Patrons Account Information API (PAIA)

Jakob Voß

2012-11-19 11:27:31 +0100

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

The Patrons Account Information API (PAIA) is a HTTP based programming interface to access library patron information, such as loans, reservations, and fees. Its primary goal is to provide patron access for discovery interfaces and other third-party applications to integrated library system, as easy as possible.

1.1 Status of this document

The specification has been created collaboratively based on use cases and taking into account existing related standards and products such as NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP), [X]SLNP, DLF-ILS recommendations, and VuFind ILS drivers among others.

Updates and sources can be found at http://github.com/gbv/paia. The current version of this document was last modified at 2012-11-19 11:27:31 +0100 with revision 060b5df.

1.2 Conformance requirements

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

A PAIA server MUST implement PAIA core and it MAY implement PAIA auth. If PAIA auth is not implemented, another way SHOULD BE documented to distribute patron identifiers and access tokens. A PAIA server MAY support only a subset of methods but it MUST return a valid response or error response on every method request, as defined in this document.

2 General

PAIA consists of two independent parts:

Each method is accessed at an URL with a common base URL for PAIA core methods and common base URL for PAIA auth methods. A server SHOULD NOT provide additional methods at these base URLs and it MUST NOT propagate additional methods at these base URLs as belonging to PAIA.

In the following, the base URL https://example.org/core/ is used for PAIA core and https://example.org/auth/ for PAIA auth.

Authentification in PAIA is based on OAuth 2.0 (RFC 6749) with bearer tokens (RFC 6750) over HTTPS (RFC 2818). For security reasons, PAIA methods MUST be requested via HTTPS only. A PAIA client MUST NOT ignore SSL certificate errors; otherwise access token (PAIA core) or even password (PAIA auth) are compromised by the client.

2.1 Request and response format

Each PAIA method is identified by an URL and a HTTP verb (either HTTP GET or HTTP POST). For POST methods a request body MUST be included in JSON format (Content-Type: application/json or application/json; charset=utf-8). A PAIA auth server MAY additionally accept URL-encoded HTTP POST request bodies with content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

In addition there is the special request parameter access_token for an access token, which can be sent either as HTTP query parameter or in a HTTP request header.

The HTTP response content type of a PAIA response is a JSON object (HTTP header Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8), optionally wrapped as JSONP (HTTP header Content-Type: application/javascript; charset=utf-8).

Every request parameter and every response field is defined with

Simple parameter names and response fields consist of lowercase letters a-z only.

Repeatable response fields are encoded as JSON arrays, for instance:

{ "foo": ["x","y"] }

Hierarchical JSON structures in this document are refereced with a dot (.) as separator. For instance the subfield/paramater item of the doc is referenced as doc.item would refer to the following JSON structure:

{ "doc" : [ { "item" : "..." } ] }

2.2 Special request parameters

The following special request parameters can be added to any request as URL query parameters:

callback
A JavaScript callback method name to return JSONP instead of JSON. The callback SHOULD only contain alphanumeric characters and underscores; any invalid characters MUST be stripped by a PAIA server. If callback is given, the response content type MUST be application/javascript.
suppress_response_codes
If this parameter is present, all responses MUST be returned with a 200 OK status code, even error responses.

2.3 Access tokens and scopes

All PAIA methods, with login from PAIA auth as only exception, require an access token as special request parameter. The access token is a so called bearer token as described in RFC 6750. The access token can be send either as URL query parameter or in a HTTP header. For instance the following requests both get information about patron 123 with access token vF9dft4qmT:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer vF9dft4qmT" https://example.org/core/patron/123
curl -H https://example.org/core/patron/123?access_token=vF9dft4qmT

An access token is valid for a limited set of actions, referred to as scope. The following scopes are possible:

read_patron
Get patron information by the patron method.
read_fees
Get fees of a patron by the fees method.
read_items
Get a patron’s item information by the items method.
write_items
Request, renew, and cancel items by the request, renew, and cancel methods.

For instance a particular token with scopes read_patron and read_items may be used to for read-only access to information about a patron, including its loans and requested items but not its fees.

A PAIA core server SHOULD send the following HTTP headers with every response:

X-OAuth-Scopes
A space-separated list of scopes, the current token has authorized
X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes
A space-separated list of scopes, the current method checks for

2.4 Error response

Two classes of errors must be distinguished:

Document errors

Unknown document URIs and failed attempts to request, renew, or cancel a document do not result in an error response. Instead they are indicated by the doc.error response field.

Request errors

Malformed requests, failed authentification, unsupported methods, and unexpected server errors such as backend downtime etc. MUST result in an error response. An error response is returned with a HTTP status code 4xx (client error) or 5xx (server error) as defined in RFC 2616, unless the request parameter suppress_response_codes is given.

