Making an API Request

Updated on 2024-07-10 GMT+08:00

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This section describes the structure of a REST API request, and uses the IAM API for creating an IAM User as an example to demonstrate how to call an API. The obtained token can then be used to authenticate the calling of other APIs.

Request URI

A request URI is in the following format:

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

Although a request URI is included in the request header, most programming languages or frameworks require the request URI to be transmitted separately.

**Table 1** URI parameter description
Parameter	Description
URI-scheme	Protocol used to transmit requests. All APIs use HTTPS.
Endpoint	Domain name or IP address of the server bearing the REST service. The endpoint varies between services in different regions. It can be obtained from Regions and Endpoints. For example, the endpoint of IAM in region CN-Hong Kong is iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com.
resource-path	Access path of an API for performing a specified operation. Obtain the path from the URI of an API. For example, the resource-path of the API used to obtain a user token is /v3/auth/tokens.
query-string	Query parameter, which is optional. Ensure that a question mark (?) is included before each query parameter that is in the format of Parameter name=Parameter value. For example, ? limit=10 indicates that a maximum of 10 data records will be displayed.

IAM is a global service. You can create an IAM user using the endpoint of IAM in any region. For example, to create an IAM user in the CN-Hong Kong region, obtain the endpoint of IAM (iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com) for this region and the resource-path (/v3.0/OS-USER/users) in the URI of the API for creating an IAM user. Then construct the URI as follows:

     
        https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3.0/OS-USER/users

Figure 1 Example URI

NOTE:

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 Methods

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

**Table 2** HTTP methods
Method	Description
GET	Requests the server to return specified resources.
PUT	Requests the server to update specified resources.
POST	Requests the server to add resources or perform special operations.
DELETE	Requests the server to delete specified resources, for example, an object.
HEAD	Same as GET except that the server must return only the response header.
PATCH	Requests the server to update partial content of a specified resource. If the resource does not exist, a new resource will be created.

For example, in the case of the API for creating an IAM user, the request method is POST. An example request is as follows:

POST https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3.0/OS-USER/users

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.

Common request header fields are as follows.

**Table 3** Common request header fields
Parameter	Description	Mandatory	Example Value
Host	Specifies the server domain name and port number of the resources being requested. The value can be obtained from the URL of the service API. The value is in the format of Hostname:Port number. If the port number is not specified, the default port is used. The default port number for https is 443.	No This field is mandatory for AK/SK authentication.	code.test.com or code.test.com:443
Content-Type	Specifies the type (or format) of the message body. The default value application/json is recommended. Other values of this field will be provided for specific APIs if any.	Yes	application/json
Content-Length	Specifies the length of the request body. The unit is byte.	No	3495
X-Project-Id	Specifies the project ID. Obtain the project ID by following the instructions in Obtaining a Project ID.	No This field is mandatory for requests that use AK/SK authentication in the Dedicated Cloud (DeC) scenario or multi-project scenario.	e9993fc787d94b6c886cbaa340f9c0f4
X-Auth-Token	Specifies the user token. It is a response to the API for obtaining a user token (This is the only API that does not require authentication). After the request is processed, the value of X-Subject-Token in the response header is the token value.	No This field is mandatory for token authentication.	The following is part of an example token: MIIPAgYJKoZIhvcNAQcCo...ggg1BBIINPXsidG9rZ

NOTE:

In addition to supporting authentication using tokens, APIs support authentication using AK/SK, which uses SDKs to sign a request. During the signature, the Authorization (signature authentication) and X-Sdk-Date (time when a request is sent) headers are automatically added in the request.

For more details, see "Authentication Using AK/SK" in Authentication.

The following shows an example request of the API for creating an IAM user when AK/SK authentication is used:

POST https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3.0/OS-USER/users
Content-Type: application/json 
X-Sdk-Date: 20240416T095341Z 
Authorization: SDK-HMAC-SHA256 Access=****************, SignedHeaders=content-type;host;x-sdk-date, Signature=****************

(Optional) Request Body

This part is optional. A request body is generally sent in a structured format (for example, JSON or XML), which is specified by Content-Type in the request header. It is used to transfer content other than the request header. If the request body contains full-width characters, these characters must be coded in UTF-8.

The request body varies depending on APIs. Certain APIs do not require the request body, such as the APIs requested using the GET and DELETE methods.

The following shows an example request (a request body included) of the API for creating an IAM user. You can learn about request parameters and related description from this example. The bold parameters need to be replaced for a real request.

accountid: account ID of an IAM user
username: name of an IAM user
email: email of an IAM user
password: login password of an IAM user

POST https://iam.ap-southeast-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3.0/OS-USER/users
Content-Type: application/json 
X-Sdk-Date: 20240416T095341Z 
Authorization: SDK-HMAC-SHA256 Access=****************, SignedHeaders=content-type;host;x-sdk-date, Signature=**************** 
 
{ 
     "user": { 
         "domain_id": "accountid", 
         "name": "username", 
         "password": "**********", 
         "email": "email", 
         "description": "IAM User Description" 
     } 
 }

If all data required for the API request is available, you can send the request to call the API through curl, Postman, or coding. 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.

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