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sqlrest

sqlrest is an API proxy for MS-SQL databases for easier database access in serverless functions

About

The idea came from the need want to turn full size APIs into a group of serverless functions. It was quickly discovered that the connections to a database take around 5-7 seconds. No good for a serverless function!

The thought is to create an ultra-minimalist API that acts as a proxy in front of a database in order to maintain the connection, as well as handle the pooling while the functions can focus on being functional.

The function would build the required SQL statment to be executed, and send it to SqlRest for execution on the remote DB. SqlRest does nothing more than passing the query (or procedure name) to the connected database server for execution. The response will depend on the route/command. Select/Query would return a json object with an array of column names and an array of arrays of row results

Example Results:

{
  "Columns": [
        "Column1",
        "Column2"
  ],
  "Data": [
      [
        "Result1_1",
        "Result1_2"
      ],
      [
        "Result2_1",
        "Result2_2"
      ]
  ]
}

Errors will be returned with an appropriate HTTP response code and a "message" property containing the reason of the error

Example Error Result:

{
  "message": "Query must contain at least 1 'SELECT' statement for 'Query' operation"
}

Also, errors encountered in the database will include an "error" property with the error being passed directly from the database Example DB Error Response:

{
  "error": {
    "Number": 102,
    "State": 1,
    "Class": 15,
    "Message": "Incorrect syntax near 'Blah:'.",
    "ServerName": "efe87d4ca854",
    "ProcName": "",
    "LineNo": 1
  },
  "message": "Error returned from database"
}

Examples

There are some examples of how to use SqlRest with various languages in the examples directory as well as a sample database

Run with Docker

Pull the image from Docker Hub:

docker pull burtonr/sqlrest:0.2

Required Environment variables

Name Value
DATABASE_USERNAME The username to log in to the SQL Server with
DATABASE_PASSWORD The password associated with the user
DATABASE_SERVER The IP address, or hostname, of the SQL server. Do not include the instance, or port number, we got that covered for you (assuming 1433 (default)) :)
SQLREST_ALLOWED_REALMS A comma separated list of strings to designate what service is permitted to access this instance of sqlrest
SQLREST_API_KEY The shared secret key used to hash the request

Run the image with the following command (replacing the environment variables with your own)

docker run -d -p 5050:5050 -e DATABASE_USERNAME=sa -e DATABASE_PASSWORD=secretSauce2! -e DATABASE_SERVER=172.17.0.2 -e SQLREST_ALLOWED_REALMS=testing-func,qa-func -e SQLREST_API_KEY=sqlrestTestKey --name sqlrest burtonr/sqlrest:0.3

Optional Environment variables

Name Value Default
DATABASE_NAME The name of the database to connect to blank (i.e. master)

Usage

The API exposes the following endpoints:

  • /ping
  • /connect
  • v1/procedure
  • v1/query
  • v1/insert
  • v1/delete
  • v1/update

(the v1 is an example of the API version that will update as breaking changes happen)

Headers

Each request must include an Authorization header

The value of this header includes 4 parts separated by a colon ( : )

  • Realm
    • This is the origination of the request. The accepted values are read from the SQLREST_ALLOWED_REALMS environment variable
  • Signature
    • This is the hmac hash of the message + api key used to validate that the request was not altered e.g. Hash(apikey + Hash(body + apikey))
    • References here: Wikipedia, RFC2104, and Acquia
  • Nonce
    • Unique value per request to prevent replay attacks (may be removed to rely on timestamp only)
  • Timestamp
    • This is the epoch time in milliseconds (time since Jan 1, 1970)

Example:

Authorization: testing-func:fb1ded9f15a6d8134b3db1640c21cff2b0b22860a1720c54e7fd4938ba46b7f2:bbd37ca7-f270-45ee-9e5c-fa4a5de59a30:1520527620822

Connect

Sending a GET request to this endpoint forces the API to attempt to reconnect to the database using the environment variables provided.