The response body of a request error is a JSON object with the following fields (compatible with OAuth error response):

name occ data type description
error 1..1 string alphanumerical error code
code 0..1 nonnegative integer HTTP status error code
error_description 0..1 string Human-readable error description
error_uri 0..1 string Human-readable web page about the error

The code field is REQUIRED with request parameter suppress_response_codes in PAIA core. It SHOULD be omitted with PAIA auth requests to not confuse OAuth clients.

The following error responses are expected:1

error code description
not_found 404 Unknown request URL or unknown patron. Implementations SHOULD first check authentification and prefer error invalid_grant or access_denied to prevent leaking patron identifiers.
not_implemented 501 Known but unspupported request URL (for instance a PAIA auth server server may not implement http://example.org/core/change)
invalid_request 405 Unexpected HTTP verb (all but GET, POST, HEAD)
invalid_request 400 Malformed request (for instance error parsing JSON, unsupported request content type, etc.)
invalid_request 422 The request parameters could be parsed but they don’t match to the request method (for instance missing fields, invalid values, etc.)
invalid_grant 401 The access token was missing, invalid, or expired
insufficient_scope 403 The access token was accepted but it lacks permission for the request
access_denied 403 Wrong or missing credentials to get an access token
internal_error 500 An unexpected error ocurred. This error corresponds to a bug in the implementation of a PAIA auth/core server
service_unavailable 503 The request couldn’t be serviced because of a temporary failure
bad_gateway 502 The request couldn’t be serviced because of a backend failure (for instance the library system’s database)
gateway_timeout 504 The request couldn’t be serviced because of a backend failure

For instance the following response could result from a request with malformed URIs

{
  "error": "invalid_request",
  "code": "422",
  "error_description": "malformed item identifier provided: must be an URI",
  "error_uri": "http://example.org/help/api"
}

2.5 Data types

The following data types are used to define request and response format:

string
A Unicode string. Strings MAY be empty.
nonnegative integer
An integer number larger than or equal to zero.
boolean
Either true or false. Note that omitted boolean values are not false by default but unknown!
date
A date value in YYYY-MM-DD format.
money
A monetary value with currency (format [0-9]+\.[0-9][0-9] [A-Z][A-Z][A-Z]), for instance 0.80 USD.
email
syntactically correct email address.
URI
syntactically correct URI.
account state

A nonnegative integer representing the current state of a patron account. Possible values are:

  1. active
  2. inactive
  3. inactive because account expired
  4. inactive because of outstanding fees
A PAIA server MAY define additional states which can be mapped to 1 by PAIA clients. In JSON account states MUST be encoded as numbers instead of strings.
document status

A nonegative integer representing the current relation between a particular document and a particular patron. Possible values are:

  1. no relation (this applies to most combinations of document and patron, and it can be expected if no other state is given)
  2. reserved (the document is not accesible for the user yet, but it will be)
  3. ordered (the document is beeing made accesible for the user)
  4. held (the document is on loan by the patron)
  5. provided (the document is ready to be used by the patron)
  6. rejected

A PAIA server MUST NOT define any other document states. In JSON document status MUST be encoded as numbers instead of strings.

document

A key-value structure with the following fields

name occ data type description
status 1..1 document status status (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5)
item 0..1 URI URI of a particular copy
edition 0..1 URI URI of a the document (no particular copy)
requested 0..1 URI URI that was originally requested
about 0..1 string textual description of the document
label 0..1 string call number, shelf mark or similar item label
queue 0..1 nonnegative integer number of waiting requests for the document or item
renewals 0..1 nonnegative integer number of times the document has been renewed
reminder 0..1 nonnegative integer number of times the patron has been reminded
duedate 0..1 date date of expiry of the document statue (most times loan)
cancancel 0..1 boolean whether an ordered or provided document can be canceled
canrenew 0..1 boolean whether a document can be renewed
error 0..1 string error message, for instance if a request was rejected
storage 0..1 string location of the document
storageid 0..1 URI location URI

For each document at least an item URI or an edition URI MUST be given. The response fields label, storage, storageid, and queue correspond to properties in DAIA.

An example of a document (with status 5=rejected) serialized in JSON is given below. In this case an arbitrary copy of a selected document was requested and mapped to a particular copy that turned out to be not accesible:

{
   "status":    5,
   "item":      "http://example.org/items/barcode1234567",
   "edition":   "http://example.org/documents/9876543",
   "requested": "http://example.org/documents/9876543",
   "error":     "sorry, we found out that our copy is lost!"
}

3 PAIA core

Each API method of PAIA core is accessed at an URL that includes the URI-escaped patron identifier.

