Token Based Authentication

vREST supports any type of token-based authentication. In the login API, authentication token can be returned from the test server as part of one of the following:

1. Response Body
2. Response Header

So, to use token-based authentication, simply follow the steps below:

1. First create a test case to login into the test application. As a result, your test application will send the token as part of the response body/header.
2. You need to extract this token in a variable in the Variable Extractor tab of the login test case. Below are some examples of extracting tokens from the response body/header.

3. Now you can use this token variable {{token}} in subsequent test cases as per your API format.

Extracting authentication token from Response Body:

Suppose your login API returns the following response on submitting valid credentials:

{
    "output": {
        "token": "xyz-authentication-token"
    }
}

Then you may extract this token via Variable Extractor sub-tab of login test case, as shown in the below snapshot:

Extracting authentication token from Response header:

Suppose your login API returns the authentication token as part of response headers (Response header x-auth-token) on submitting valid credentials. Then you may extract this token via the Variable Extractor sub-tab of a login test case with the help of a built-in utility method getHeader, as shown in the below snapshot:

here "x-auth-token" is the name of the response header which carries the authentication token. Please replace this header name with the appropriate header name as per your context.

Using the extracted token in subsequent requests:

Now, once you have extracted the token, then you may use this extracted token variable in your subsequent requests as per your own needs. Mostly the extracted token is sent as a Request Header Authorization in your subsequent requests and the value may be either Bearer {{token}} or Token {{token}}.