Linode API v4.173.0

Introduction

The Linode API provides the ability to programmatically manage the full range of Linode products and services.

This reference is designed to assist application developers and system administrators. Each endpoint includes descriptions, request syntax, and examples using standard HTTP requests. Response data is returned in JSON format.

This document was generated from our OpenAPI Specification. See the OpenAPI website for more information.

Download the Linode OpenAPI Specification.

Changelog

View our Changelog to see release notes on all changes made to our API.

Access and Authentication

Some endpoints are publicly accessible without requiring authentication. All endpoints affecting your Account, however, require either a Personal Access Token or OAuth authentication (when using third-party applications).

Personal Access Token

The easiest way to access the API is with a Personal Access Token (PAT) generated from the Linode Cloud Manager or the Create Personal Access Token endpoint.

All scopes for the OAuth security model (defined below) apply to this security model as well.

Authentication

OAuth

If you only need to access the Linode API for personal use, we recommend that you create a personal access token. If you’re designing an application that can authenticate with an arbitrary Linode user, then you should use the OAuth 2.0 workflows presented in this section.

For a more detailed example of an OAuth 2.0 implementation, see our guide on How to Create an OAuth App with the Linode Python API Library.

Before you implement OAuth in your application, you first need to create an OAuth client. You can do this with the Linode API or via the Cloud Manager:

• When creating the client, you’ll supply a label and a redirect_uri (referred to as the Callback URL in the Cloud Manager).
• The response from this endpoint will give you a client_id and a secret.
• Clients can be public or private, and are private by default. You can choose to make the client public when it is created.
  • A private client is used with applications which can securely store the client secret (that is, the secret returned to you when you first created the client). For example, an application running on a secured server that only the developer has access to would use a private OAuth client. This is also called a confidential client in some OAuth documentation.
  • A public client is used with applications where the client secret is not guaranteed to be secure. For example, a native app running on a user’s computer may not be able to keep the client secret safe, as a user could potentially inspect the source of the application. So, native apps or apps that run in a user’s browser should use a public client.
  • Public and private clients follow different workflows, as described below.

OAuth Workflow

The OAuth workflow is a series of exchanges between your third-party app and Linode. The workflow is used to authenticate a user before an application can start making API calls on the user’s behalf.

Notes:

• With respect to the diagram in section 1.2 of RFC 6749, login.linode.com (referred to in this section as the login server) is the Resource Owner and the Authorization Server; api.linode.com (referred to here as the api server) is the Resource Server.
• The OAuth spec refers to the private and public workflows listed below as the authorization code flow and implicit flow.

OAuth Private Workflow - Additional Details

The following information expands on steps 5 through 7 of the private workflow:

Once the user has logged into Linode and you have received an exchange code, you will need to trade that exchange code for an access_token and refresh_token. You do this by making an HTTP POST request to the following address:

https://login.linode.com/oauth/token

Make this request as application/x-www-form-urlencoded or as multipart/form-data and include the following parameters in the POST body:

You’ll get a response like this:

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{
  "scope": "linodes:read_write",
  "access_token": "03d084436a6c91fbafd5c4b20c82e5056a2e9ce1635920c30dc8d81dc7a6665c",
  "refresh_token": "f2ec9712e616fdb5a2a21aa0e88cfadea7502ebc62cf5bd758dbcd65e1803bad",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": 7200
}

Included in the response is an access_token. With this token, you can proceed to make authenticated HTTP requests to the API by adding this header to each request:

Authorization: Bearer 03d084436a6c91fbafd5c4b20c82e5056a2e9ce1635920c30dc8d81dc7a6665c

This access_token is set to expire in two hours. To refresh access prior to expiration, make another request to the same URL with the following parameters in the POST body:

You’ll get another response with an updated access_token and refresh_token, which can then be used to refresh access again.

OAuth Reference

Requests

Requests must be made over HTTPS to ensure transactions are encrypted. Data included in requests must be supplied in json format unless otherwise specified in the command description.

The following request methods are supported:

Responses

Response Status Codes

Actions will return one of the following HTTP response status codes:

Response Headers

There are many ways to access response header information for individual command URLs, depending on how you are accessing the Linode API. For example, to view HTTP response headers for the /regions endpoint when making requests with curl, use the -I or --head option as follows:

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curl -I https://api.linode.com/v4/regions

Responses may include the following headers:

Errors

Success is indicated via Standard HTTP status codes. 2xx codes indicate success, 4xx codes indicate a request error, and 5xx errors indicate a server error. A request error might be an invalid input, a required parameter being omitted, or a malformed request. A server error means something went wrong processing your request. If this occurs, please open a Support Ticket and let us know. Though errors are logged and we work quickly to resolve issues, opening a ticket and providing us with reproducible steps and data is always helpful.

The errors field is an array of the things that went wrong with your request. We will try to include as many of the problems in the response as possible, but it’s conceivable that fixing these errors and resubmitting may result in new errors coming back once we are able to get further along in the process of handling your request.

