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.
• 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.

When calling the API to obtain a user token, you must set auth.scope in the request body to domain.

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

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 ABCDEFG...., X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFG.... can be added to a request as follows:

POST https://iam.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens
Content-Type: application/json
X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFG....

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 API Request Signing Guide.