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.

Replace username, domainname, and project name with the actual values. You can log in to the console and choose My Credential to obtain the values. password indicates the user password.

• Pseudo-code

  POST https://iam.ap-southeast-3.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens
  Content-Type: application/json 
   
  { 
      "auth": { 
          "identity": { 
              "methods": [ 
                  "password" 
              ], 
              "password": { 
                  "user": { 
                      "name": "username", 
                      "password": "********", 
                      "domain": { 
                          "name": "domainname" 
                      } 
                  } 
              } 
          }, 
          "scope": { 
              "project": { 
                  "name": "projectname" 
              } 
          } 
      } 
  }

• Python

  import requests
  import json
  
  url = "https://iam.ap-southeast-3.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/tokens"
  
  payload = json.dumps({
    "auth": {
      "identity": {
        "methods": [
          "password"
        ],
        "password": {
          "user": {
            "name": "username",
            "password": "********",
            "domain": {
              "name": "domainname"
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "scope": {
        "project": {
          "name": "projectname"
        }
      }
    }
  })
  headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  }
  
  response = requests.request("POST", url, headers=headers, data=payload)
  
  print(response.headers["X-Subject-Token"])

The X-Auth-Token header field must be included to carry 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 signature SDK, see API Request Signing Guide.

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

For details about how to obtain the AK/SK, see Obtaining an AK/SK Pair.