Authentication

Updated on 2023-12-08 GMT+08:00

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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-based authentication: Requests are authenticated by encrypting the request body using an AK/SK pair.

Token-based Authentication

NOTE:

The validity period of a token is 24 hours. When using a token for authentication, cache it to prevent frequently calling the Identity and Access Management (IAM) API for obtaining 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.

In Making an API Request, the process of calling the API used to obtain a user token is described.

When calling the API to obtain 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 ABCDEFJ...., X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ.... should be added to a request as follows:

GET https://iam.eu-west-101.myhuaweicloud.eu/v3/auth/projects
Content-Type: application/json 
X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ....

AK/SK-based Authentication

NOTE:

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. It is a unique ID associated with an SK. AK is used together with SK to sign requests.
SK: secret access key. It is used together with an access key ID to identify a sender who initiates a request and to cryptographically sign requests, preventing 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.

NOTICE:

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

Parent topic: Calling APIs

Previous topic: Making an API Request

Next topic: Response

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