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So friends let's go and check out the REST API for Cisco DNA Center otherwise

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known as

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Catalyst Center. So as you may know as I like to do for exploring a REST API

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particularly for

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the very first time is just go straight to the documentation it's the best

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place to find that

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information. So if you happen to search for Cisco DNA Center REST API

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documentation let's go down to

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this link right here for the quick start and as we can see here this

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documentation gives you

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pretty much all you need to explore Cisco's DNA Center we have the general
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pretty much all you need to explore Cisco's DNA Center we have the general

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overview of the

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actual platform right here. You have examples so on so forth but the very first

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thing that I

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really want to focus in on is this concept right here of authentication. Really

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try to remember

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this when it comes to Cisco DNA Center's API we are going to be using a token

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based authentication

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pretty much what that means is that before we do anything we're going to have

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to get this token

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and once we have it we will use it in all the follow-up requests. So an example
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and once we have it we will use it in all the follow-up requests. So an example

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below what we

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actually have here is a Python script but in our case we're going to be doing

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this just simply

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utilizing Postman but there is some good information that we have right here.

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First thing I want you

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to notice this endpoint right here this is the endpoint we use when we want to

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get our token. Now

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when I say get or token this is the next thing that I want to highlight to you

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because intuitively

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when you want to get something and you're thinking of raised APIs you might

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well assume that we're

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going to be sending a get request in this case here this is not what we're
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going to be sending a get request in this case here this is not what we're

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going to do when we want

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to get a token we actually want to send a post request and I know it's kind of

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confusing not

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really the most intuitive thing but really really important to remember the

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post request is how we

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actually get that token and once we've got it well then they can really begin

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exploring the API.

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Now another point to note that we can see from this information is that the way

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we actually get

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this token it's not just a post request we send to this particular endpoint we
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this token it's not just a post request we send to this particular endpoint we

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also have to supply

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two vital pieces of information we're going to have HTTP basic authentication

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and that includes a

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username and password from that point we should effectively return a token key

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and inside that

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key will actually get the token that we can then use. Okay so again if we just

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scroll on down we're

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going to see information relating to the error codes the responses so on so

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forth if you so wish

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read this in your own time what I want to do now though as I want to use my
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read this in your own time what I want to do now though as I want to use my

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favorite tool to explore

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a raised API and that is postman we've seen this till before in earlier skills

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so let's just go

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and pull that up then so over on postman all I will do is choose new and I will

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create a HTTP

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request okay okay so the very first thing that we're going to have to do here

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is we are going to

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have to find an endpoint that we can actually target there's no point just

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sending these requests

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if we are not talking to Cisco DNA sensor now the best place to test out Cisco
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if we are not talking to Cisco DNA sensor now the best place to test out Cisco

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products if you

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don't actually have them on site and available to you is to go to the devnet

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sandbox so this

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is exactly what I'm going to do so once again let's go and pull up another

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window within our browser

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so let's search for Cisco devnet sandbox click on this right here and let me

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just zoom it a

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little bit so you can see it all you have to do is to log in and then choose to

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launch the sandbox

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now remember Cisco DNA center is now revamped and renamed as catalyst center so

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let's just search

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for center this is the one that I want to use the always on sandbox doesn't
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for center this is the one that I want to use the always on sandbox doesn't

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require any type of

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reservation so if I just click this here okay I'm just zoom out a little touch

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if we go to the

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access details here we can see this is how we actually access the sandbox in

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fact we can just

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test it out very briefly let's just copy this URL open up a new tab paste it in

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and what I'm going to

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do is I'm going to supply the information that I need to log in that's going to

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be the username

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and the password now if you can see here the username is devnet user so let's

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just paste this in and

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for the password it's simply as we can see right here Cisco 123 exclamation
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for the password it's simply as we can see right here Cisco 123 exclamation

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marks let's just copy

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this and paste your in let's log in and now we have access so obviously this is

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available to us the

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credentials are correct we don't want to log in though directly via the UI we

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want to be going

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and authenticating with postman to send these API requests so let's use that

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same information

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this time in postman so let's go back to our application right here what I'm

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going to do is

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I'm going to paste in the URL again just grab your right here copy and in order
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I'm going to paste in the URL again just grab your right here copy and in order

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to authenticate

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we're going to have to use a very particular endpoints remember from the

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documentation let me just

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pull us over a little touch scrolling on up let's go back to authentication

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look at the example

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this particular end point here is the one we want to append so let's copy this

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we go back here

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and just do forward slash paste that send a file that's an extra forward slash

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let's get rid of that

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and remember very important we don't want to send a get request we want to send
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and remember very important we don't want to send a get request we want to send

