Zscaler api authenticate using Python

Question

I am trying to authenticate to Zscaler with API. By reading the documentation and following the examples in the following sites

• https://help.zscaler.com/zia/api#/
• https://help.zscaler.com/zia/api-developers-guide

I wrote the following code:

import time
import http.client
import json


def obfuscate_api_key():
    seed = 'myActualKey'
    time_now = int(time.time() * 1000)
    n = str(time_now)[-6:]
    r = str(int(n) >> 1).zfill(6)
    obf_key = ""
    for i in range(0, len(str(n)), 1):
        obf_key += seed[int(str(n)[i])]
    for j in range(0, len(str(r)), 1):
        obf_key += seed[int(str(r)[j]) + 2]

    return time_now, obf_key


now, key = obfuscate_api_key()

conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection('zsapi.zscalertwo.net')

payload = {"username": "my@username.com", "password":"mypassword", "apiKey": key,
           "timestamp": now}

headers = {
    'content-type': "application/json",
    'cache-control': "no-cache"
}

conn.request("POST", "/api/v1/authenticatedSession", json.dumps(payload), headers)

res = conn.getresponse()
data = res.read()

print(data.decode("utf-8"))

However, I keep getting the following message:

{"code":"AUTHENTICATION_FAILED","message":"AUTHENTICATION_FAILED"}

My credentials are correct because I use them to authenticate in the web GUI. I have the necessary priviledges to use the api since I have an api key. The hostname is also correct, thats what I use to login from the browser. I have also tried with admin.zscalertwo.net but the results are the same. Any ideas of what could cause this problem will be more than welcome. Thanks!

Answer 1

You may have solved this, but adding some more info in case anyone bumps into this.

There is nothing wrong with your code - works fine with valid credentials.

There are three conditions that will return AUTHENTICATION_FAILED , they are:

• Incorrect username
• Incorrect password
• Incorrect Zscaler cloud URL

Incorrect username format will return:

{"code":"INVALID_USERNAME_OR_PASSWORD","message":"INVALID_USERNAME_OR_PASSWORD"}

Incorrect API key or timestamp will return:

{"code":"INVALID_API_KEY","message":"INVALID_API_KEY"}

I'd suggest you check out pyZscaler (I am the author), which is a Python SDK for Zscaler APIs that you might find useful.