More Tips and Tricks for Building Chatbots

Chatbot Architecture

You build your first chatbot and it is working ok. Did you know that you can make chatbots even more interactive? That you can access conversation metadata and application variables inside the dialog nodes? You can even use predicates to tailor output to the usage scenario. As a follow up from our “Lessons and Tips from a Chatbot Hackathon“, let’s dig deeper into important features of the IBM Watson Conversation service on the IBM Cloud with Bluemix.

DB2 Security: Privilege(d) Insight

DB2 Security

Today's blog entry is about an old topic: Who I am, why I am and what I am (allowed) to do? Users and their privileges are at the core of database security. Information about them are stored in the IBM DB2 catalog (or IBM ashDB catalog) which can be queried. Thus, it is good to know your way around and being able to extract that information. Kind of as a reference for myself, here is a summary.

I already covered parts of this topic in the past:

• In 2012, I gave an introduction about where to find granted privileges in the catalog. It covers the catalog structure and links to key tables.
• In 2011, 2013 and recently, I discussed trusted contexts, surrogates and the session user as special form of granting privileges and switching identities. I started with a short explaination of trusted context. Next, this introduction covers the concept of surrogates and switching the userid via SET SESSIONUSER. As a follow-up, I looked into related catalog entries for trusted contexts and surrogates which are related to the task scheduler.
• Last year, I wrote about interesting administrative views and and table functions to list privileges. As an example I looked at implicit privileges through group membership.

What is important to know is how to extract the information from the catalog:

• The DB2 Knowledge Center provides a list of security-related views and routines.
• The same resource also has a discussion about gaining access to data through indirect means. It lists the catalog tables, but then many more options on how possibly data and related privileges can be accessed.

EgoBot: Fun with a Slightly Mutating ChatBot

Fun with the Bluemix EgoBot

Over the past day and evening I had some fun with a slightly mutating chatbot. The API for the IBM Watson Conversation service offers REST calls to query and change the workspace, the parts that make up a chat. So why not try writing a chatbot that is egocentric? A chatbot that answers questions about itself, that is happy as long as everything is related to itself? Well, let me tell you about this fun project I call EgoBot.

The EgoBot is at an early stage right now. It supports queries about some of its metadata and adding new intents. And it has both an English and a German version (does language change its character...?). You can see a sample session below.

Chatting with the Bluemix EgoBot

To find out more about this chatbot head over to the EgoBot GitHub repository. The bot is written in Python and has everything to get you started with either an English or German conversation. Let me know about your Friday fun.

How to Manage Bluemix Service Keys via CLI

You probably know that CLI stands for Command Line Interface. And you are aware that IBM Bluemix and Cloud Foundry offer a CLIs. Did you know that you can manage service keys from the command line? Adding new credentials, obtaining keys, and deleting service entries is really simple and fast. In the following, I will show you the commands and use my chatbot project and the IBM Watson Conversation service on Bluemix as example. And I will be using Bluemix in Frankfurt, Germany. So brace yourself for a quick tour through managing service keys from the command line.

Sample Session Managing Keys

Overview

With IBM Bluemix Cloud Foundry you have the choice of using either the Cloud Foundry CLI (“cf”) or the Bluemix CLI (“bluemix” or “bx”). The “bx” command has an option for the “cf” commands. Both CLIs can be downloaded from the same page in the Bluemix documentation. The CLIs have many options to manage apps, services, organizations, spaces, and much more. Both can also be extended through plugins. You can even write and integrate your own plugins. I would recommend using the Bluemix CLI because it offers more features, including a handy option to update itself. For the example I am going to use the Cloud Foundry CLI to demonstrate the general case.
Bluemix offers many services, big and small, in its catalog. Most of those service can be used by more than just a single user, a single app, and not just from within Bluemix. Therefore, creating several credentials for a service, so-called service keys, is essential to consuming a service. The keys can be managed from the browser-based Bluemix console or on the command line via CLI.

Manage Service Keys

Using the Cloud Foundry or Bluemix CLI, the first step is to login. As shown in my example, I am using the API endpoint for Bluemix Public in Frankfurt, Germany:

>> cf login -a api.eu-de.bluemix.net

I am prompted for my email address as username and the password. Depending on my account usage I might also need to select the organization and space I want to work with. As next step, I am looking for the instance of my IBM Watson Conversation service. This is used for my chatbots and I would like to create new credentials for some tests. The “services” command returns all services, on Unix systems “grep” helps to filter the result:

>> cf services | grep -i conversation Conversation-er conversation free hlred create succeeded

The name “Conversation-er” is the name of my Conversation service instance. Now I want to list the existing service keys. It can be done with the “service-keys” or “sk” command:

>> cf service-keys Conversation-er Getting keys for service instance Conversation-er as hloeser@de.ibm.com…
name Credentials-1

Only one service key labeled “Credentials-l” is present. To add new credentials I can use the “create-service-key” or “csk” parameter:

>> cf csk Conversation-er Conv-DE-user2 Creating service key Conv-DE-user2 for service instance Conversation-er as hloeser@de.ibm.com… OK

I chose the name “Conv-DE-user2” for the service key. Let’s see if it was added.

>> cf service-keys Conversation-er Getting keys for service instance Conversation-er as hloeser@de.ibm.com…
name Credentials-1 Conv-DE-user2

To take a look at the actual credentials, the “service-key” is the right option. It fetches the username, password and everything else making up the credentials. For IBM Watson services the gateway URL is part of it:

>> cf service-key Conversation-er Conv-DE-user2 Getting key Conv-DE-user2 for service instance Conversation-er as hloeser@de.ibm.com…
{  “password”: “BFyyHxxxGnO”,  “url”: “https://gateway-fra.watsonplatform.net/conversation/api”,  “username”: “ffffffff-458f-4111-9dd4-03xx610xxbxx” }

Existing service keys can be deleted with the “delete-service-key” or “dsk” command. Recreating keys is one way of implementing rotating passwords (credentials).

>> cf dsk Conversation-er Conv-DE-user2
Really delete the service key Conv-DE-user2?> yes Deleting key Conv-DE-user2 for service instance Conversation-er as hloeser@de.ibm.com… OK

Summary

As shown above, it is pretty simple to manage service keys from the command line.Both the Bluemix and Cloud Foundry CLIs can be used. But not only the credentials can be administrated from the command line. Create services, bind them to apps, request billing and usage information, and more. And, as mentioned above, you can even extend the functionality through plugins and create your own.

Note that this blog entry was first published at https://www.ibm.com/blogs/bluemix/2017/06/manage-bluemix-service-keys-via-cli/