Controlling access to your APIs by registering apps

This page applies to Apigee and Apigee hybrid.

View Apigee Edge documentation.

This section describes how to register apps and manage API keys.

Overview

The primary way to control who can access your APIs is through application registration.

As an API provider, you create one or more API products that bundle your APIs into service tiers. API products let you limit traffic and access levels at very granular levels. When you create an API product, you can set the access level to Public, Private, or Internal only. For more information, see Access level.

When registering an app, the app developer selects which API products to use and Apigee provides a single API key that the developer uses to access those API products. The app developer passes the API key in each call to the API proxies contained in the API products. At any time, you can revoke an app's API key, preventing an app developer from accessing all or a subset of API products referenced by that app.

Typically, app developers register to use your API products using your developer portal. The steps to build your portal and publish your API products are described in Build your portal.

You can have more control over the app registration process by registering your apps using the Apigee UI or Apigee API instead. For example, you may want to register apps for your internal development teams or for a developer that cannot access to your portal.

You must be an organization administrator or be assigned a role with the appropriate permissions to register apps and manage API keys.

The following sections describe how to register apps and manage API keys using the UI and API.

Exploring the Apps page

To register apps and manage API keys in the Apigee UI you use the Apps view.

To access the Apps view using the Apigee UI:

• If you are using the Apigee UI in Cloud console: Select Distribution > Apps.
• If you are using the classic Apigee UI: Select Publish > Apps.

The Apps view lets you do the following:

• Register an app
• View and edit an app
• Manage credentials
• Approve or revoke an app
• Delete an app
• Search the list of apps by name, developer, app ID, consumer API key, or all content

Registering an app

Warning: Always be sure your app includes at least one API product in which at least one API proxy and/or resource path is specified. If the API product does not include an API proxy and/or resource path, the app's key can be used to call any API proxy in your Apigee organization. In most situations, you do not want to create a so-called skeleton key—a key that can open any door in your house!

An app can be registered in the following ways:

• By an app developer: An app developer can register the app via your portal, as described in How app developers interact with your portal.
• By an administrator: You can register an app in Apigee, as described below. It is up to you to determine how to provide the key to the app developer.

Registered apps are added to the following:

• List of registered apps in Apigee. See Viewing and editing developer details.
• Apps page in the developer portal.

To register an app in Apigee:

1. Access the Apps page.
• If you are using the Apigee UI in Cloud console: Select Distribution > Apps.
• If you are using the classic Apigee UI: Select Publish > Apps.
2. Specify the App Details, as described in the following table:

   Field	Description	Required?
   Name	Name of the app. You can't change the name once the app is created. This name is used in Apigee API calls.	Required
   Display Name	Display name for the app that appears in the Apigee UI and the developer portal.	Optional
   Developer	Select a developer name from the drop-down. Note: For performance reasons, not all developers are displayed in the drop-down. Start typing the developer name or email in the search box, and the drop-down values are automatically refined to match the text you are typing. See also Register app developers.	Required
   Callback URL	Typically specifies the URL of an app that is designated to receive an authorization code on behalf of the client app. This value is not required for all API products.	Optional
   Notes	Descriptive notes for the app.	Optional

3. Specify the Credentials, including the API key expiration and status and the associated API products. In the Credentials section, click and enter the following information:

   Field	Description
   Expiry	Configure an expiration duration or date, or set the API key to never expire, and click OK.
   Products	Associate one or more API products with the API key: Click Add product. Select one or more API products from list. Click Add. Set the Status to Approved or Revoked for each API product. Repeat steps to add more API products.

4. Specify the Custom Attributes:
   1. In the Custom Attributes section, click .
   2. Enter the name and value.
   3. Click Add or Add & Start another. The maximum number of custom attributes that you can add is 18.
5. Click Create.

If the API products you associated with the app required manual approval for their API keys, approve them, as described in Approving or revoking API keys.

Viewing apps registered for a developer

To view apps registered for a specific developer, use one of the following methods:

• View all registered apps, select Developer in the Search drop-down, and enter the name of the developer in the search field.
• View all registered app developers and click the row associated with the developer.

Viewing and editing an app

Note: Before editing custom attributes, make sure that there are no system dependencies on the existing attribute settings.

Apigee keeps the following entities in cache for a minimum of 180 seconds after the entities are accessed.

• OAuth access tokens. This means the ExpiresIn element on the OAuth v2 policy won't be able to expire an access token in less than 180 seconds.
• Key Management Service (KMS) entities (Apps, Developers, API Products).
• Custom attributes on OAuth tokens and KMS entities.

