Add support for Banner v9

[ryanhugh]

Northeastern released a new version of Banner (v9) and will be shutting down the old version (v8) before the Fall 2018 semester. Lets upgrade to support the new version! I've heard that it should have an API, but haven't seen any details about it and am still looking into it.

This is a high priority because this is required to keep the site running in the future.

Fall classes will be posted on MyNEU on March 19th and students will sign up for classes on April 9th (source).

[edward-shen]

https://github.com/bentekkie/BannerApi-npm Friend found this repo, maybe useful?

Also, worst case scenario we could just see what https requests the actual website uses and then adapt them to our usecases.

[edward-shen]

The primary issue is that Banner v9 is placed behind SSO auth and it uses cookies to verify your session.

Finding what API calls through what paths are pretty easy enough (Chrome Tools > network > XHR requests & enable log preservation; then click on things that would call the API you'd want).

I have thought of a potential workaround for this, where we effectively spoof a user:

1. Use selenium-webdriver to attempt to access a SSO-blocked page.
2. Login by latching onto the login page (see here for an example)
3. Since the cookies aren't HTTP Only (for whatever reason), we can grab the cookies via manager.getCookies() or document.cookies if you're testing on Chromium tools.
4. Send cookies as part of the header when making API calls.

The only problem is we need a user/pass, which isn't really great for a service like SearchNEU that shouldn't be dependent on some arbitrary user credentials.

[jennydaman]

@edward-shen @ryanhugh You can search for classes without logging in with your MyNortheastern account.

1. Go to https://nubanner.neu.edu/StudentRegistrationSsb/ssb/registration
2. Click on "Browse Classes"
3. Choose "Spring 2019 Semester" in the dropdown menu

Behind the scenes, this is what's happening.

1. First, you are given some cookies. Only JSESSIONID and nubanner-cookie are important.
2. Clicking on the dropdown in "Select A Term" triggers a XHR to

https://nubanner.neu.edu/StudentRegistrationSsb/ssb/classSearch/getTerms?searchTerm=&offset=1&max=20

The response is a JSON array of which lists available terms. (You can try copy and pasting the above URL directly into your browser)

3. Once you click "Continue" a XHR POST request is made to

https://nubanner.neu.edu/StudentRegistrationSsb/ssb/term/search?mode=search

With the body

term=201930&studyPath=&studyPathText=&startDatepicker=&endDatepicker=

At this point, the session is allowed to query the JSON API to browse classes. The GET query below searches for the class "BIOL 2299" for "Spring 2019 Semester".

https://nubanner.neu.edu/StudentRegistrationSsb/ssb/searchResults/searchResults?txt_subject=BIOL&txt_courseNumber=2299&txt_term=201930&startDatepicker=&endDatepicker=&pageOffset=0&pageMaxSize=10&sortColumn=subjectDescription&sortDirection=asc

[ryanhugh]

@edward-shen Looks like it has changed since we investigated it a year ago - the info on banner v9 is now publicly accessible!

[edward-shen]

It's kinda weird that you need to auth your cookies to access this data (is it really public or is it just a mistake on their end), but a god send none the less!

[jennydaman]

It is kinda weird, but that's how it is. I tried running curl after each click in the browser, it would fail until clicking "Continue"

[jennydaman]

https://gitlab.com/snippets/1826909

[ryanhugh]

Just tried the script - looks great!

I totally agree with Edward and that we need to make sure it is really public and not just a mistake on their end but it looks like there is a very high probability that is intentionally public - you can go here:

https://nubanner.neu.edu/StudentRegistrationSsb

in a new incognito tab and all the class data is accessible without logging in.