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 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.

The token can be obtained by calling the API in Obtaining a User Token. A project-level token is required for calling this service API, that is, when calling the API for obtaining a user token, set the value of auth.scope in the request body to project.

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

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.

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 use the signing SDK to sign requests. For details about how to sign requests and use the signing SDK, see AK/SK Signature Guide.

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