Authentication

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.
• The AK/SK can be a permanent or temporary access key. If it is a temporary access key, the X-Security-Token field must be added to the request. The 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 using the signing SDK. For details about how to sign requests and use the signing SDK, see API Request Signing Guide.

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

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 the Obtaining User Token API. When you call the API, set auth.scope in the request body to domain.

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

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