Help Center/ Data Encryption Workshop/ API Reference/ Calling APIs/ Authentication
Updated on 2022-09-15 GMT+08:00
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Authentication

Requests for calling an API can be authenticated using either of the following methods:
  • Token-based authentication: Requests are authenticated using a token.
  • AK/SK authentication: Requests are encrypted using AK/SK pairs. This method is recommended because it provides higher security than token-based 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.

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.

You can obtain a token by calling an API. A project-level token is required for calling DEW APIs. When calling an API to obtain a user token, set project in auth.scope in the request body, as shown in the following example.

{
    "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 calling other APIs. For example, if the token is ABCDEFJ...., X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ.... can be added to a request as follows:

POST https://iam.eu-west-101.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/projects
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.

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 API Signature Guide.

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

Parent topic: Calling APIs