Making an API Request

Request URI

A request URI is in the following format:

{URI-scheme} :// {Endpoint} / {resource-path} ? {query-string}

For example, to obtain an IAM token in the CN-Hong Kong region, obtain the endpoint of IAM (iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com) for this region and the resource-path (/v3/auth/tokens) in the URI of the API used to obtain a user token. Then, construct the URI as follows:

https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens

Figure 1 Example URI

To simplify the URI display in this document, each API is provided only with a resource-path and a request method. The URI-scheme of all APIs is HTTPS, and the endpoints of all APIs in the same region are identical.

Request Method

The HTTP protocol defines the following request methods that can be used to send a request to the server:

POST https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens

Request Header

You can also add additional header fields to a request, such as the fields required by a specified URI or HTTP method. For example, to request for the authentication information, add Content-Type, which specifies the request body type.

Table 3 describes common request header fields.

In addition to supporting token-based authentication, public cloud APIs also support authentication using access key ID/secret access key (AK/SK). During AK/SK-based authentication, an SDK is used to sign the request, and the Authorization (signature information) and X-Sdk-Date (time when the request is sent) header fields are automatically added to the request. For more details, see API Request Signing Guide.

For example, the API used to obtain a user token does not require authentication. Therefore, only the Content-Type field needs to be added to requests for calling the API. An example of such requests is as follows:

POST https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens
Content-Type: application/json

Request Body

The body of a request is often sent in a structured format as specified in the Content-Type header field. The request body transfers content except the request header. If the request body contains Chinese characters, these characters must be coded in UTF-8.

The request body varies between APIs. Some APIs do not require the request body, such as the APIs requested using the GET and DELETE methods.

In the case of the API used to obtain a user token, the request parameters and parameter description can be obtained from the API request. The following provides an example request with a body included. Replace username, domainname, ******** (login password), and xxxxxxxx (project name) with the actual values and obtain the token specified for the project. For example, if the project name is set to ap-southeast-1, the obtained token applies to the services in ap-southeast-1. For details about how to obtain a username, domainname, and project name, see Obtaining Account, IAM User, Group, Project, Region, and Agency Information.

• The scope parameter specifies where a token takes effect. Its value can be project or domain. In the preceding example, the value of scope is project, indicating that the obtained token can access only resources of the specified project. If the value of scope is domainname, the obtained token can access all resources of the specified account. For details, see Obtaining a User Token.
• project name: On the My Credentials page, the value in the Project column is the project name. For details about how to obtain the project name, see Obtaining Account, IAM User, Group, Project, Region, and Agency Information.

POST https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "auth": {
    "identity": {
      "methods": ["password"],
      "password": {
        "user": {
          "name": "username",  
          "password": "**********",
          "domain": {
            "name": "domainname"  
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "scope": {
      "project": {
        "name": "ap-southeast-1"  
      }
    }
  }
}

If all data required for the API request is available, you can send the request to call the API through curl, Postman, or coding. If you choose to use Postman, version 7.24.0 is recommended. In the response to the API used to obtain a user token, x-subject-token is the desired user token. This token can then be used to authenticate the calling of other APIs.