How to Apply API Gateway for DirectMail in Python
My favorite language for rapid prototyping and learning a new cloud service is Python. Python makes most tasks so simple that I can test a new API in minutes. This allows me to focus on learning and not on the details of how an API works in a particular language. However, for enterprise level code where a mistake could cost millions of dollars, I use C++.
The Alibaba SDK for DirectMail does not support Python. It does support PHP, Java and C#. A very common use case for DirectMail is delivering emails for dynamic and static websites. For dynamic websites PHP is perfect. For static websites, integrating Function Compute with DirectMail is perfect. However, Function Compute does not support PHP. This means that you develop in one language on your desktop and another in the cloud.
This led me to the idea of using the DirectMail REST API. This means that I can use Python and learn how to use the REST API and in particular how to create the Signature that is not documented very well. Nothing like picking a difficult challenge to really learn a new service.
In this article I will focus on the DirectMail REST API and include a real working example in Python.
Calculating the correct dates
# Correctly formatted date and time
now = datetime.datetime.utcnow()# Date used by the HTTP "Date" header
date = now.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S GMT")# Date used by the API parameter "Timestamp"
utc = now.isoformat(timespec='seconds') + 'Z'
Complete Program to Call DirectMail REST API and Send an Email
Download sendEmail.zip.
############################################################
# Version 1.00
# Date Created: 2018-05-26
# Last Update: 2018-05-27
# https://www.neoprime.io
# Copyright (c) 2018, NeoPrime, LLC
############################################################""" Alibaba Cloud DirectMail REST API With Signing """import base64
import datetime
import hmac
import hashlib
import urllib
import uuid
import json
import requests# My library for processing Alibaba Cloud Services (ACS) credentials
import mycred_acs# From the DirectMail Console
dm_account = "<enter your value here>"
dm_alias = "<enter your value here>"debug = 0def set_connection_logging():
""" Enable HTTP connection logging """
if debug is 0:
return import logging
import http.client as http_client http_client.HTTPConnection.debuglevel = 1 # You must initialize logging, otherwise you'll not see debug output.
logging.basicConfig()
logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
requests_log = logging.getLogger("requests.packages.urllib3")
requests_log.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
requests_log.propagate = True
returndef get_uuid():
""" return a uuid as a signing nonce """
return str(uuid.uuid4())def percentEncode(path):
""" Encode a URL """
res = urllib.parse.quote(path)
res = res.replace('+', '%20')
res = res.replace('*', '%2A')
res = res.replace('%7E', '~')
return resdef my_urlencode(query):
""" Encode a Query """
res = urllib.parse.urlencode(query)
res = res.replace('+', '%20')
res = res.replace('*', '%2A')
res = res.replace('%7E', '~')
return resdef build_request_string(table):
""" Build canonical list """
items = sorted(iter(table.items()), key=lambda d: d[0])
enc = my_urlencode(items)
return encdef sign(string, secret):
""" Sign REST API Request """
nsecret = secret + '&' h = hmac.new(
bytes(nsecret, "utf-8"),
bytes(string, "utf-8"),
hashlib.sha1) #sig = base64.b64encode(h.digest())
sig = str(base64.encodebytes(h.digest()).strip(), "utf-8")
return sigdef sendEmail(credentials, subject, body, body_text, to_list):
""" Send an email using Alibaba DirectMail """
# HTTP Method
method = "POST" # Correctly formatted date and time
now = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
date = now.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S GMT")
utc = now.isoformat(timespec='seconds') + 'Z' # HTTP Host header
host = "dm.ap-southeast-1.aliyuncs.com" # URL for POST
url = "https://dm.ap-southeast-1.aliyuncs.com/" parameters = {} # Add the DirectMail public request parameters
parameters["Format"] = "json"
parameters["AccessKeyId"] = credentials['AccessKey']
parameters["SignatureMethod"] = "HMAC-SHA1"
parameters["SignatureType"] = ""
parameters["SignatureVersion"] = "1.0"
parameters["SignatureNonce"] = get_uuid()
parameters["Timestamp"] = utc
#parameters["Version"] = "2015-11-23"
parameters["Version"] = "2017-06-22"
parameters["RegionId"] = "ap-southeast-1" # Add parameters that are always set
parameters["Action"] = "SingleSendMail"
parameters["AddressType"] = "1"
parameters["ReplyToAddress"] = "true" # Add the DirectMail API parameters
parameters["AccountName"] = dm_account
parameters["FromAlias"] = dm_alias
parameters["ToAddress"] = to_list
parameters["Subject"] = subject
parameters["HtmlBody"] = body
parameters["textBody"] = body_text # Build the request string for the signing process
params = build_request_string(parameters) # Create the actual string to sign
stringToSign = method + "&%2F&" + percentEncode(params) #print("String to Sign")
#print(stringToSign) Signature = sign(stringToSign, credentials['AccessKeySecret'])
#print("Signature", Signature) parameters["Signature"] = Signature headers = {
'Date': date,
'Host': host
} set_connection_logging() print("Sending Email to", parameters["ToAddress"])
r = requests.post(url, data=parameters, headers=headers) if r.status_code != 200:
print("Error: Email Send Failed:", r.status_code)
print(r.text)
return 1 #print(r.text) result = json.loads(r.text)
print("Success: Request ID:", result['RequestId']) return 0# Load the Alibaba Cloud Credentials (AccessKey)
cred = mycred_acs.LoadCredentials()dm_subject = "Welcome to Alibaba Cloud DirectMail"dm_body = "<h2>Welcome to Alibaba Cloud DirectMail<h2>You are receiving this email as part of a test program.<br /><br />Click for <a href='https://www.neoprime.io/info/alibaba/'>more information<a>.<br /><br /><a href='https://www.alibabacloud.com/'><img src='https://www.neoprime.io/info/alibaba/img/alibaba-600x263.png' alt='Alibaba' width='700'><a>"dm_body_text = "Welcome to Alibaba Cloud DirectMail\nYou are receiving this email as part of a test program."dm_to_list = "test@test.com, test2@test.comsendEmail(cred, dm_subject, dm_body, dm_body_text, dm_to_list)
Execute with Python 3.x: python sendEmail.py
For details, please go to Cloud DevOps Cookbook Part 4 — API Gateway and DirectMail with Python 3.0.
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