3.1 patron

purpose
Get general information about a patron
HTTP verb and URL
GET https://example.org/core/{uri_escaped_patron_identifier}
scope
read_patron
response fields
name occ data type description
name 1..1 string full name of the patron
email 0..1 email email address of the patron
expires 0..1 date date of patron account expiry
status 0..1 account state current state (0, 1, 2, or 3)

Additional field such as address may be added in a later revision.

Example

GET /core/patron/123 HTTP/1.1
Host: example.org
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Bearer a0dedc54bbfae4b
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes: read_patron
X-OAuth-Scopes: read_patron, read_fees, read_items, write_items
{
  "name": "Jane Q. Public", 
  "email": "jane@example.org",
  "expires": "2013-05-18",
  "status": 0
}

3.2 items

purpose
Get a list of loans, reservations and other items related to a patron
HTTP verb and URL
GET https://example.org/core/{uri_escaped_patron_identifier}/items
scope
read_item
response fields
name occ data type description
doc 0..n document list of documents (order is irrelevant)

In most cases, each document will have an item URI for a particular copy, but users may also have requested an edition.

3.3 renew

purpose
renew one or more documents held by the patron
HTTP verb and URL
POST https://example.org/core/{uri_escaped_patron_identifier}/renew
scope
write_item
request parameters
doc 1..n list of documents to renew
doc.item 0..1 URI URI of a particular item
doc.edition 0..1 URI URI of a particular edition
response fields
name occ data type description
doc 1..n document list of documents (order is irrelevant)

3.4 request

purpose
Request one or more items for reservation or delivery.
HTTP verb and URL
POST https://example.org/core/{uri_escaped_patron_identifier}/request
scope
write_item
request parameters
name occ data type description
doc 1..n list of documents to renew
doc.item 0..1 URI URI of a particular item
doc.edition 0..1 URI URI of a particular edition
doc.storage 0..1 string Requested pickup location
doc.storageid 0..1 URI Requested pickup location
response fields
name occ data type description
doc 1..n document list of documents (order is irrelevant)

3.5 cancel

purpose
Cancel requests for items.
HTTP verb and URL
POST https://example.org/core/{uri_escaped_patron_identifier}/cancel
scope
write_item
request parameters
name occ data type
doc 1..n list of documents to renew
doc.item 0..1 URI URI of a particular item
doc.edition 0..1 URI URI of a particular edition
response fields
name occ data type description
doc 1..n document list of documents (order is irrelevant)

3.6 fees

purpose
Look up current fees of a patron.
HTTP verb and URL
GET https://example.org/core/{uri_escaped_patron_identifier}/fees
scope
read_fees
response fields
name occ data type description
amount 0..1 money Sum of all fees. May also be negative!
fee 0..n list of fees
fee.amount 1..1 money amout of a single fee
fee.date 0..1 date date when the fee was claimed
fee.about 0..1 string textual information about the fee
fee.item 0..1 URI item that caused the fee
fee.edition 0..1 URI edition that caused the fee

4 PAIA auth

PAIA auth defines three methods for authentification based on username and password. These methods can be used to get access tokens and patron identifiers, which are required to access PAIA core methods. There MAY be additional or alternative ways to distribute and manage access tokens and patron identifiers.

There is no strict one-to-one relationship between username/password and patron identifier/access token, but a username SHOULD uniquely identify a patron identifier. A username MAY even be equal to a patron identifier, but this is NOT RECOMMENDED. An access token MUST NOT be equal to the password of the same user.

A PAIA auth server acts as OAuth authorization server (RFC 6749) with password credentials grant, as defined in section 4.3 of the OAuth 2.0 specification. The access tokens provided by the server are so called OAuth 2.0 bearer tokens (RFC 6750).

A PAIA auth server MUST protect against brute force attacks (e.g. using rate-limitation or generating alerts). It is RECOMMENDED to further restrict access to PAIA auth to specific clients, for instance by additional authorization.

4.1 login

The login method is the only PAIA method that does not require an access token as part of the query.

purpose
Get a patron identifier and access token to access patron information
URL
https://example.org/auth/login
request parameters
name occ data type
username 1..1 string User name of a patron
password 1..1 string Password of a patron
grant_type 1..1 string Fixed value set to "password"
scope 0..1 string Space separated list of scopes

If no scope parameter is given, it is set to the default value read_patron read_fees read_items write_items for full access to all PAIA core methods (see access tokens and scopes).

