Create a PIP Python Package for NCR HMAC Authorization

[jd185367]

Feature request

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Rather than re-implementing my own HMAC algorithm, it would be convenient to have a simple, official NCR HMAC module I could import into my code and use to authenticate and make a BSP API request.

Describe the solution you'd like

A minimal Python 3 pip package that could be installed with one line, something like:

pip install ncr-bsp-hmac

And that I could then use to quickly get the headers I need to make a call to a BSP API:

import ncr.hmac
import requests

requestURL = 'https://api.ncr.com/v1/someNeatAPI'
# please come up with a more user-friendly API than this :)
headers = ncr.hmac.getHMACHeaders(requestURL, secretKey='', sharedKey='', nepOrganization='', httpMethod='GET', contentType='application/json')
response = requests.get(requestURL, headers=headers, verify=True)

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Implementing my own team's HMAC library (very doable with the examples, but would lead to each team creating and maintaining their own implementation and duplicate code across the company, which seems unnecessary for something very standardized; also requires someone on my team to understand HMAC in enough detail to implement it before they can use BSP APIs, which seems needlessly complicated)

Additional context

Obviously modules in other languages might be nice to have as well, but my team primarily works in Python - hence the initial request just for a pip library.

There may be some debate about if an HMAC module should be its own, independent pip package or part of some larger "NCR BSP" library. As far as I know HMAC authentication is the only hard custom requirement to use BSP APIs (at least on the client side), so I think packaging it as a lightweight module on its own is justified.

[ghost]

I've actually written a library that does this very thing and is currently published in artifactory (not public). See here:

https://github.com/ncr-bsp/pypi-nep-hmac

I can move that here and publish it publicly if we have the okay to do so.

Example Usage:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import requests
from bsp_nep_hmac import HmacKey, sign

shared_key = '...'
secret_key = '...'

body = {
    ...
}

headers = {
    "nep-organization": "..."
}

key = HmacKey(secret_key, shared_key);
request = sign(requests.Request('POST', 'https://api.ncr.com/...', json=body, headers=heades).prepare(), key)

with requests.Session() as s:
    response = s.send(request)

data = response.json()

...