# iControlREST and Curl to save and download ASM policies **URL:** \ **Category:** Technical Forums\ **Tags:** asm-advanced-waf, icontrol, icontrolrest, security, download, export, curl\ **Created:** [December 6, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://community.f5.com/t/icontrolrest-and-curl-to-save-and-download-asm-policies/13584 "2016-12-06T05:01:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![saidshow\_251381](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@saidshow\_251381](https://community.f5.com/u/saidshow_251381)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://community.f5.com/t/icontrolrest-and-curl-to-save-and-download-asm-policies/13584/1 "2016-12-06T05:01:52Z")
Hi, I want to be able to save/export asm policies on the F5 and then download. I want to do this using iControlREST and curl. I am able to save UCS files with the post shown below: ```markup curl -v -sk -u admin:admin https://myF5/mgmt/tm/sys/ucs -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X POST -d '{"command":"save","name":"blah.ucs"}' | jq ``` However if I try to do something similar for asm I get errors. Below is what I was trying with asm. ```markup curl -v -sk -u admin:admin https://myF5/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/fn9GoMrandomGvoN2dD -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X POST -d '{"command":"save","name":"as_test.xml"}' | jq ``` The error I get is: { “code”: 400, “message”: “Could not parse/validate the Policy ‘Security Policy /Common/as\_test’. Unknown field ‘command’”, “originalRequestBody”: “{\“command\”:\“save\”,\“name\”:\“as\_test.xml\””, “referer”: “x.x.x.x”, “restOperationId”: 59083, “kind”: “:resterrorresponse” } Thank you ---
**Author:** ![Hannes\_Rapp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@Hannes\_Rapp](https://community.f5.com/u/Hannes_Rapp)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2016, 11:32am UTC](https://community.f5.com/t/icontrolrest-and-curl-to-save-and-download-asm-policies/13584/2 "2016-12-06T11:32:49Z")
```markup 1: Extract policy names and corresponding API IDs hannes@ubuntuBash$ curl -ku 'admin:admin' -X GET https://172.16.99.91/mgmt/tm/asm/policies | jq '.items[] | "pol_name:" + .name + ";api_id:" + .id' "pol_name:sp_fake.google.com;api_id:00TT7Lv-Yba2xcEZkjkc3A" "pol_name:sp_fake.github.com;api_id:cswJ2oCNNqbfdWMVWdzoTw" 2: Export policies natively on the appliance hannes@ubuntuBash$ curl -ku 'admin:admin' -X POST https://172.16.99.91/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/export-policy -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"filename":"sp_fake.google.com.xml","policyReference":{"link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/00TT7Lv-Yba2xcEZkjkc3A"}}' hannes@ubuntuBash$ curl -ku 'admin:admin' -X POST https://172.16.99.91/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/export-policy -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"filename":"sp_fake.github.com.xml","policyReference":{"link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/cswJ2oCNNqbfdWMVWdzoTw"}}' 3: Exported policies can be found on BigIP at '/var/ts/var/rest' [hannes@bip-01:Active:In-Sync] config ls /var/ts/var/rest admin~sp_fake.github.com.xml admin~sp_fake.google.com.xml 4: Download the exports: Issue a cURL to that policy, save output as a local file in your external file system. hannes@ubuntuBash$ curl -ku 'admin:admin' -X GET https://172.16.99.91/mgmt/tm/asm/file-transfer/downloads/sp_fake.google.com.xml >> sp_fake.google.com.xml hannes@ubuntuBash$ curl -ku 'admin:admin' -X GET https://172.16.99.91/mgmt/tm/asm/file-transfer/downloads/sp_fake.github.com.xml >> sp_fake.github.com.xml hannes@ubuntuBash$ ls sp_fake.google.com.xml sp_fake.github.com.xml ``` Voila! Note that this was done on 12.1.1. I think all of the above will work on 11.6.x too. On 11.5.x the 4th step will fail (not implemented error). ---
**Author:** ![saidshow\_251381](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@saidshow\_251381](https://community.f5.com/u/saidshow_251381)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://community.f5.com/t/icontrolrest-and-curl-to-save-and-download-asm-policies/13584/3 "2016-12-06T23:45:17Z")
Hannes Thank you! This is far more detailed than I expected. Thank you for your efforts. I have already upgraded to Ver12.1.1 so this will just perfect. I’ll give this a try as soon as time allows. This really is appreciated. Well Done. ---
