Authentication for RESTful APIs
Lately I've been working on designing authentication (authN) and authorization (authZ) services for an API Gateway layer sitting on top of a collection supposedly RESTful APIs written by a diverse and disconnected population of developers. One of the many challenges I've faced is that it turns out that "REST" means different things to different people. I've been looking for a simple way to explain to developers what a high quality RESTful API looks and functions like. While I have found some good material, I felt I needed pull together a few different concepts, so I wrote this. Why is being fully RESTful important? Turns out that poorly designed and implemented, RESTful APIs are harder to design authentication and authorization services. First I want to discuss RESTful APIs in general, so we can agree on what they are and are not. Then I will explain why weakly RESTful APIs are harder to implement authN/Z. Reading the documentation for supposedly "RE