Kong ChurnZero Plugin

Table of Contents

• 1. Usage
• 2. Installation
• 3. Configuration
• 4. Demonstration

1. Usage

This plugin enables logging events from Kong to ChurnZero (customer success software).

See also What is ChurnZero and How to integrate readme pages.

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2. Installation

To install this plugin (and be able to configure it via the Kong Admin API), follow the instructions in the provided INSTALL.txt file.

You must do so for every node in your Kong cluster. See the section about using LuaRocks behind a proxy if necessary, in the INSTALL.txt file.

In short, if you're using luarocks execute the following:

 luarocks install kong-churnzero

You also need to set the KONG_CUSTOM_PLUGINS environment variable

 export KONG_CUSTOM_PLUGINS=churnzero

or if other plugins already installed

 export KONG_CUSTOM_PLUGINS=other_plugins,churnzero

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3. Configuration

Method 1: apply it on top of an API by executing the following request on your Kong server:

$ curl -X POST http://kong:8001/apis/{api}/plugins \
    --data "name=churnzero" \
    --data "config.endpoint_url=CHURNZERO_ENDPOINT_URL" \
    --data "config.app_key=CHURNZERO_APPLICATION_KEY"

Method 2: apply it globally (on all APIs) by executing the following request on your Kong server:

$ curl -X POST http://kong:8001/plugins \
    --data "name=churnzero" \
    --data "config.endpoint_url=CHURNZERO_ENDPOINT_URL" \
    --data "config.app_key=CHURNZERO_APPLICATION_KEY"

api: The id or name of the API that this plugin configuration will target

Please read the Plugin Reference for more information.

Common settings

Attribute	Default value	Description
name		The name of the plugin to use, in this case: churnzero
config.endpoint_url required		Endpoint (host) of the ChurnZero server.
config.app_key required		Application key in the ChurnZero system. Ask the ChurnZero team.
config.timeout optional	10000	The time for waiting the response of the http-request.
config.unauthenticated_enabled optional	true	false means events from unauthenticated consumers will not be sent to ChurnZero.
config.events_from_route_patterns optional		Kong will send to ChurnZero events based on what pattern is matched with route string. Whitespace separates pattern from event name. F.e. if route string is /myentity/123 and this property value array is [ "/myentity/%d+ GetEntity", "/anotherentity/%d+ GetAnotherEntity" ], Kong will send GetEntity event to ChurnZero because /myentity/%d+ matched to /myentity/123. (see Lua Patterns)
config.events_from_header_prefix optional	X-ChurnZero-	Kong will send to ChurnZero events based on headers starting with this prefix. F.e. if the header X-ChurnZero-EventName:SomeMethodCalled occured in the upstream response, Kong will send SomeMethodCalled event to ChurnZero.
config.hide_churnzero_headers optional	true	true means the headers used to produce events will not be sent to a downstream.

Account settings

Attribute	Default value	Description
config.account.authenticated_from optional	consumer	When consumer authenticated, this property value will be used to fill accountExternalId event attribute in case of this attribute unspecified. Possible values: consumer, credential. consumer means use consumer name, custom_id or id. credential means use credential key.
config.account.unauthenticated_from optional	ip	When consumer unauthenticated, this property value will be used to fill accountExternalId event attribute in case of this attribute unspecified. Possible values: ip, constant. ip means use consumer ip address. constant means use config.account.unauthenticated_from_const property value
config.account.unauthenticated_from_const optional	anonymous	When consumer unauthenticated and config.account.unauthenticated_from property value is constant, this property value will be used to fill accountExternalId event attribute.
config.account.prefix optional		The value of this property will be prepend to autogenerated accountExternalId event attribute in case of this attribute unspecified.

Contact sttings

Attribute	Default value	Description
config.contact.authenticated_from optional	consumer	When consumer authenticated, this property value will be used to fill contactExternalId event attribute in case of this attribute unspecified. Possible values: consumer, credential. consumer means use consumer name, custom_id or id. credential means use credential key.
config.contact.unauthenticated_from optional	ip	When consumer unauthenticated, this property value will be used to fill contactExternalId event attribute in case of this attribute unspecified. Possible values: ip, constant. ip means use consumer ip address. constant means use config.contact.unauthenticated_from_const property value
config.contact.unauthenticated_from_const optional	anonymous	When consumer unauthenticated and config.contact.unauthenticated_from property value is constant, this property value will be used to fill contactExternalId event attribute.
config.contact.prefix optional	contact-	The value of this property will be prepend to autogenerated contactExternalId event attribute in case of this attribute unspecified.

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4. Demonstration

For this demonstration we are running Kong locally on a Vagrant machine on a MacOS.

1. Create an API on Kong

   $ curl -i -X  POST http://localhost:8001/apis/ \
     --data "name=test-api" -d "hosts=example.com" \
     --data "upstream_url=http://localhost"
   
   HTTP/1.1 201 Created
   ...
   

