

Request format

These are the available resource endpoints:

• https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/ConsoleService.svc (email and SMS channels)
• https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/MailStatisticsService.svc (email statistics)
• https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/PublicService.svc (reserved to applications enabled for account provisioning)
• https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/RetailerService.svc (reserved to enabled retailers)

The structure of the exchanged information is detailed in the automatic web documentation, available by appending "/help" to any endpoint's URL address. 

Any API resource supports some of the following HTTP verbs:

• GET: used to retrieve a resource;
• POST: used to create a new resource;
• PUT: used to modify an existing resource;
• DELETE: used to eliminate an existing resource;

The message request format (XML or JSON) should be declared by specifying the "Content-Type" header field. 

Access restrictions

An application can access to an account's resources only if it has been registered through a developer account and a valid access token is provided.

In addition to these main criteria, the resource access may be subject to one or more of the following constraints (others may be added in the future):

1. Account or user restrictions: when accessing from API impersonating a MailUp user, you will find the same restrictions that you have when you log in to the MailUp web application with the same user. E.g. a maximum number of total mailings for trial accounts, possible restrictions on MailUp lists accessible to an user in case of multi-user accounts...
2. Frequency of calls (Rate Limiting): a check is performed on the frequency of the calls by the method, enabling only the calls which fall within a defined range of calls per second (the default value is 5 per second, HTTP 403 is returned when this limit is exceeded)

MailUp reserves the right at any time to limit, suspend or ban any user or client application that may be found abusing of the API services.

Response format

The resource endpoints respond to a request by returning data in either JSON or XML format depending on the value of the "Accept" header parameter specified in the request.

// JSON format (default)
curl -X GET https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/ConsoleService.svc/Console/Authentication/Info \
  -H 'accept: application/json' -H 'authorization: Bearer MYTOKEN' -H 'cache-control: no-cache' -H 'content-type: application/json'
 
// XML format
curl -X GET https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/ConsoleService.svc/Console/Authentication/Info \
  -H 'accept: application/xml' -H 'authorization: Bearer MYTOKEN' -H 'cache-control: no-cache' -H 'content-type: application/xml' 

Please check out the Resources section or refer to the automatic web documentation to learn more about data format. 

In case of successful access to the requested resource, an HTTP 200 status code is returned, along with requested data.
Should an error occur (e.g. caused by malformed request, invalid token, frequency call restrictions or user access privilege limitations), the following error codes are returned:

• HTTP 400 (Bad request): request malformed, or missing one or more parameters.
• HTTP 401 (Unauthorized): token expired, revoked, malformed or invalid for any other reason.
• HTTP 403 (Forbidden): the application is requesting a resource which is not in the scope of the impersonated user. 
• HTTP 429 (Too many requests): it is returned in case of too many requests per second on a single API resource.
• HTTP 500 (Internal error): returned in case of any resource server internal problem.

OAuth v2 error codes and error descriptions are returned either as a detail part of the raised fault or as a header parameter as stated in the Bearer token documentation.

In case of expired token you need to refresh it (HTTP 401)

in case of HTTP 401 error you need to refresh the authorization token, getting a new one by means of the refresh token 

// #1 When resource access fails because token is expired
curl -H "Authorization:Bearer MYACCESSTOKEN" /
		-H "Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded" MYRESOURCEENDPOINT 
Response:{"ErrorCode":"401","ErrorDescription":"Authorization error: Access token is expired","ErrorName":"Unauthorized","ErrorStack":null}
 
// #2 First you need to get a new token
curl -X POST -d "client_id=MYCLIENTID&client_secret=MYCLIENTSECRET&refresh_token=MYREFRESHTOKEN&grant_type=refresh_token" /
		https://services.mailup.com/Authorization/OAuth/Token
Response:{	"access_token":"MYNEWACCESSTOKEN","expires_in":900,"refresh_token":"MYREFRESHTOKEN"}

 
// #3 Then you can successfully access to the resource by using the new token
curl -H "Authorization:Bearer MYNEWACCESSTOKEN" /
		-H "Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded" MYRESOURCEENDPOINT 

Access errors due to "Contract not signed" (HTTP 403)

Access to MailUp resource may fail if the authenticated user has not signed the "Terms of service" yet. When this happens, you simply have to access to MailUp admin console using the same user and accept terms and conditions that are displayed immediately after user login.

curl -H "Authorization:Bearer MYACCESSTOKEN" /
		-H "Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded" /
		https://services.mailup.com/API/v1.1/Rest/ConsoleService.svc/Console/List/1/Groups

Response:
{	"ErrorCode":"403",
	"ErrorDescription":"Authorization error: Contract not signed, please login in console and accept terms of service.",
	"ErrorName":"Forbidden",
	"ErrorStack":null}