Updated on 2024-03-15 GMT+08:00

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

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 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.

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, add field X-Auth-Token to the request header to specify the token when other APIs are called. For example, if the token is ABCDEFJ...., X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ.... can be added to a request as follows:

GET https://iam.ap-southeast-3.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens
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.

AK/SK-based authentication uses AK/SK to sign requests, and the signature is then added to request headers 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 API Request Signing Guide.

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