Why does creating a user with multiple roles fail when calling the REST API endpoint from curl?

[rpwawa]

I can successfully create users by calling the REST API authentication/users endpoint from curl, but when I try to create a user with multiple roles it fails.

For example, this command will successfully create a user:
curl -k -s -u admin:changeme https://splunk1:8089/services/authentication/users -d name=test1 -d password=test1 -d realname="Test User 1" -d email=test1@here.com -d roles="role1" -d defaultApp=search

However, when I try to specify multiple roles as shown below the command fails. I have tried using a blank, comma and a comma/blank as delimiters between the role names and none of them work.
curl -k -s -u admin:changeme https://splunk1:8089/services/authentication/users -d name=test1 -d password=test1 -d realname="Test User 1" -d email=test1@here.com -d roles="role1,role2" -d defaultApp=search

The REST API documentation for the authentication/users endpoint says that the roles parameter should contain "One or more existing roles to assign to this user."

What syntax should I use for specifying multiple roles when creating a user with the REST API?

[frobinson_splun · Accepted solution]

Hi @rpwawa,
I am not sure that "roles" accepts comma separated lists of roles. Can you try submitting roles separately for this user in your request, as in
-d roles="role1", -d roles="role2"

Let me know if this doesn't work and I can do some more research into what's going on...

Hope this helps!

[rpwawa]

Yes, submitting the roles as separate items works - like this: -d roles="role1" -d roles="role2"

Thanks a lot !!!

[frobinson_splun]

awesome! I'll update the docs to mention this. Will convert my comment to an answer as it solved your question. Please feel free to accept it! 🙂