How it works

Parapluie is a proxy 

sequenceDiagram
autonumber
Consumer A->>+Parapluie:HTTP GET https://parapluie.io/v1/ressourceA 
note over Consumer A,Parapluie:headers : {Authorization : Bearer token_xxx, userId: foo}
    loop Processing
        Parapluie->>Parapluie: Making sure this request should be forwarded to your-api.com
    end
    
Parapluie->>+Your API:https://your-api.com/v1/ressourceA 
note over Parapluie, Your API:headers : {x-api-key : api_key_xxx, userId: foo}

Your API->>+Parapluie:data
Parapluie->>+Consumer A:data

1. Consumer send a request to Parapluie

Consumer A sends a request to https://parapluie.io/v1/ressourceA with some headers :

{
  "Authorization" : "Bearer token_xxx", 
  "userId": "foo"
  }

Authorization value is an Consumer API key used by Parapluie when processing the query.

Excepted Authorization, all headers will be forwarded AS-IS to your API (in our example userId header).

2. Parapluie process the request

Parapluie starts by processing the Authorization token :

  • Identifying the user - who do you claim to be ?
  • Authenticating the user - prove you’re the one you claim to be ?
  • Authorizing the user - what rules apply to you ?

Once user has been authenticated, Parapluie checks what rules applies to this consumer :

  • Is the requested data cached ?
  • Is this consumer rate limited ?
  • Does the rate limit apply to this query ?

Once rules have been processed, data can either be sent back directly to Consumer A if cached, or the request can be forwarded to your-api.com.

In this example we will suppose no cache exist.

3. Parapluie forward request to your-api.com

When Parapluie forwards a query to your backend API, it will request the same route that was asked by Consumer A, here /v1/ressourceA.

Headers will also be forwarded, with the exception of Authorization : the value of this header is replaced with a secret key that only parapluie and your API know. This is to prevent Consumer A to directly query your API resources (read here why)

4. your-api.com send the data back to parapluie

Finally your API get into action ! This is the part your code do something, like fetching some data from a database for example. This data is then sent back to Parapluie.

5. Parapluie send the data back to Consumer A

The fetched data is then forwarded to Consumer A.

Authentication