Azure Data API builder (DAB) - Advanced Configurations

Once we have the basic configuration set up, we might want to customize it further to meet specific requirements.

Today, we will discuss some advanced options in DAB.

Custom Policies:

We can specify permissions in the configuration file to manage - who can access certain entities and what actions they can perform.

execute the following command

dab update ProductCategory --permissions "authenticated:create"
dab update ProductCategory --permissions "authenticated:read"
dab update ProductCategory --permissions "anonymous:read"

basically , we are setting the config so that anyone can read the data but only authenticated users can write to the database.

"permissions": [
        {
          "role": "authenticated",
          "actions": [
            {
              "action": "read"
            },
            { 
              "action": "create" 
            }
          ]
        },
         {
          "role": "anonymous",
          "actions": [
            {
              "action": "read"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]

This policy restricts POST actions on the ProductCategory entity to authenticated users only,enhancing security.

If we try to do a post anonymously , we get an HTTP 403 response

{
  "error": {
    "code": "AuthorizationCheckFailed",
    "message": "Authorization Failure: Access Not Allowed.",
    "status": 403
  }
}

Authentication Integration:

DAB provides us with multiple authentication methods , we can use Azure StaticWebApps based authentication or JWT based authentication using Microsoft Entra ID(formerly known as AzureAD)

We will look into local authentication as we are running DAB locally, for the sake of simplicity, we can use Simulator as an authentication provider. This allows us to simulate an authenticated request without integrating with an authentication provider.

Just mention the authentication provider as simulator in the config to simulate the authenticated requests.

"authentication": {
        "provider": "Simulator"
      }

Summary:

The advanced configuration options in Azure DAB provide developers with powerful tools to customize REST APIs effectively. Developers can ensure that the APIs are not only functional but also secure and efficient in handling data operations

Thanks for reading, Goodbye until next week!