CCNA 200-301 v1.1 reference — Automation and Programmability

REST APIs

Authentication types, CRUD and HTTP verbs, status codes and data encoding for REST-based network APIs.

Objective 6.5v1.1 exam target

REST APIs expose resources as URLs manipulated with standard HTTP verbs — stateless request/response, usually JSON-encoded bodies. Network controllers (and cloud services) expose northbound REST APIs so tools can read and change state without CLIs.

HTTP verbs → CRUD

Verb	CRUD	Effect
GET	Read	Retrieve a resource — safe by contract (though access is still logged server-side)
POST	Create/process	Submit data for the resource to process — commonly creates a subordinate resource
PUT	Create or replace	Place the resource at the target URI — replaces it if it exists
PATCH	Update (partial)	Modify specified fields
DELETE	Delete	Remove the resource

Status code families

Range	Meaning	Examples
2xx	Success	200 OK, 201 Created, 204 No Content
3xx	Redirection	301 Moved, 304 Not Modified
4xx	Client error	400 Bad Request, 401 Unauthorized, 403 Forbidden, 404 Not Found
5xx	Server error	500 Internal Server Error, 503 Unavailable

Authentication types

Type	How it works
Basic auth	Base64-encoded user:pass header — only over TLS
Token/API key	Pre-issued key sent in a header — lifetime set by the issuing service
Bearer token / OAuth2	Token obtained from an auth flow — lifetime depends on the service, not the format
Certificates	Client TLS certificate identity

$ Example exchange (interpreted)

POST /api/v1/devices HTTP/1.1Create under the devices collection.

Authorization: Bearer <token>Credential on every request.

Content-Type: application/jsonBody encoding declared.

{"hostname": "sw1", "site": "branch-7"}JSON payload.

HTTP/1.1 201 CreatedServer confirms creation.

Location: /api/v1/devices/sw1Where the new resource lives.