To view and edit an app:

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Click anywhere in the row of the app that you want to view and edit. Apigee displays the app details.
   Note: Apps that are part of AppGroups are also shown in the results list. You can view app details and delete AppGroup apps, but not create or edit them in this view. For instructions on managing AppGroups and AppGroups apps, see Using AppGroups to organize app ownership.
3. To edit an app, click Edit.
4. Perform one or more of the following tasks:
   • Modify the app details, including the name, callback URL, or notes.
   • Manage the credentials.
   • Add or delete custom attributes. The maximum number of custom attributes that you can add is 18.
   • Approve or revoke the app.
5. Click Save.

Managing credentials

When editing an app, you can manage its credentials in the Credentials section, as shown in the following figure:

As highlighted in the previous figure, in the Credentials section you can perform the following tasks using the UI:

• View an API key and secret
• Approve or revoke an API key for all associated API products or for a single API product.
• Manage API products in an app
• Generate new credentials

To use the API to manage credentials, see Import existing consumer keys and secrets.

Note: When you create an API product, you can also set its access level to Internal only or Private. API products marked Internal only or Private do not appear to developers on the developer portal. To get access to these products, you manually add them to a developer's app from the Apigee API.

Viewing an API key and secret

To view an API key and secret:

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Click in the row of the app for which you want to view the API key and secret.
3. In the Credentials section, click Show associated with the API key or secret that you want to view.

Approving or revoking an API key

API calls to API proxies usually require an API key. Apigee allows the calls only if the API key is approved, valid, and meets the conditions defined by the API product containing the API.

You can configure an API product for automatic approval of API keys, as described in Managing API products. However, if the API product requires manual approval of API keys, you need to manually approve the key.

You can revoke an API key for all or a single API product. In this case, the API key and secret are invalid and cannot be used to access APIs in the associated API product(s). You can re-approve an API key at any time.

To approve or revoke an API key:

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Click in the row of the app that you want to view and edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. Perform one of the following tasks:
   • To approve or revoke an API key for all API products associated with an API key, select Approved or Revoked associated with the API key.
   • To approve or revoke an API key for a specific API product, select Approved or Revoked in the Status column for the API product.
5. Click Save.

Managing API products in an app

Manage API products in your app by performing the following tasks:

• Add an API product to an app
• Remove an API product from an app

Adding an API product to an app

To add an API product to an app:

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Click in the row of the app that you want to view and edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. Perform one of the following tasks:
   • To add an API product to a new API key, click to generate a new credential, select an expiration, and add the API product to the API key.
   • To add an API product to an existing API key, in the Credential section click Add product and select the API product from the drop-down list.
5. Click Save.

Removing an API product from an app

If you want to keep an API key active but not allow it to be used by an API product, you can remove it from the associated credential.

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Click in the row of the app that you want to view and edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. Click adjacent to the API product.
5. Click Save.

You can re-add a removed product.

Generating new credentials

You can generate new credentials for an app. For instance, if you're using API key rotation, you can generate new keys whose expiration overlaps keys that will be out of rotation when they expire. You might also generate a new key/secret if the security of the original key/secret is compromised. If you generate a new key, any existing API keys will continue to work until they expire or you explicitly revoke them.

To generate a new API key:

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Click in the row of the app that you want to view and edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. In the Credentials section, click .
5. Specify the expiration, add the API products, and set their status.
6. Optionally, revoke any of the other API keys, as required.
7. Click Save.

Approving or revoking an app

Note: You can approve or revoke apps that are associated with a particular user, as described in Manage portal users

Approve or revoke an app, as described below. When you revoke an app, any approved API keys can no longer be used in API calls to Apigee. When you re-approve an app, all approved and valid API keys can be used to make API calls.

If the app is registered in other organizations, you must revoke it in each of those organizations. It may take a few minutes for the changes to be recognized by all message processors.

To approve or revoke an app:

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Click in the row of the app that you want to view and edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. Select Approve or Revoke in the App Status field to approve or revoke the app, respectively.
5. Click Save.

Deleting an app

When you delete an app, all client keys associated with the apps become invalid. Using an invalid key on a request causes the request to fail.

If you think you may want to reinstate a developer app in the future, an alternative to deletion is revoking an app.

To delete an app:

1. Access the Apps page.
2. Position the cursor in the row of the app that you want to delete.
3. Click in the actions column.

Note: With Apigee, deletion of the developer app and associated artifacts happens asynchronously. The developer app is deleted immediately, but the resources associated with that developer app, such as app keys or access tokens, may take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to be deleted.

Registering apps and managing API keys using the API

To register and manage apps using the Apigee API, use the following APIs:

• Apps API
• Developer apps API
• Developer app keys API

See also Import existing consumer keys and secrets.