Authentication

Authentication with InterMine Web services is chiefly used to identify a user and access their lists and templates.

Tokens come in two flavours: Temporary/anonymous and permanent/associated with an existing account. Each token will uniquely identify an individual for a single specific InterMine instance -cross-mine applications will need 1 token per user per InterMine.

To authenticate a user, add a token to your HTTP requests, typically as a GET or POST parameter, e.g.:

# Return all public lists and any private lists associated with this token:

GET https://www.flymine.org/query/service/lists?token=DFGg5dge5gnmja04Peh6faA3hd

Not all endpoints require authentication - use I/O docs to identify which endpoints do require authentication.

Anonymous authentication

Anonymous 24-hour tokens are available via the /session method, and are useful for working with short-term disposable lists. If users want to preserve their lists or view existing lists associated with an account, they should be encouraged to use a permanent token (see docs below).

GET https://www.flymine.org/query/service/user/session

Should result in a response like this:

{

"token": "M1E5vakfN5xdy3I1ncm7",

"executionTime": "2017.03.22 11:42::17",

"wasSuccessful": true,

"error": null,

"statusCode": 200

}

Expired token gotcha:

Make sure not to pass any old or invalid tokens as arguments when requesting the new token.

This request will not return a token, and will return a 401 instead:

GET http://www.flymine.org/query/service/user/session?token=someOldExpiredToken

I/O Docs demo:

Experiment with anonymous tokens in I/O docs: http://iodocs.apps.intermine.org/flymine/docs#/ws-session/GET/session

Authentication for existing user accounts (permanent tokens)

Via the JSP UI, log into "MyMine" (top left corner tab) and click on "account details". Your token / API key is shown at the bottom. If none exists, you can choose to generate a new API key.

Note regarding generating API keys:

If you already have a key, don't click the "Generate a new API key" button unless you wish to invalidate your old key! Only one key is active at any given time.