Within each error object, the field parameter will be included if the error pertains to a specific field in the JSON you’ve submitted. This will be omitted if there is no relevant field. The reason is a human-readable explanation of the error, and will always be included.

Pagination

Resource lists are always paginated. The response will look similar to this:

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{
    "data": [ ... ],
    "page": 1,
    "pages": 3,
    "results": 300
}

• Pages start at 1. You may retrieve a specific page of results by adding ?page=x to your URL (for example, ?page=4). If the value of page exceeds 2^64/page_size, the last possible page will be returned.

• Page sizes default to 100, and can be set to return between 25 and 500. Page size can be set using ?page_size=x.

Filtering and Sorting

Collections are searchable by fields they include, marked in the spec as x-linode-filterable: true. Filters are passed in the X-Filter header and are formatted as JSON objects. Here is a request call for Linode Types in our “standard” class:

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curl "https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types" \
  -H 'X-Filter: { "class": "standard" }'

The filter object’s keys are the keys of the object you’re filtering, and the values are accepted values. You can add multiple filters by including more than one key. For example, filtering for “standard” Linode Types that offer one vcpu:

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 curl "https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types" \
  -H 'X-Filter: { "class": "standard", "vcpus": 1 }'

In the above example, both filters are combined with an “and” operation. However, if you wanted either Types with one vcpu or Types in our “standard” class, you can add an operator:

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curl "https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types" \
 -H 'X-Filter: { "+or": [ { "vcpus": 1 }, { "class": "standard" } ] }'

Each filter in the +or array is its own filter object, and all conditions in it are combined with an “and” operation as they were in the previous example.

Other operators are also available. Operators are keys of a Filter JSON object. Their value must be of the appropriate type, and they are evaluated as described below:

For example, filtering for Linode Types that offer memory equal to or higher than 61440:

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curl "https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types" \
  -H '
    X-Filter: {
      "memory": {
        "+gte": 61440
      }
    }'

You can combine and nest operators to construct arbitrarily-complex queries. For example, give me all Linode Types which are either standard or highmem class, or have between 12 and 20 vcpus:

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curl "https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types" \
  -H '
    X-Filter: {
      "+or": [
        {
          "+or": [
            {
              "class": "standard"
            },
            {
              "class": "highmem"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "+and": [
            {
              "vcpus": {
                "+gte": 12
              }
            },
            {
              "vcpus": {
                "+lte": 20
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }'

Time Values

All times returned by the API are in UTC, regardless of the timezone configured within your user’s profile (see timezone property within Profile View).

Rate Limiting

Rate limits on API requests help maintain the health and stability of the Linode API. Accordingly, every endpoint of the Linode API applies a rate limit on a per user basis as determined by OAuth token for authenticated requests or IP address for public endpoints.

Each rate limit consists of a total number of requests and a time window. For example, if an endpoint has a rate limit of 800 requests per minute, then up to 800 requests over a one minute window are permitted. Subsequent requests to an endpoint after hitting a rate limit return a 429 error. You can successfully remake requests to that endpoint after the rate limit window resets.

Linode APIv4 Rate Limits

With the Linode API, you can generally make up to 800 general API requests every two minutes. Additionally, all commands have a rate limit of 400 requests per minute, and all GET commands that return paginated data collections have a rate limit of 200 requests per minute, unless otherwise specified below.

Note: There may be rate limiting applied at other levels outside of the API, for example, at the load balancer.

Creating Linodes has a dedicated rate limit of 10 requests per 30 seconds. That endpoint is:

• Linode Create

Creating Volumes has a dedicated rate limit of 25 requests per minute. That endpoint is:

• Volume Create

Listing Images has a dedicated rate limit of 20 requests per minute. That endpoint is:

• Images List

/stats endpoints have their own dedicated rate limits of 50 requests per minute. These endpoints are:

• View Linode Statistics
• View Linode Statistics (year/month)
• View NodeBalancer Statistics
• List Managed Stats

Object Storage endpoints have a dedicated rate limit of 750 requests per second. The Object Storage endpoints are:

• Object Storage Endpoints

Opening Support Tickets has a dedicated rate limit of 2 requests per minute. That endpoint is:

• Open Support Ticket

Accepting Service Transfers has a dedicated rate limit of 2 requests per minute. That endpoint is:

• Service Transfer Accept

Rate Limit HTTP Response Headers

The Linode API includes the following HTTP response headers which are designed to help you avoid hitting rate limits which might disrupt your applications:

• X-RateLimit-Limit: The maximum number of permitted requests during the rate limit window for this endpoint.
• X-RateLimit-Remaining: The remaining number of permitted requests in the current rate limit window.
• X-RateLimit-Reset: The time when the current rate limit window rests in UTC epoch seconds.
• Retry-After: The remaining time in seconds until the current rate limit window resets.

CLI (Command Line Interface)

The Linode CLI allows you to easily work with the API using intuitive and simple syntax. It requires a Personal Access Token for authentication, and gives you access to all of the features and functionality of the Linode API that are documented here with CLI examples.

Endpoints that do not have CLI examples are currently unavailable through the CLI, but can be accessed via other methods such as Shell commands and other third-party applications.