2. Apply the churnzero plugin to the API on Kong

   $ curl -i -X POST http://localhost:8001/apis/test-api/plugins \
       --data "name=churnzero" \
       --data "config.endpoint_url=https://eu1analytics.churnzero.net/i" \
       --data "config.app_key=A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz" 
   
   HTTP/1.1 201 Created
   ...
   

3. Make a request to an api.

   $ curl -i -X POST http://localhost:8000/ -H "Host:example.com"
   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   ...
   

4. If the upstream api returns applicable headers (see config.events_from_header_prefix setting) or if the requested route matches a pattern (see config.events_from_route_patterns setting) then the Kong will send following request to the ChurnZero endpoint:

   POST https://eu1analytics.churnzero.net HTTP/1.1
   Host: /i
   Content-Type: application/json
   Cache-Control: no-cache
   Content-Length: ...
   
   [
    {
      "appKey": "A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz",
      "action": "trackEvent",
      ...
    }
   ]
   

Headers matching

By default, the config.events_from_header_prefix property value is X-ChurnZero-. This means that the churnzero plugin will catch the following headers in each response from the upstream:

X-ChurnZero-EventName
X-ChurnZero-Quantity
X-ChurnZero-AccountExternalId
X-ChurnZero-ContactExternalId
X-ChurnZero-AppKey
X-ChurnZero-EventDate

and/or similar headers with dash+integer postfix -1, -2, -n series without skippings f.e.:

X-ChurnZero-EventName-1
X-ChurnZero-EventName-2
X-ChurnZero-Quantity-2
(*EventName* is required the rest are optional)

Example 1: Full event from headers:

Configuration settings:

config.events_from_header_prefix = "X-ChurnZero-" (by default)

Upstream response headers:

X-ChurnZero-EventName: GetProductList
X-ChurnZero-Quantity: 1
X-ChurnZero-AccountExternalId: pineapple.com
X-ChurnZero-ContactExternalId: m.kong@pineapple.com
X-ChurnZero-AppKey: A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz
X-ChurnZero-EventDate: 2017-11-14T01:07:35Z

ChurnZero log http request body:

[
  {
    "appKey": "A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz", 
    "accountExternalId": "pineapple",
    "contactExternalId": "m.kong@pineapple.com",
    "action": "trackEvent",
    "eventDate": "2017-11-14T01:07:35Z",
    "eventName": "GetProductList",
    "quantity": 1
  }
]

Example 2: Two events (part from headers, the rest from settings):

Upstream response header:

X-ChurnZero-EventName-1: GetProductList
X-ChurnZero-EventName-2: GetSpecialProductList
X-ChurnZero-Quantity-2: 2

Confguration settings:

config.app_key = "A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz"
config.account.authenticated_from = "consumer"    (by default) (f.e. consumer is "pineapple")
config.account.prefix = ""                        (by default)
config.contact.authenticated_from = "consumer"    (by default) (f.e. consumer is "pineapple")
config.contact.prefix = "contact-"                (by default)
config.events_from_header_prefix = "X-ChurnZero-" (by default)

ChurnZero log http request body:

[
  {
    "appKey": "A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz", 
    "accountExternalId": "pineapple",
    "contactExternalId": "contact-pineapple",
    "action": "trackEvent",
    "eventDate": "2017-11-14T01:07:35Z",      (kong server date)
    "eventName": "GetProductList",            (from header)
    "quantity": 1                             (default)
  },
  {
    "appKey": "A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz", 
    "accountExternalId": "pineapple",
    "contactExternalId": "contact-pineapple",
    "action": "trackEvent",
    "eventDate": "2017-11-14T01:07:35Z",      (kong server date)
    "eventName": "GetSpecialProductList",     (from header)
    "quantity": 2                             (from header)
  }
]

Route string patterns matching

By default, the config.events_from_route_patterns property value is empty. This means route string pattern matching is disabled.

To enable route string pattern matching need to add a pattern
config.events_from_route_patterns[1]=/entity/%d+ GetEntity (the space separates a matching part from an event-name part). This means that the churnzero plugin will send an event with EventName = GetEntity to ChurnZero on each request from any consumer in case of /entity/%d+ matched to the route string.

It is possible to add several patterns:
config.events_from_route_patterns[2]=/file/%d+ GetFile

Example 3: Event name from route string, the rest from settings:

Route string:

/entity/123

Confguration settings:

config.app_key = "A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz"
config.account.authenticated_from = "consumer"  (by default) (f.e. consumer is "pineapple")
config.account.prefix = ""                      (by default)
config.contact.authenticated_from = "consumer"  (by default) (f.e. consumer is "pineapple")
config.contact.prefix = "contact-"              (by default)
config.events_from_route_patterns[1] = "/entity/%d+ GetEntity"

ChurnZero log http request body:

[
  {
    "appKey": "A-aa1bb2cc3dd4_eF-jklmnOpq2Rst234-U0v879Wxuz", 
    "accountExternalId": "pineapple",
    "contactExternalId": "contact-pineapple",
    "action": "trackEvent",
    "eventDate": "2017-11-14T02:11:58Z",
    "eventName": "GetEntity",
    "quantity": 1
  }
]

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