Authentication

Token-based Authentication

• The validity period of a token is 24 hours. When using a token for authentication, cache it to prevent frequently calling the IAM API used to obtain a user token.
• Ensure that the token is valid when you use it. Using a token that will soon expire may cause API calling failures.

A token specifies temporary permissions in a computer system. During API authentication using a token, the token is added to requests to get permissions for calling the API.

When calling the API for obtaining a user token, you must set auth.scope in the request body to project.

{ 
     "auth": { 
         "identity": { 
             "methods": [ 
                 "password" 
             ], 
             "password": { 
                 "user": { 
                     "name": "username", 
                     "password": "********", 
                     "domain": { 
                         "name": "domainname" 
                     } 
                 } 
             } 
         }, 
         "scope": {
             "project": {
                 "name": "xxxxxxxx"
             }
         }
     } 
 }

After a token is obtained, the X-Auth-Token header field must be added to requests to specify the token when other APIs are called. For example, if the token is ABCDEFG...., X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFG.... should be added to a request as follows:

GET https://iam.eu-west-101.myhuaweicloud.eu/v3.0/OS-USER/users
Content-Type: application/json 
X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ....

AK/SK-based Authentication

• AK/SK-based authentication supports API requests with a body not larger than 12 MB. For API requests with a larger body, token-based authentication is recommended.
• You can use the AK/SK in either a permanent or temporary access key. If you are using a temporary access key, configure the X-Security-Token field whose value is the security_token of the temporary access key.

In AK/SK-based authentication, AK/SK is used to sign requests and the signature is then added to the requests for authentication.

• AK: access key ID, which is a unique identifier used in conjunction with a secret access key to sign requests cryptographically.
• SK: secret access key used in conjunction with an AK to sign requests cryptographically. It identifies a request sender and prevents the request from being modified.

In AK/SK-based authentication, you can use an AK/SK to sign requests based on the signature algorithm or use the signing SDK to sign requests. For details about how to sign requests and use the signing SDK, see AK/SK Signing and Authentication Guide.

The signing SDK is only used for signing requests and is different from the SDKs provided by services.