Dell EMC Unity: How To Use cURL to interact with Unity REST API (User Correctable)

cURL version tested: 7.37.0
OS tested: SUSE Linux (SLES 12)
Unity OE tested: 4.1.1.9138882

The article describes the following actions through REST API with cURL commands:
1. Logging into the Unisphere Management REST API server.
2. Querying an existing LUN information.
3. Creating a new LUN.
4. Resizing the newly created LUN.
5. Querying the resized LUN.
6. Deleting that LUN.
7. Logging out of the Unisphere Management REST API server.

Here below are the related commands and outputs:
The following information in the commands examples need to be replaced by the ones in your own case.
- Unisphere admin user name:   admin
- admin account password:         P@ssw0rd
- VNXe management IP:              10.32.106.115
- cookies file name:                       cookies1.txt
- EMC-CSRF-TOKEN:                   Session token retrieved from the first logging command verbose output
- Old LUN CLI ID:                           sv_7
- New LUN name:                          curlLUN
- New LUN CLI ID:                         sv_19

1. Logging into the Unisphere Management REST API server.
curl -X GET -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" -u "admin:P@ssw0rd" -c cookies1.txt -verbose -L -k https://dell.to/3DzWaHL

Result ==>
{"@base":" https://dell.to/3TMXwF6 service@VIRT170979R20E-spa spa:~>

EMC-CSRF-TOKEN information in the verbose output ==>
EMC-CSRF-TOKEN: dgdY8lbuzvXQMypEXA93/aue+REgLbHw+TTO27c8Pry2jdJos6nfLlMC58b9+JP7Kjn6xfr6BCz959hqflGHcmCVEH/ypCDZWNmvfEPXsLI=

2. Querying an existing LUN information.
curl -X GET -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" -b cookies1.txt -L -k https://dell.to/3D9aNk5

Result ==>
{"@base":" https://dell.to/3zl7Dsh":[{"rel":"self","href":"/sv_7"}],"content":{"id":"sv_7","name":"DR_Rep_test_Des","sizeTotal":1073741824}}02:50:55 service@VIRT170979R20E-spa spa:~> 

3. Creating a new LUN (Size=1GB(1073741824 Bytes)).
curl -X POST -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "EMC-CSRF-TOKEN: dgdY8lbuzvXQMypEXA93/aue+REgLbHw+TTO27c8Pry2jdJos6nfLlMC58b9+JP7Kjn6xfr6BCz959hqflGHcmCVEH/ypCDZWNmvfEPXsLI=" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" -b cookies1.txt -L -d '{"name":"curlLUN","lunParameters":{"pool":{"id":"pool_2"},"isThinEnabled":"false","size":"1073741824"}}' -k https://dell.to/3THBByP

Result ==>
{"@base":" https://dell.to/3D8GD0p":[{"rel":"self","href":"/sv_19"}],"content":{"storageResource":{"id":"sv_19"}}}02:51:51 service@VIRT170979R20E-spa spa:~> 

4. Resizing the newly created LUN (from 1GB to 1.6GB).
curl -X POST -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "EMC-CSRF-TOKEN: dgdY8lbuzvXQMypEXA93/aue+REgLbHw+TTO27c8Pry2jdJos6nfLlMC58b9+JP7Kjn6xfr6BCz959hqflGHcmCVEH/ypCDZWNmvfEPXsLI=" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" -b cookies1.txt -L -d '{"lunParameters":{"size":"1717986918"}}' -k https://dell.to/3TI1i2c

Result ==>
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content (because there is no output in the content of the HTTP response of the above request)

5. Querying the resized LUN.
curl -X GET -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" -b cookies1.txt -L -k https://dell.to/3TDTPS3

Result ==>
{"@base":" https://dell.to/3TG6ns1":[{"rel":"self","href":"/sv_19"}],"content":{"id":"sv_19","name":"curlLUN","sizeTotal":1717987328}}02:54:05 service@VIRT170979R20E-spa spa:~> 

6. Deleting that LUN.
curl -X DELETE -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "EMC-CSRF-TOKEN: dgdY8lbuzvXQMypEXA93/aue+REgLbHw+TTO27c8Pry2jdJos6nfLlMC58b9+JP7Kjn6xfr6BCz959hqflGHcmCVEH/ypCDZWNmvfEPXsLI=" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" -b cookies1.txt -L -k https://dell.to/3DdnvOC

Result ==>
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content

7. Logging out of the Unisphere Management REST API server.
curl -X POST -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "EMC-CSRF-TOKEN: dgdY8lbuzvXQMypEXA93/aue+REgLbHw+TTO27c8Pry2jdJos6nfLlMC58b9+JP7Kjn6xfr6BCz959hqflGHcmCVEH/ypCDZWNmvfEPXsLI=" -H "X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" -b cookies1.txt -L -k https://dell.to/3THn4TP

Result ==>
Logout successful

Explanation about the cURL parameters.

X-EMC-REST-CLIENT: true
This tells the server to use the HTTP Basic access authentication mechanism to authenticate the login request.

EMC-CSRF-TOKEN
Token header, which is required for POST and DELETE requests.
This token header is good for the entirety of the session.
This token string is retrieved from the verbose output of the first login cURL command.

-u "admin:P@ssw0rd"
Passing the username and password to REST API server for authentication in the login request.

-verbose
Verbose output of the communication process. Useful to retrieve the EMC-CSRF-TOKEN from the login command output.
Also useful when there is error of the command to have debug level information.

-H "Accept: application/json" 
To indicate that the format of the response content is JSON.

-H "Content-type: application/json"
To indicate that the format of the request contains body is JSON; required if there is a request body.

-c cookies1.txt
Set the cookies file name to record cookies information.

-b cookies1.txt
Get the cookies information from previously saved cookies file.

-L
Necessary when there is URI redirection (HTTP 302). The command will resend the parameters to redirected URI.

-d '{"name":"curlLUN","lunParameters":{"pool":{"id":"pool_2"},"isThinEnabl ed":"false","size":"1073741824"}}'
curl data format to fit into JSON data structure

-k
Ignore the SSL certificate verification.
This option explicitly allows curl to perform "insecure" SSL connections and transfers.

Any further question, please refer to the attached Unity REST API programmer guide.