Can Firebase Realtime Database be an WebHook Endpoint?

Question

My Firebase database is structured to successfully save data from HTTP POST requests, as confirmed by sending test requests directly from my Angular development app:

CreatePost(){
let body = {
  "host_id" : 1, 
  "uuid" : 1,
  "id" : 1, 
  "status" : "ENDED"
}
this.http.post( this.url, body )

Firebase database update result:

    -zoom
       -L1dZbBWMTIr7ojjodzg
          host_id: 1
          id: 1
          status: "ENDED"
          uuid: 1

However, with the same database URL used as WebHook endpoint for a 3rd party service (Zoom conferencing), the database is not updating in response to WebHook triggering events, such as starting a meeting.

The Zoom WebHook POST is being sent correctly, as confirmed by a test to RequestBin:

    FORM/POST PARAMETERS
    host_id: w_1a9RDvTKqiG_BBdV7kuw
    status: STARTED
    id: 3544245503
    uuid: oJ+nrTm7Rwq1NYlpML7W/Q==

    Raw Body:
    id=3544245503&uuid=X%2F1R2AC1QS%2Btjuhxc0Kt%2Bw%3D%3D&
    host_id=w_1a9RDvTKqiG_BBdV7kuw&status=STARTED

Has anyone had experience with using Firebase for their WebHook endpoint? Does the WebHook POST need to be configured in a particular way for Firebase?

You may be asked to include your code that's not updating as expected. — SherylHohman, Jan 13 '18 at 00:38
Are you sure Zoom is sending the JSON in the body of the request in the same format as your `CreatePost()` does? — Frank van Puffelen, Jan 13 '18 at 03:18
That format looks wrong: you'll need to post a JSON object, not encoded form fields. See for example the `-d` parameter in my answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29355596/saving-data-to-firebase-with-rest — Frank van Puffelen, Jan 14 '18 at 20:53

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 14 '18 at 20:58

To POST (or PUT) data to the Firebase Database in a REST request, the body of your request must contain the JSON object to be written. From the Firebase documentation:

curl -X POST -d '{
  "author": "alanisawesome",
  "title": "The Turing Machine"
}' 'https://docs-examples.firebaseio.com/rest/saving-data/fireblog/posts.json'

Your code is posting the form fields in the body as url-encoded, which is simply a different format. See this answer for a comparison of the same data in both formats: https://stackoverflow.com/a/9880122.

If Zoom doesn't have support for posting the form fields as JSON, you could consider creating a Cloud Function to do the conversion.

Can Firebase Realtime Database be an WebHook Endpoint?

1 Answers1