REST provider

The REST provider exposes an HTTP endpoint on Traefik itself that accepts pushed configurations. Where the HTTP provider polls outbound, REST receives inbound.

Source

pkg/provider/rest/rest.go (one file). It registers a route on the traefik internal entry point and dispatches incoming bodies as dynamic.Message.

Configuration

providers:
  rest:
    insecure: false

Setting insecure: true exposes the endpoint on the default entry point (:80) — only useful for local experimentation. The recommended pattern is to keep insecure: false, expose the traefik entry point on a private network, and protect it with a basic-auth or forward-auth middleware in front.

Endpoint

PUT /api/providers/rest
Content-Type: application/json | application/yaml | application/toml

<dynamic.Configuration body>

The body is parsed and forwarded to the watcher. The response is 200 OK with the parsed configuration echoed back.

Behavior

sequenceDiagram
    participant C as Client
    participant API as Traefik internal entry point
    participant P as REST provider
    participant W as Configuration watcher

    C->>API: PUT /api/providers/rest (body)
    API->>P: handle request
    P->>P: parse body
    P-->>API: 200 OK + parsed
    P->>W: dynamic.Message

Use cases

• Custom controllers that compute configuration in-process and push to Traefik.
• CLI tooling for ad-hoc routes during development.
• Smoke testing the entire configuration apply path.

Tests

• integration/rest_test.go covers the full push path.

Practical notes

• The pushed configuration is volatile. It does not persist across restarts.
• Pushing is the entire surface — there is no DELETE endpoint, no per-route operations. To remove a router, push a new configuration without it.
• Combine with another provider to seed initial state; the REST provider is most useful as an overlay on top of file or KV providers.