Merge pull request #3640 from minrk/doc-api-only

add api-only doc

docs/source/reference/api-only.md

@@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
+(api-only)=
+
+# Deploying JupyterHub in "API only mode"
+
+As a service for deploying and managing Jupyter servers for users, JupyterHub
+exposes this functionality _primarily_ via a [REST API](rest).
+For convenience, JupyterHub also ships with a _basic_ web UI built using that REST API.
+The basic web UI enables users to click a button to quickly start and stop their servers,
+and it lets admins perform some basic user and server management tasks.
+
+The REST API has always provided additional functionality beyond what is available in the basic web UI.
+Similarly, we avoid implementing UI functionality that is also not available via the API.
+With JupyterHub 2.0, the basic web UI will **always** be composed using the REST API.
+In other words, no UI pages should rely on information not available via the REST API.
+Previously, some admin UI functionality could only be achieved via admin pages,
+such as paginated requests.
+
+## Limited UI customization via templates
+
+The JupyterHub UI is customizable via extensible HTML [templates](templates),
+but this has some limited scope to what can be customized.
+Adding some content and messages to existing pages is well supported,
+but changing the page flow and what pages are available are beyond the scope of what is customizable.
+
+## Rich UI customization with REST API based apps
+
+Increasingly, JupyterHub is used purely as an API for managing Jupyter servers
+for other Jupyter-based applications that might want to present a different user experience.
+If you want a fully customized user experience,
+you can now disable the Hub UI and use your own pages together with the JupyterHub REST API
+to build your own web application to serve your users,
+relying on the Hub only as an API for managing users and servers.
+
+One example of such an application is [BinderHub][], which powers https://mybinder.org,
+and motivates many of these changes.
+
+BinderHub is distinct from a traditional JupyterHub deployment
+because it uses temporary users created for each launch.
+Instead of presenting a login page,
+users are presented with a form to specify what environment they would like to launch:
+
+![Binder launch form](../images/binderhub-form.png)
+
+When a launch is requested:
+
+1. an image is built, if necessary
+2. a temporary user is created,
+3. a server is launched for that user, and
+4. when running, users are redirected to an already running server with an auth token in the URL
+5. after the session is over, the user is deleted
+
+This means that a lot of JupyterHub's UI flow doesn't make sense:
+
+- there is no way for users to login
+- the human user doesn't map onto a JupyterHub `User` in a meaningful way
+- when a server isn't running, there isn't a 'restart your server' action available because the user has been deleted
+- users do not have any access to any Hub functionality, so presenting pages for those features would be confusing
+
+BinderHub is one of the motivating use cases for JupyterHub supporting being used _only_ via its API.
+We'll use BinderHub here as an example of various configuration options.
+
+[binderhub]: https://binderhub.readthedocs.io
+
+## Disabling Hub UI
+
+`c.JupyterHub.hub_routespec` is a configuration option to specify which URL prefix should be routed to the Hub.
+The default is `/` which means that the Hub will receive all requests not already specified to be routed somewhere else.
+
+There are three values that are most logical for `hub_routespec`:
+
+- `/` - this is the default, and used in most deployments.
+  It is also the only option prior to JupyterHub 1.4.
+- `/hub/` - this serves only Hub pages, both UI and API
+- `/hub/api` - this serves _only the Hub API_, so all Hub UI is disabled,
+  aside from the OAuth confirmation page, if used.
+
+If you choose a hub routespec other than `/`,
+the main JupyterHub feature you will lose is the automatic handling of requests for `/user/:username`
+when the requested server is not running.
+
+JupyterHub's handling of this request shows this page,
+telling you that the server is not running,
+with a button to launch it again:
+
+![screenshot of hub page for server not running](../images/server-not-running.png)
+
+If you set `hub_routespec` to something other than `/`,
+it is likely that you also want to register another destination for `/` to handle requests to not-running servers.
+If you don't, you will see a default 404 page from the proxy:
+
+![screenshot of CHP default 404](../images/chp-404.png)
+
+For mybinder.org, the default "start my server" page doesn't make sense,
+because when a server is gone, there is no restart action.
+Instead, we provide hints about how to get back to a link to start a _new_ server:
+
+![screenshot of mybinder.org 404](../images/binder-404.png)
+
+To achieve this, mybinder.org registers a route for `/` that goes to a custom endpoint
+that runs nginx and only serves this static HTML error page.
+This is set with
+
+```python
+c.Proxy.extra_routes = {
+    "/": "http://custom-404-entpoint/",
+}
+```
+
+You may want to use an alternate behavior, such as redirecting to a landing page,
+or taking some other action based on the requested page.
+
+If you use `c.JupyterHub.hub_routespec = "/hub/"`,
+then all the Hub pages will be available,
+and only this default-page-404 issue will come up.
+
+If you use `c.JupyterHub.hub_routespec = "/hub/api/"`,
+then only the Hub _API_ will be available,
+and all UI will be up to you.
+mybinder.org takes this last option,
+because none of the Hub UI pages really make sense.
+Binder users don't have any reason to know or care that JupyterHub happens
+to be an implementation detail of how their environment is managed.
+Seeing Hub error pages and messages in that situation is more likely to be confusing than helpful.
+
+:::{versionadded} 1.4
+
+`c.JupyterHub.hub_routespec` and `c.Proxy.extra_routes` are new in JupyterHub 1.4.
+:::

docs/source/reference/index.rst

@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ what happens under-the-hood when you deploy and configure your JupyterHub.
    monitoring
    database
    templates
+   api-only
    ../events/index
    config-user-env
    config-examples

docs/source/reference/rest.md

@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+(rest-api)=
+
 # Using JupyterHub's REST API
 
 This section will give you information on: