These docs are for version 1.x of Rasa Open Source.

---

# Configuring the HTTP API

## Using Rasa’s HTTP API

The instructions below are relevant for configuring how a model is run within a Docker container or for testing the HTTP API locally. If you want to deploy your assistant to users, see [Deploying Your Rasa Assistant](https://legacy-docs-v1.rasa.com/1.9.0/user-guide/how-to-deploy/#deploying-your-rasa-assistant).

You can run a simple HTTP server that handles requests using your trained Rasa model with:

```
rasa run -m models --enable-api --log-file out.log
```

All the endpoints this API exposes are documented in [HTTP API](https://legacy-docs-v1.rasa.com/1.9.0/api/http-api/#http-api).

The different parameters are:

- `-m`: the path to the folder containing your Rasa model,
- `--enable-api`: enable this additional API, and
- `--log-file`: the path to the log file.

Rasa can load your model in three different ways:

1. Fetch the model from a server (see [Fetching Models from a Server](https://legacy-docs-v1.rasa.com/1.9.0/user-guide/configuring-http-api/#server-fetch-from-server)), or
2. Fetch the model from a remote storage (see [Cloud Storage](https://legacy-docs-v1.rasa.com/1.9.0/user-guide/cloud-storage/#cloud-storage)).
3. Load the model specified via `-m` from your local storage system,

Rasa tries to load a model in the above mentioned order, i.e. it only tries to load your model from your local storage system if no model server and no remote storage were configured.

> Warning: Make sure to secure your server, either by restricting access to the server (e.g. using firewalls), or by enabling an authentication method: [Security Considerations](https://legacy-docs-v1.rasa.com/1.9.0/user-guide/configuring-http-api/#server-security).

> Note: If you are using custom actions, make sure your action server is running (see [Start an Action Server](https://legacy-docs-v1.rasa.com/1.9.0/user-guide/command-line-interface/#run-action-server)). If your actions are running on a different machine, or you aren’t using the Rasa SDK, make sure to update your `endpoints.yml` file.

> Note: If you start the server with an NLU-only model, not all the available endpoints can be called. Be aware that some endpoints will return a 409 status code, as a trained Core model is needed to process the request.

> Note: By default, the HTTP server runs as a single process. You can change the number of worker processes using the `SANIC_WORKERS` environment variable. It is recommended that you set the number of workers to the number of available CPU cores.

### Fetching Models from a Server

You can configure the HTTP server to fetch models from another URL:

```
rasa run --enable-api --log-file out.log --endpoints my_endpoints.yml
```

The model server is specified in the endpoint configuration (`my_endpoints.yml`), where you specify the server URL Rasa regularly queries for zipped Rasa models:

```
models:
  url: http://my-server.com/models/default@latest
  wait_time_between_pulls: 10   # [optional](default: 100)
```

Your model server must provide zipped Rasa models, and have `{\"ETag\": <model_hash_string>}` as one of its headers. Rasa will only download a new model if this model hash has changed.

### Fetching Models from a Remote Storage

You can also configure the Rasa server to fetch your model from a remote storage:

```
rasa run -m 20190506-100418.tar.gz --enable-api --log-file out.log --remote-storage aws
```

The model will be downloaded and stored in a temporary directory on your local storage system.

## Configuring SSL / HTTPS

By default the Rasa server is using HTTP for its communication. To secure the communication with SSL, you need to provide a valid certificate and the corresponding private key file.

You can specify these files as part of the `rasa run` command:

```
rasa run --ssl-certificate myssl.crt --ssl-keyfile myssl.key
```

If you encrypted your keyfile with a password during creation, you need to add this password to the command:

```
rasa run --ssl-certificate myssl.crt --ssl-keyfile myssl.key --ssl-password mypassword
```

## Security Considerations

We recommend to not expose the Rasa Server to the outside world, but rather connect to it from your backend over a private connection (e.g. between docker containers).

Nevertheless, there are two authentication methods built in:

**Token Based Auth:**

Pass in the token using `--auth-token thisismysecret` when starting the server:

```
rasa run \
    -m models \
    --enable-api \
    --log-file out.log \
    --auth-token thisismysecret
```

**JWT Based Auth:**

Enable JWT based authentication using `--jwt-secret thisismysecret`. Requests to the server need to contain a valid JWT token in the `Authorization` header that is signed using this secret and the `HS256` algorithm.

## Endpoint Configuration

To connect Rasa to other endpoints, you can specify an endpoint configuration within a YAML file. Then run Rasa with the flag
`--endpoints <path to endpoint configuration.yml>`.

For example:

```
rasa run \
    --m <Rasa model> \
    --endpoints <path to endpoint configuration>.yml
```

> Note: You can use environment variables within configuration files by specifying them with `${name of environment variable}`. These placeholders are then replaced by the value of the environment variable.