Australian National University

QRNG@ANU Legacy JSON API

The original ANU quantum random number endpoint, served from ANU's own web host. No authentication, and throttled to one request per minute. ANU has published a deprecation notice on the documentation page — "The old service will be scaled back and eventually retired" — but names no sunset date and emits no Deprecation or Sunset header. The throttle is signalled with HTTP 200 and a plain-text sentence rather than a 429, so clients must branch on Content-Type, not status code.

Documentation GitHub OpenAPI

OpenAPI Specification

openapi: 3.1.0
info:
  title: QRNG@ANU Legacy JSON API
  version: '0'
  summary: The original ANU quantum random number endpoint. Deprecated in favour of the AQN API.
  description: >-
    The original QRNG@ANU JSON endpoint, served from ANU's own web host at qrng.anu.edu.au.
    It requires no signup and is aggressively rate limited: ANU states "The QRNG API is
    limited to 1 requests per minute", and the limit is enforced by returning that sentence
    as a plain-text body with HTTP 200 rather than a 429.


    ANU has published a deprecation notice on the documentation page itself: "To provide a
    more reliable service, the QRNG@ANU API is now hosted on AWS platform... The old service
    will be scaled back and eventually retired." No sunset date is given.


    OPERATOR: institution. qrng.anu.edu.au resolves to 150.203.48.55, inside ANU's own
    address space, under ANU's own registrable domain.


    PROVENANCE: DERIVED by API Evangelist from ANU's published API documentation at
    https://qrng.anu.edu.au/contact/api-documentation/, with the response envelope and the
    rate-limit behaviour confirmed by live probe on 2026-08-19.
  contact:
    name: QRNG@ANU
    email: qrng@anu.edu.au
    url: https://qrng.anu.edu.au/contact/api-documentation/
  termsOfService: https://www.anu.edu.au/disclaimer
  x-operator: institution
  x-provenance:
    method: derived
    generated: '2026-08-19'
    source: https://qrng.anu.edu.au/contact/api-documentation/
    probed: '2026-08-19'
    derived_by: API Evangelist university pipeline
  x-lifecycle:
    status: deprecated
    superseded_by: https://api.quantumnumbers.anu.edu.au
    notice: https://qrng.anu.edu.au/contact/api-documentation/
    sunset_date: null
servers:
  - url: https://qrng.anu.edu.au
    description: ANU-hosted legacy service. Deprecated.
tags:
  - name: Random Numbers
    description: Retrieval of quantum-generated random values.
paths:
  /API/jsonI.php:
    get:
      operationId: getLegacyQuantumRandomNumbers
      summary: Request an array of quantum random numbers (legacy, deprecated)
      deprecated: true
      description: >-
        Returns an array of quantum random values. No authentication. Limited to one request
        per minute per client; over the limit the service returns HTTP 200 with a plain-text
        message pointing at the AQN service, NOT a 429 and NOT a JSON body — callers must
        check the content type, not the status code.
      tags: [ Random Numbers ]
      parameters:
        - name: length
          in: query
          required: true
          description: Number of values to return. Must be between 1 and 1024.
          schema:
            type: integer
            minimum: 1
            maximum: 1024
            examples: [ 10 ]
        - name: type
          in: query
          required: true
          description: >-
            Data type. uint8 returns integers 0-255, uint16 returns integers 0-65535,
            hex16 returns hexadecimal characters 00-ff assembled into blocks.
          schema:
            type: string
            enum: [ uint8, uint16, hex16 ]
            examples: [ uint8 ]
        - name: size
          in: query
          required: false
          description: Block size. Only needed for the hex16 data type. Must be between 1 and 1024.
          schema:
            type: integer
            minimum: 1
            maximum: 1024
            examples: [ 2 ]
      responses:
        '200':
          description: >-
            An array of quantum random values, OR — when the one-per-minute rate limit has
            been tripped — a plain-text refusal served with the same 200 status.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/LegacyQrngResponse'
              examples:
                uint8:
                  summary: Live response captured 2026-08-19
                  value:
                    type: uint8
                    length: 4
                    data: [ 74, 205, 98, 159 ]
                    success: true
            text/html:
              schema:
                type: string
              examples:
                rateLimited:
                  summary: Rate-limit refusal, served as HTTP 200
                  value: >-
                    The QRNG API is limited to 1 requests per minute. For more requests,
                    please visit https://quantumnumbers.anu.edu.au or contact qrng@anu.edu.au.
components:
  schemas:
    LegacyQrngResponse:
      type: object
      required: [ type, length, data, success ]
      properties:
        type:
          type: string
          enum: [ uint8, uint16, hex16 ]
        length:
          type: integer
          minimum: 1
          maximum: 1024
        size:
          type: integer
          minimum: 1
          maximum: 1024
        data:
          type: array
          items:
            oneOf:
              - type: integer
              - type: string
        success:
          type: boolean

QRNG@ANU Legacy JSON API

Documentation

Specifications

Other Resources

OpenAPI Specification