"Failed to authenticate key" when posting to REST api

Question

I used the API explorer to create a target url, but I cannot send a GET request with curl. The error is: "Failed to authenticate key".

Here are the steps I am following:

1. Create an url in the API explorer:

http://51.15.94.180/wp-content/plugins/civicrm/civicrm/extern/rest.php?entity=Contact&action=get&api_key=userkey&key=sitekey&json={"sequential":1}

2. Looked up the site key in civicrm.settings.php (under CIVICRM_SITE_KEY)

3. Used the "API Key" extention to add an API key to the "admin" contact (the one that is associated with the civicrm admin account).

4. I inserted my keys (which I change here for security reasons) to produce this expanded url:

http://51.15.94.180/wp-content/plugins/civicrm/civicrm/extern/rest.php?entity=Contact&action=get&api_key=uCMXIUhzpPv&key=VKtUrOkd&json={"sequential":1}

5. I curl this url, and get the mentioned error

Can anybody help?

UPDATE

I was able to stick a debug log statement into the authenticateKey function of System.php:

CRM_Core_Error::debug_var("req", $_REQUEST);
CRM_Core_Error::debug_var("req size", sizeof($_REQUEST));

The result of this is:

Mar 21 11:49:21  [info] $req = Array
(
    [entity] => Contact
)

Mar 21 11:49:21  [info] $req size = 1

So it seems only the first key/val pair of the request is received in _REQUEST. How can this happen?

Answer 1

Turns out the problem was that I was calling curl without putting quotes around the url.

Answer 2

This error is generally thrown due to error in the site key included in the rest URL. Double check the following things in your API -

• Param assigned to key should be equal to CIVICRM_SITE_KEY specified in civicrm.settings.php.

• Make sure you're checking the correct setting file and value.

• CIVICRM_SITE_KEY should be greater than 7 characters.