**Author:** ![saidshow\_251381](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@saidshow\_251381](https://community.f5.com/u/saidshow_251381)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 3:12am UTC](https://community.f5.com/t/icontrolrest-and-curl-to-save-and-download-asm-policies/13584/4 "2017-03-06T03:12:31Z")
Hi Hannes, Great advice again. I have taken what you provided and scripted it up. Just replace username and password and the IPs and off it goes. This script will create a folder with the current AEST date and time and place all the xml backups in that folder. Since I create 3 files in the script, I also remove them at the end. If I don’t remove them they will grow every time the script is executed. I hope this helps someone else half as much as you helped me. ```markup !/bin/bash curl -ku 'username:password' -X GET https://x.x.x.x/mgmt/tm/asm/policies | jq '.items[] | "pol_name:" + .name + ";api_id:" + .id' >> asmDetailsLAB.txt cat asmDetailsLAB.txt |grep pol_name |cut -d":" -f2 |cut -d";" -f1 >> asmPoliciesLAB.txt cat asmDetailsLAB.txt |grep pol_name |cut -d":" -f3 |cut -d'"' -f1 >> asmIDsLAB.txt folderName="$(zdump AEST)" mkdir -p asmLabBackup mkdir "asmLabBackup/""$folderName" paste -d'\n' asmPoliciesLAB.txt asmIDsLAB.txt | while read asmPolicy && read asmIDs;do echo $asmPolicy $asmIDs curl -ku 'username:password' -X POST https://x.x.x.x/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/export-policy -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"filename":"'$asmPolicy'","policyReference":{"link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/'$asmIDs'"}}' curl -ku 'username:password' -X GET https://x.x.x.x/mgmt/tm/asm/file-transfer/downloads/$asmPolicy >> asmLabBackup/"$folderName"/$asmPolicy.xml done rm asmDetailsLAB.txt rm asmPoliciesLAB.txt rm asmIDsLAB.txt ``` ---
**Author:** ![Wojciech\_Wypior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/59ef9b/32.png) [@Wojciech\_Wypior](https://community.f5.com/u/Wojciech_Wypior)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2017, 12:32pm UTC](https://community.f5.com/t/icontrolrest-and-curl-to-save-and-download-asm-policies/13584/5 "2017-03-30T12:32:21Z")
Hello Saidshow, For any export/import on ASM, you need to use its /tasks endpoint, and file transfer endpoint afterwards. In your case it is: ```markup /mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/export-policy /mgmt/tm/asm/file-transfer/downloads ``` **NOTE:** This is not possible in 11.5.4 as file\_transfer endpoint for ASM was added in 11.6.x. You can attempt to use another endpoint for file transfer (see: [this article](https://devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/demystifying-icontrol-rest-part-5-transferring-files) ) If you are familiar with python, using this library would be your best choice: ```markup https://github.com/F5Networks/f5-common-python ``` Please have a look at the functional and unit tests as they should give you idea how to use it. If you really want to use CURL, then I guess something like this should work: **1. Export to a file** ```markup curl -v -sk -u admin:admin https://myF5/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/export-policy -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X POST -d '{"filename":"as_test.xml","policyReference":"{"link": "https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/yutqTnGiAizDLpdd_mkRvg"}"}' ``` - **Policy link above would have to correspond to selfLink property of your intended exported policy.** **2. Download the file** ```markup curl -v -sk -u admin:admin https://myF5/mgmt/tm/asm/file-transfer/downloads/as_test.xml -H 'Content-Type': 'application/octet-stream' -X GET ``` I hope this helps ---
**Author:** ![WildWeasel](https://d1p9zq3aats0t8.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.f5.com/wildweasel/32/16221_2.png) [@WildWeasel](https://community.f5.com/u/WildWeasel)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2023, 12:40pm UTC](https://community.f5.com/t/icontrolrest-and-curl-to-save-and-download-asm-policies/13584/6 "2023-05-12T12:40:59Z")
Thank You for sharing this..  It was a big help and got me halfway there. Anyway you have a similar script to now IMPORT all those .xml files?