Updated on 2024-06-20 GMT+08:00

Authentication

You can use either of the following authentication methods to call APIs:
  • Token authentication: Requests are authenticated using tokens.
  • AK/SK authentication: Requests are encrypted using AK/SK pairs. AK/SK authentication is recommended because it is more secure than token 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 Identity and Access Management (IAM) API for obtaining a user token.

A token is used to acquire temporary permissions. 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.

COC is a project-level service. When you call the API, set auth.scope in the request body to project.

{
    "auth": {
        "identity": {
            "methods": [
                "password"
            ],
            "password": {
                "user": {
                    "name": "username",   //IAM user name
                    "password": "********",  //IAM user password
                    "domain": {
                        "name": "domainname"  //Name of the account to which the IAM user belongs
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "scope": {
            "project": {
                "name": "xxxxxxxx"    // Project name
            }
        }
    }
}

After a token is obtained, X-Auth-Token must be added to the request header for calling other APIs. For example, if the token is ABCDEFJ...., X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ.... can be added to the request header as follows:

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POST https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/projects
Content-Type: application/json
X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ....

AK/SK Authentication

AK/SK authentication supports API requests with a body not larger than 12 MB. For API requests with a larger body, token authentication is recommended.

In AK/SK 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, which is 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 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.