Set up Openprovider API access

Set up a dedicated Openprovider user so InfraNest can connect — this guide is for anyone connecting an Openprovider account to InfraNest for domain management.

#Overview

• Openprovider doesn't issue API keys. Instead, InfraNest signs in as one of your Openprovider users, so what you're setting up here is a user, not a key.
• Four things have to be true before that user can connect. Miss one and Openprovider often reports it with the same error it uses for a wrong password, which can send you down the wrong path.
• Working through the checks below in order will save you time.

WarningYour own Openprovider account almost certainly has two-factor authentication turned on, and a user with two-factor authentication cannot use the API at all. Always create a separate user for InfraNest.

#Make a separate user for InfraNest

1. Don't use your own login for this. If someone leaves, or you rotate your own password, a separate user means you can change that without breaking the connection.
2. In the Openprovider control panel, go to Account.
3. Add a new user for InfraNest.
4. Give it a password you haven't used anywhere else — you'll paste this into InfraNest shortly.

#Switch API access on for that user

New users cannot use the API until you allow it.

1. Go to Account → Account Overview.
2. Find the user you just created and check the API access indicator. Green means on, red means off.
3. If it's red, select the username, choose Edit, tick API access Enabled, and select Update contact.

This setting applies per user. Turning it on for your own account does not turn it on for the new one.

#Do not set up 2FA on this user

1. Leave two-factor authentication off for the InfraNest user you created.
2. Keep your own account's two-factor authentication exactly as it is — this only applies to the new user.

A user with two-factor authentication turned on can still sign in to the control panel but cannot obtain an API token. Openprovider's error won't mention two-factor authentication directly; InfraNest will simply tell you a setting on the account is blocking the connection.

#Allow our IP address

Openprovider can restrict API access to particular addresses, and InfraNest always connects from a fixed one.

1. Open the same user's settings and find the API white list.
2. Add the IP address InfraNest shows you on the connect screen, in the line Allow this IP at the provider: …. It's an IPv4 address, and it's the address InfraNest always connects to Openprovider from.

NoteOpenprovider keeps this list per user and per access level. That means you can allow our address for the API while your own control-panel logins stay restricted to your office.

If the whitelist is blocking us, Openprovider returns a different error — "Access denied" rather than "Authentication/Authorization Failed" — and InfraNest will tell you it's the IP address rather than the password.

#Connect Openprovider

1. Go back to InfraNest.
2. Open Integrations.
3. Select Openprovider.
4. Enter the username and password of the user you made.

#Troubleshooting

If it still will not connect, work through these in order — they are the four causes, most common first:

1. API access is off for that user. This is the most common cause, because it's off by default.
2. Two-factor authentication is set up on that user. Remove it, or make a user that never had it.
3. Our IP address is not on the whitelist. Openprovider's own advice is to clear the whitelist entirely until the connection works, then add addresses back.
4. The password is wrong. Genuinely the least likely of the four.