There is a process that runs every 2 minutes to ping the database that will reconnect if it fails. Use this endpoint if you don't want to wait for that process to run

If it is already connected, it will return with a success, otherwise it will attempt the connection and return either a 200 or 500

Note: For this GET request, the signature section of the Authorization header is not evaluated and may be left blank

Procedure

Send a POST request to this endpoint to execute a SQL stored procedure and optionally get the results back

  • The request body must contain a name property.
    • You must include the full name of the procedure unless you've set the DATABASE_NAME env var. By default, this will run against the master database
  • Optionally, also include a parameters object that includes the parameter name and value
  • Additionally, you may also specify a flag executeOnly that, when false, returns the result set from the stored procedure

A full request (to execute with parameters and return the results) would look like this:

{
  "name": "sales.dbo.sp_get_customers",
  "parameters": {
    "title": "scuba",
    "firstName": "Steve",
  },
  "executeOnly": false
}

The executeOnly property defaults to true so that procedures will not return values unless explicitly requested

This endpoint builds the SQL command to be executed as a string.

The above example will generate the following string to be sent to the SQL server:

EXEC sales.dbo.sp_get_customers @title = "scuba", @firstName = "Steve"

Query

Send a POST request to this endpoint to execute a SQL query and get the results back

There are some basic syntax checks.

  • There must be a field query in the request body
  • There must be at least 1 SELECT command
  • told you it was basic...

The query passed in is sent to the database directly with no modifications.

Note: SQL connects to the master database by default, so be sure to include a USE statement

USE Database_Name; SELECT 1 FROM Table_Name

or use the full object name in the table definition

SELECT 1 FROM [Database_Name].[dbo].[Table_Name]

You could also set the environment variable DATABASE_NAME to set a default database name. Note, that if the default schema is not dbo, you will need to include that in the query as well even with the database name being set.

See above for examples of error and success responses

Insert

Send a PUT request to this endpoint to execure a SQL insert

There are some basic syntax checks.

  • There must be a field insert in the request body
  • There must be at least 1 INSERT INTO command

The function that handles executing inserts will first create a transaction, then execute the command. If there is an error, or something goes wrong (panic), the transaction will roll back.

The request and command passed in follow the same rules as the Query endpoint. Be sure to include the database name

No results are returned with this command. To get the inserted values, you will need to Query for them.

Delete

Not yet implemented

Update

Send a POST request to this endpoint to execute a SQL update

There are some basic syntax checks.

  • There must be a field update in the request body
  • There must be at least 1 UPDATE command
  • There must be at least 1 WHERE clause
    • This is for your own protection!

The function that handles executing updates will first create a transaction, then execute the command. If there is an error, or something goes wrong (panic), the transaction will roll back.

The request and command passed in follow the same rules as the Query endpoint. Be sure to include the database name

No results are returned with this command. To get the updated values, you will need to Query.

Security

sqlrest uses HMAC authorization to validate the requests being sent. The Authorization header is used to send the validation criteria to sqlrest (see Headers)

The validation uses the following environment variables:

  • SQLREST_ALLOWED_REALMS
    • This is a comma separated list of strings to designate what service is permitted to call sqlrest
  • SQLREST_API_KEY
    • This is the shared secret key that is used to hash the request

Developer Notes

API

This (mostly) follows the familiar REST practices as well as special handling of requests based on the route.

  • Versioning
    • The API routes will be versioned. localhost:8080/v1/query
    • The handler files will include a version if they are of a previous version
      • When a new version is developed, the previous file and the exported func will have the version appended to it
      • queryHandler.go -> queryHandler.v1.go
      • ExecuteQuery() -> ExecuteQueryV1()

Validation

  • There should be some way to know the requested SQL statement is valid SQL syntax before sending it to the database. This will help avoid unnecessary connections and return a useful error.
  • Possible future implementation could look for potential SQL injection attacks (maybe)

Future

Security

  • Look in to implementing HMAC security or possibly API keys
    • Something that's easily added to a serverless function, Docker container, or other API, but still secure
  • Security may be required to limit access to certain functions (no deletes), or certain databases, possibly even certain tables

Considerations

  • Should the Update and Insert calls return the modified/created entry?
    • I like that from a uasability perspective so you don't need to make 2 calls
    • On the otherhand, what about performance? If I (caller) don't need the result, why wait for it?