The response format is a JSON structure as defined in section 5.1 (successful response) and section 5.2 (error response) of OAuth 2.0. The PAIA auth server may grant different scopes than requested for, for instance if the account of a patron has expired, so the patron should not be allowed to request and renew new documents.

response fields
name occ data type description
patron 1..1 string Patron identifier
access_token 1..1 string The access token issued by the PAIA auth server
token_type 1..1 string Fixed value set to "Bearer"
scope 1..1 string Space separated list of granted scopes
expires_in 0..1 nonnegative integer The lifetime in seconds of the access token

Example of a successful request

POST /auth/login
Host: example.org
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 85

{
  "username": "alice02",
  "password": "jo-!97kdl+tt",
  "grant_type": "password"
}


HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Cache-Control: no-store
Pragma: no-cache
{
  "access_token": "2YotnFZFEjr1zCsicMWpAA",
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_in": 3600,
  "patron": "8362432",
  "scope": "read_patron read_fees read_items write_items"
}

Example of a rejected request

HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Cache-Control: no-store
Pragma: no-cache
{
  "error": "access_denied",
  "code": "403"
}

4.2 logout

purpose
Invalidate an access token
URL
https://example.org/auth/logout
request parameters
name occ data type description
patron 1..1 string patron identifier
response fields
name occ data type description
patron 1..1 string patron identifier

The logout method invalidates an access token, independent from the previous lifetime of the token. On success, the server MUST invalidate at least the access token that was used to access this method. The server MAY further invalidate additional access tokens that were created for the same patron.

4.3 change

purpose
Change password of a patron
URL
https://example.org/auth/change
request parameters
name occ data type description
patron 1..1 string Patron identifier
username 1..1 string User name of the patron
old_password 1..1 string Password of the patron
new_password 1..1 string New password of the patron
response fields
name occ data type description
patron 1..1 string patron identifier

The server MUST check

A PAIA server MAY reject this method and return an error response with error code access_denied (403) or error code not_implemented (501). On success, the patron identifier is returned.

5 Glossary

access token
A confidential random string that must be sent with each PAIA request for authentification.
document
A concrete or abstract document, such as a work, or an edition.
item
A concrete copy of a document, for instance a particular physical book.
PAIA auth server
HTTP endpoint that implements the PAIA auth specification, so all PAIA auth methods can be accessed at a common base URL.
PAIA core server
HTTP endpoint that implements the PAIA core specification, so all PAIA core methods can be accessed at a common base URL.
patron identifier
A Unicode string that identifies a library patron account.

6 Security Considerations

Security of OAuth 2.0 with bearer tokens relies on correct application of HTTPS. It is known that SSL certificate errors are often ignored just because of laziness. It MUST be clear to all implementors that this spoils the whole chain of trust and is as secure as sending access tokens in plain text.

To limit the risk of spoiled access tokens, PAIA servers SHOULD put limits on the lifetime of access tokens and on the number of allowed requests per minute among other security limitations.

It is also known that several library systems allow weak passwords. For this reason PAIA auth servers MUST follow approriate security measures, such as protecting against brute force attacks and blocking accounts with weak passwords or with passwords that have been sent unencrypted.

7 Examples

This non-normative section contains additional examples to illustrate concepts and methods of PAIA.

7.1 Transitions of document states

Six document status data type values are possible. One document can have different status for different patrons and for different times. The following table illustrates reasonable transitions of document status with time for a fixed patron. For instance some document held by another patron is first requested (0 → 1) with PAIA method request, made available after return (1 → 4), picked up (4 → 3), renewed after some time with PAIA method renew (4 → 4) and later returned (3 → 0).

transition → 0 1: reserved 2: ordered 3: held 4: provided 5: rejected
0 = request request loan request request
1: reserved cancel = available loan available patron inactive, document lost ...
2: ordered cancel / = loan available patron inactive, document lost ...
3: held return / / renew / /
4: provided not picked up / / loan = patron inactive, ...
5: rejected time passed patron active patron active / patron active =

Transitions marked with "/" may also be possible in special circumstances: for instance a book ordered from the stacks (status 2) may turn out to be damaged, so it is first repaired and reserved for the patron meanwhile (status 1). Transitions for digital publications may also be different. Note that a PAIA server does not need to implement all document states. A reasonable subset is to only support 0, 1, 3, and 5.


8 References

Bradner, S. 1997. “RFC 2119: Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels.” http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119.

Fielding, R. 1999. “RFC 2616: Hypertext Transfer Protocol.” http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616.

D. Hardt. 2012. “RFC 6749: The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework.” http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749.

Jones, M. and Hardt, D. 2012. “RFC 6750: The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework: Bearer Token Usage.” http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6750.

Rescorla, E. 2000. “RFC 2818: HTTP over TLS.” http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2818.


  1. The error list was compiled from HTTP and OAuth 2.0 specifications, the Twitter API, the StackExchange API, and the GitHub API.