General services¶

Request¶

The XML request should contain at least one type element to indicates the kind of information to retrieve. More type elements can be specified to obtain more information at once. The set of allowed values are:

1. site: Returns general information about the site like its name, id, etc...
2. categories: Returns all site’s categories
3. groups: Returns all site’s groups visible to the requesting user. If the user does not authenticate himself, only the Intranet and the all groups are visible.
4. operations: Returns all possible operations on metadata
5. regions: Returns all geographical regions usable for queries
6. sources: Returns all GeoNetwork sources that the remote site knows.

The result will contain:

• The remote node’s name and siteId
• All source UUIDs and names that have been discovered through harvesting.
• All source UUIDs and names of metadata that have been imported into the remote node through the MEF format.
• Administrators can see all users into the system (normal, other administrators, etc...)
• User administrators can see all users they can administrate and all other user administrators in the same group set. The group set is defined by all groups visible to the user administration, beside the All and the Intranet groups.
• An authenticated user can see only himself.
• A guest cannot see any user.

Request example:

<request>
    <type>site</type>
    <type>groups</type>
</request>

Response¶

Each type element produces an XML subtree so the response to the previous request is like this:

<info>
    <site>...</site>
    <categories>...</categories>
    <groups>...</groups>
    ...
</info>

Here follows the structure of each subtree:

• site: This is the container
  • name: Human readable site name
  • siteId: Universal unique identifier of the site
  • platform: This is just a container to hold the site’s back end
    • name: Platform name. For GeoNetwork installations it must be GeoNetwork.
    • version: Platform version, given in the X.Y.Z format
    • subVersion: Additional version notes, like ’alpha-1’ or ’beta-2’.

Example site information:

<site>
    <name>My site</name>
    <organisation>FAO</organization>
    <siteId>0619cc50-708b-11da-8202-000d9335906e</siteId>
    <platform>
        <name>geonetwork</name>
        <version>2.2.0</version>
    </platform>
</site>

• categories: This is the container for categories.
  • category [0..n]: A single GeoNetwork’s category. This element has an id attribute which represents the local identifier for the category. It can be useful to a client to link back to this category.
    • name: Category’s name
    • label: The localised labels used to show the category on screen. See xml_response_categories.

Example response for categories:

<categories>
    <category id="1">
        <name>datasets</name>
        <label>
            <en>Datasets</en>
            <fr>Jeux de données</fr>
        </label>
    </category>
</categories>

• groups: This is the container for groups
  • group [2..n]: This is a GeoNetwork group. There are at least the Internet and Intranet groups. This element has an id attribute which represents the local identifier for the group.
    • name: Group’s name
    • description: Group’s description
    • referrer: The user responsible for this group
    • email: The email address to notify when a map is downloaded
    • label: The localised labels used to show the group on screen. See xml_response_groups.

Example response for groups:

<groups>
    <group id="1">
        <name>editors</name>
        <label>
            <en>Editors</en>
            <fr>Éditeurs</fr>
        </label>
    </group>
</groups>

• operations: This is the container for the operations
  • operation [0..n]: This is a possible operation on metadata. This element has an id attribute which represents the local identifier for the operation.
    • name: Short name for the operation.
    • reserved: Can be y or n and is used to distinguish between system reserved and user defined operations.
    • label: The localised labels used to show the operation on screen. See xml_response_operations.

Example response for operations:

<operations>
    <operation id="0">
        <name>view</name>
        <label>
            <en>View</en>
            <fr>Voir</fr>
        </label>
    </operation>
</operations>

• regions: This is the container for geographical regions
  • region [0..n]: This is a region present into the system. This element has an id attribute which represents the local identifier for the operation.
    • north: North coordinate of the bounding box.
    • south: South coordinate of the bounding box.
    • west: West coordinate of the bounding box.
    • east: east coordinate of the bounding box.
    • label: The localised labels used to show the region on screen. See xml_response_regions.

Example response for regions:

<regions>
    <region id="303">
        <north>82.99</north>
        <south>26.92</south>
        <west>-37.32</west>
        <east>39.24</east>
        <label>
            <en>Western Europe</en>
            <fr>Western Europe</fr>
        </label>
    </region>
</regions>

• sources: This is the container.
  • source [0..n]: A source known to the remote node.
    • name: Source’s name
    • UUID: Source’s unique identifier

Example response for a source:

<sources>
    <source>
        <name>My Host</name>
        <UUID>0619cc50-708b-11da-8202-000d9335906e</uuid>
    </source>
</sources>

• users: This is the container for user information
  • user [0..n]: A user of the system
    • id: The local identifier of the user
    • username: The login name
    • surname: The user’s surname. Used for display purposes.
    • name: The user’s name. Used for display purposes.
    • profile: User’s profile, like Administrator, Editor, UserAdmin etc...
    • address: The user’s address.
    • state: The user’s state.
    • zip: The user’s address zip code.
    • country: The user’s country.
    • email: The user’s email address.
    • organisation: The user’s organisation.
    • kind:

Example response for a user:

<users>
    <user>
        <id>3</id>
        <username>eddi</username>
        <surname>Smith</surname>
        <name>John</name>
        <profile>Editor</profile>
        <address/>
        <state/>
        <zip/>
        <country/>
        <email/>
        <organisation/>
        <kind>gov</kind>
    </user>
</users>

Localised entities¶

Localised entities have a general label element which contains the localised strings in all supported languages. This element has as many children as the supported languages. Each child has a name that reflect the language code while its content is the localised text. Here is an example of such elements:

<label>
    <en>Editors</en>
    <fr>Éditeurs</fr>
    <es>Editores</es>
</label>

Request¶

The service’s request:

<request>
    <site>
        <url>...</url>
        <type>...</type>
        <account>
            <username>...</username>
            <password>...</password>
        </account>
    </site>
    <params>...</params>
</request>

Where:

1. site: A container for site information where the request will be forwarded.
2. url: Refers to the remote URL to connect to. Usually it points to a GeoNetwork XML service but it can point to any XML service.
3. type: Its only purpose is to distinguish GeoNetwork nodes which use a different authentication scheme. The value GeoNetwork refers to these nodes. Any other value, or if the element is missing, refers to a generic node.
4. account: This element is optional. If present, the provided credentials will be used to authenticate to the remote site.
5. params: This is just a container for the request that must be executed remotely.

Request for info from a remote server:

<request>
    <site>
        <url>http://mynode.org:8080/geonetwork/srv/en/xml.info</url>
    </site>
    <params>
        <request>
            <type>site<type>
        </request>
    </params>
</request>

Please note that this service uses the GeoNetwork’s proxy configuration.

Response¶

The response is just the response from the remote service.