Help Center/ Cloud Trace Service/ API Reference/ Calling APIs/ Authentication
Updated on 2024-12-03 GMT+08:00
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Authentication

You can use either of the following authentication methods when calling APIs:

  • AK/SK-based authentication: Requests are authenticated by encrypting the request body using an AK/SK pair. AK/SK-based authentication is recommended because it is more secure than token-based authentication.
  • Token-based authentication: Requests are authenticated using a token.

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, use token-based authentication.
  • You can use the AK/SK in a permanent or temporary access key. The X-Security-Token field must be configured if the AK/SK in a temporary access key is used, and the field value is 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 pair 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.

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. If a token is used for authentication, cache it to prevent frequent API calling.
  • Ensure that the token is valid when you use it. Using a token that will soon expire may cause API calling failures.

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 API for obtaining a user token. This API is project-level. When calling it, 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 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.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3.0/OS-USER/users


Content-Type: application/json
X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ....
Parent topic: Calling APIs