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a post request so

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let's make sure that's the case now also we're going to have to specify what

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our authorization is

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going to be we're going to use basic authentication so I will say DevNet user

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is going to be the login

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and the password will be Cisco 123 exclamation mark so if that's now done we

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have the post request

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we have the actual always on sandbox we're targeting the correct end point to

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get the token in

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of supplied the correct username and password with this now done we should be

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able to send off the

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request and get the response so let's just click send here all right so we
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request and get the response so let's just click send here all right so we

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actually get this token

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key back and more importantly we actually get the value of the token so let's

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just copy it this okay

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and from this point on we are going to use this value to make any subsequent

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request to Cisco

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DNA Center the actual request that you want to get information about the

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devices under the

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management of DNA Center so check this out all we'll do is create a new HTTP

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request once again

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no we do know we're going to be targeting the always on sandbox such as paste
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no we do know we're going to be targeting the always on sandbox such as paste

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this in as a base value

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for the authorization though this time we're actually going to get that by

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passing in values

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via our headers so here's what i'm going to do the key here and this is

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actually very important to

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remember if we happen to scroll further down looking at the python example

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right here what we're

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actually doing is presenting a get request to get information about IP

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addresses of a particular

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network device okay now within the headers we have two headers we have a

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content type header

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specifying we want JSON but this is the part that i really want to highlight in
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specifying we want JSON but this is the part that i really want to highlight in

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all of our requests

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we want to be supplying within the headers this particular key right here x off

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token and then

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the corresponding value will be the token that we just got in that previous

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request and from this

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point on this is how we're going to be allowed to get the information about

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this particular endpoints

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so let's go and just fill that information in right now the content type and

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the x off token

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so within the headers we'll just say x off token and the corresponding value
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so within the headers we'll just say x off token and the corresponding value

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all i will do is i'll

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paste in the token that i just got in the previous request so let's go here

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paste in this value

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there we go okay so we should have the information needed to make the request

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but what are the

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available endpoints once again we can find this directly from the documentation

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so if we just

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scroll on down we can see these other options in the left hand side so you want

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to get information

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about devices let's click this right here notice we have this option for end
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about devices let's click this right here notice we have this option for end

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points and methods

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used let's click this right here and see some examples so we've already seen

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this one right here

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we send a poster quest to get the authorization token we stole that token and

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then use it for

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these types of requests right here okay if we want to get information about

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network devices

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just generally we could grab this endpoints and remember now it's going to be a

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get request

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not a post request so let's paste in this new value make sure we're going to

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use a get request

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this time we have the x off token and with that now done if i just click send
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this time we have the x off token and with that now done if i just click send

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here we send off

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the request and now we actually get back a 200 status code okay so if we just

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go and inspect the

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response what we're actually seeing here are a whole bunch of different devices

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under the

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management of DNA center here is the first one right here the switch we can see

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it's MAC address

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right here and things like the software version the serial number of that

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device it's uptime so

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on so forth and if i just scroll on down we're going to eventually see we have

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another device
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another device

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under our control and this has a different MAC address with a different serial

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number so on

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so forth and again scrolling on down more and more devices under the management

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of Cisco DNA

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center and again if i want to get other information like go back to the

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documentation let's maybe

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say i want to i don't know let's go with health monitoring okay what can i do

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choose endpoints

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and methods use we can see we can send a get request to get network health let

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's grab this

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right here as we know as per the request the headers still have the x off token
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right here as we know as per the request the headers still have the x off token

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with this value

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all i will do now is send a get request change the end point paste this in and

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if i click send

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we send off the request we get the 200's data's code back and now this time we

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're getting different

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information related to the net work health and as we can see here we have a

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health score of 100

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so really as a recap when we're going to be interacting with the DNA center

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rest API we're

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going to have to first send a post request to gather a token for our

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authentication once we have

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this token we're going to pass it in to future requests with our headers and
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this token we're going to pass it in to future requests with our headers and

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the header is going

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to have this x off token key and then we pass in that particular value from

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this point on this is

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how we're going to make all of our requests this will be our validation so to

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speak and then all

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we do specify the end point that we want to target for the particular

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information that we want

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and then use the correct HTTP method whether it's a get request or post request

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we can find that

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information directly from a documentation by choosing the information that we
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information directly from a documentation by choosing the information that we

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want go to say for example

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path trace look at the end points and method used in the case here we have a

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post request correlating

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to this end point if you want to get flow analysis we can send a post request

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to make a change to

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our flow analysis right here if you want to delete information well we can

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target this particular end

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point this time with a delete request so on so forth but like i say the crucial

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point is that token

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is baked in to all of these requests.