REST API: Wildcard application name ("*") silently dropped when nested inside POST /vhosts payload

[Mengsreang-Chhoeung]

Hi OME Team,

I am currently using OvenMediaEngine (v0.20.5) and managing configuration dynamically via the REST API. I encountered an inconsistent behavior when trying to provision a Virtual Host and its Applications in a single nested payload.

The Issue

When creating a Virtual Host using the POST /vhosts endpoint, nesting an application with a concrete name (e.g., "name": "live") successfully saves both the Virtual Host and the Application structure.

However, if I change the application name to a wildcard ("name": "*"), the Virtual Host is created, but the applications array is silently dropped/ignored. No error or validation failure is returned by the API.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Send a POST request to {{baseUrl}}/vhosts with the following payload:

   [
     {
       "name": "dynamic_vhost_test",
       "distribution": "",
       "host": {
         "names": [
           "*"
         ]
       },
       "originMapStore": {
         "redisServer": {
           "host": "redis.local:6379"
         }
       },
       "applications": [
         {
           "name": "*",
           "type": "live",
           "providers": {
             "ovt": {}
           },
           "publishers": {
             "hls": {},
             "llhls": {},
             "webrtc": {}
           },
           "outputProfiles": {
             "outputProfile": [
               {
                 "name": "abr_stream",
                 "outputStreamName": "${OriginStreamName}",
                 "encodes": {
                   "audios": [{ "name": "bypass_audio", "bypass": true }],
                   "videos": [{ "name": "bypass_video", "bypass": true }]
                 }
               }
             ]
           }
         }
       ]
     }
   ]

2. Check the configuration state.
   • Result: The vhostdynamic_vhost_test exists, but its applications list is empty.
   • Contrast: If step 1 is repeated with "name": "live" instead of "name": "*", the application is saved successfully.

Workaround

I can work around this by splitting the logic into two sequential API calls:

1. POST /vhosts (creating the vhost alone)
2. POST /vhosts/dynamic_vhost_test/apps (sending the wildcard app configuration)

Questions

1. Is this behavior intentional due to how wildcard routing fallbacks are parsed or validated internally during vhost initialization?
2. If nested initialization is not fully supported for wildcards, could the API be updated to return a validation error instead of silently discarding the application configuration?

Thank you for your hard work on OME!

[getroot]

I'll handle this as an issue: #2168