# Using SDS with the command line

Note

The standalone SDS service described here is typically used together with our DocumentService and PackagingService SOAP APIs.

If you are using our RESTful Sign API, we recommend using the Sign API's built-in Session Data Storage.

If you are an existing customer using DocumentService v3 and PackagingService v4 and have recently migrated to our new platform, the document is uploaded to our Sign API's built-in Session Data Storage (SDS) by using the documents endpoint (opens new window).

# Pre-production environment

Using the command line to manually upload documents to SDS is not something you would normally do in a production scenario. It can however be very convenient during testing and when understanding how the service works. The following examples use cURL to execute HTTP requests from the command line:

# Uploading a text document using cURL

# Windows
curl -u demo:Bond007 -k -d "Test document with ÅÆØ" -H "Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso8859-1" https://preprod.signicat.com/doc/demo/sds

# OS X/ Linux
curl -u demo:Bond007 -k -d "Test document with ÅÆØ" -H "Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf8" https://preprod.signicat.com/doc/demo/sds

# Explanation of parameters:
# -u service_name:password
# -k accept the server SSL certificate without validation
# -d request data (which implies HTTP POST instead of HTTP GET)
# -H set request header

In this example, we uploaded an inline string and not really a "text document", but of course it's possible to upload a text file as well. To upload a PDF file, you need to HTTP POST the binary file in the request body. Such a cURL request for a PDF document called mydocument.pdf is shown in the next example.

# Uploading a PDF document using cURL

# Windows/OS X/Linux
curl -u demo:Bond007 -k --data-binary @mydocument.pdf -H "Content-Type: application/pdf" https://preprod.signicat.com/doc/demo/sds

Uploading a document returns a document id which can be used to download the document. The next example shows how to get the the URL for the document.

# HTTP GET URL

https://preprod.signicat.com/doc/demo/sds/21082013yuhu3a80c1kofj1baarn1gozk32hphh9jcy6i5h9a3qk2ca7z

You can use any browser to fetch the document (username: demo, password: Bond007) or you can use cURL to issue an HTTP GET like in the example below.

# Downloading a document using cURL

curl -u demo:Bond007 -k -o mydownloadedfile.pdf https://preprod.signicat.com/doc/demo/sds/21082013yuhu3a80c1kofj1baarn1gozk32hphh9jcy6i5h9a3qk2ca7z

This will GET the file and save it as mydownloadedfile.pdf.

# Production environment

In the production environment, you will get your own web service that requires two-way SSL. This differs from the pre-production environment. For more information, refer to our documentation on the pre-production environment.

Important

Using cURL against the production environment is something you normally would do only to verify your two-way SSL setup before going live.

For the production environment, you will receive a web service certificate in p12 format. Curl needs a certificate in pem format, so you will need to convert it first. The certificate decryption password will be provided to you after you have downloaded the necessary p12 file. Substitute the variables below:

$openssl pkcs12 -in your-webservice-certificate.p12 -out your-webservice-certificate.pem -clcerts
Enter Import Password: <Enter decryption password>
MAC verified OK
Enter PEM pass phrase: <Enter new passphrase for the pem file here>
Verifying - Enter PEM pass phrase: <Enter pem passphrase again>

Note

You will need to replace the placeholders. The service name, certificate decryption password and web service password will be provided to you by Signicat.

When you have your web service certificate file in pem format, you can use the command below.

curl --tls1.2 --cert <./your-webservice-certificate.pem>:<pem passhrase> -u <yourservice>:<yourwebservicepassword> -k -d"Two-way SSL Uploaded document with ÆØÅ" -H "Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8"  https://id.signicat.com/doc/<yourservice>/sds
Last updated: 17/11/2023 10:07 UTC