Qlik Sense Repo API (Beta)

Node.js/browser package to interact with Qlik Sense Repository API (QSEoW)

NOT AFFILIATED WITH QLIK

Please check out the Wiki section for details and examples

Installation

npm install qlik-repo-api

Note Node version >= 16.0.0

Authentication

The package itself will NOT perform authentication. All authentication information is passed in the config (see next section).

But multiple authentication configuration can be provided:

• certificates
• JWT
• header
• session
• ticket

Initialization

• JWT

  const repoApi = new QlikRepoApi.client({
    host: "my-sense-server.com",
    proxy: "virtualProxyPrefix", // optional
    authentication: {
      token: "eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9...",
    },
  });

• Certificates

  const https = require("https");
  const fs = require("fs");
  
  // read the certificate files
  const cert = fs.readFileSync(`/path/to/client.pem`);
  const key = fs.readFileSync(`/path/to/client_key.pem`);
  
  // create httpsAgent. Pass the certificate files and ignore any certificate errors (like self-signed certificates)
  const httpsAgentCert = new https.Agent({
    rejectUnauthorized: false,
    cert: cert,
    key: key,
  });
  
  // the actual initialization
  const repoApi = new QlikRepoApi.client({
    host: "my-sense-server.com",
    port: 4242, // optional. default 4242
    httpsAgent: httpsAgentCert,
    authentication: {
      user_dir: "USER-DIRECTORY",
      user_name: "userId",
    },
  });

• Header

  const https = require("https");
  
  // httpsAgent (Node.js only) can be used with other authentication methods to ignore certificate errors (if any)
  const httpsAgentIgnoreSelfSigned = new https.Agent({
    rejectUnauthorized: false,
  });
  
  // the actual initialization
  const repoApi = new QlikRepoApi.client({
    host: "my-sense-server.com",
    proxy: "virtualProxyPrefix",
    httpsAgent: httpsAgentIgnoreSelfSigned,
    authentication: {
      header: "SomeHeader",
      user: "USER-DIRECTORY\\userId",
    },
  });

Browser usage

Although interacting with Qlik Repository API is mainly for automation and administration purposes (backend/server-to-server) this package can be used in browser environment as well.

There are couple of limitations in this case and they are both because of https package not being available in the browser. For this reason certificate config authentication can't be used and any certificate issues can't be ignored (rejectUnauthorized: false).

Methods

Full list of available methods can be found here

Generic clients

The package expose two extra (generic) methods. These methods are not "bound" to specific method/object (aka raw methods). These methods can be used in the cases where this package is not handling some specific endpoint. For them the url and body (for Post and Put methods) must be provided.

• repoClient - client that uses /qrs as prefix. The required url should be passed without the /qrs prefix
• genericClient - client that have no prefix. Useful for downloading temporary files (but not only)

General usage

The package expose few logical methods. For example: apps, streams, users etc. Each of these methods:

• have get method that returns instance of the returned object
• multiple methods that operates on multiple objects.

The get method will then have methods that are operating on the single returned object.

For example:

The apps method will expose the following methods:

If we use the get method then the result variable will have additional methods:

All these methods (copy, export, publish etc.) will be executed in the context of the app id provided in the get method (some-app-id)

details property will contain all the meta data for the app:

The other methods (apart from get) might return array of object instances. For example apps.getFilter method will return an array of app instances:

const someQlikApps = await repoApi.apps.getFilter({
  filter: "name sw 'License Monitor'",
});

The someQlikApps variable will be an array of the App class. Each element of array will have details and the single app methods

Usage examples

Update app

For a single app: change the name, add custom properties and tags

const someQlikApp = await repoApi.apps.get({ id: "some-app-id" });

console.log(someQlikApp.details.name);

const updateResponse = await someQlikApp.update({
  name: "new app name",
  tags: ["tag-name-1", "tag-name-2"],
  customProperties: [
    "customProperty1=value1",
    "customProperty1=value2",
    "customProperty2=some-value",
  ],
});

Update multiple apps

For a single app: change the name, add custom properties and tags

// all apps with their name is starting with "License"
const licenseMonitorApps = await repoApi.apps.getFilter({
  filter: "name sw 'License'",
});

// update each app by adding custom properties
const updateResults = await Promise.all(
  licenseMonitorApps.map((app) =>
    app.update({
      customProperties: [
        "customProperty1=value1",
        "customProperty1=value2",
        "customProperty2=some-value",
      ],
    })
  )
);

Once all apps are updated the updateResults variable will be:

[
  { id: "app-id-1", status: 200 },
  { id: "app-id-2", status: 200 },
  { id: "app-id-3", status: 200 }
  ...
]

As a "side effect" details for each app in licenseMonitorApps will also be updated in the variable and there is no need to call getFilter to retrieve the updated information.

Download files

When downloading content (mainly because of apps) the return data is in stream format (instead of buffer). This for performance reasons. If the apps are small then its not an issue to have them as buffer but some Qlik apps can be few GB in size. Because of this the data have to be streamed.

// get instance of the app
const app = await repoApi.apps.get({
  id: "1111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555",
});

// export the app request
// at this point "stream" variable will have "file" property
// "file" property will be of type IncomingStream
const stream = await app.export();

// prepare the writer. it will write the incoming data to the provided path
const writeToFile = fs.createWriteStream("location/to/write/some-app.qvf");

// Start piping the chunks of incoming data to the stream writer
stream.file.pipe(writeToFile);

// we have to wait for all the data to be received and written
// for this reason we'll "listen" for the "end" event on the stream writer
await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
  stream.file.on("end", () => {
    resolve("");
  });

  stream.file.on("error", () => {
    reject();
  });
});

// at this point the app is completely downloaded
let a = 1;

Upload files

For performance reasons uploading files should be made through streams.

const streamContent = fs.createReadStream("path/to/some-file.qvf");

const app = await repoApi.apps.upload({
  name: "Some app name",
  file: streamContent,
});

Stream data between servers

Corner case but it is possible to stream apps/content from one QS cluster to another (or to multiple).

Since both download and upload app operations are based on streams then we can start downloading an app and at the same time upload it to the destination cluster(s). This way the app/data stays in memory and there is no need to write the output to a local file and then upload it.

// repoApi - source QS cluster. From where the app will be exported
// repoApiDestination - destination QS cluster. Where the app will be imported


// get instance of the app
const sourceApp = await repoApi.apps.get({
  id: "1111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555",
});

// export the app request
// at this point "stream" variable will have "file" property
// "file" property will be of type IncomingStream
const streamSourceApp = await sourceApp.export();

// push the stream (chunked) data to the upload method
// "file" property accepts Buffer or IncomingMessage or createReadStream
// and streamSourceApp.file is of type IncomingMessage
const destinationApp = await repoApiDestination.apps.upload({
  name: "some name", // or if we want the same name - sourceApp.details.name
  file: streamSourceApp.file,
});

//at this point the app is uploaded without being saved locally
let a = 1;

More examples to follow