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.

You can obtain a token by calling the API described in obtaining a user token. To call this service API, you need a global-level token. To call the API, set auth.scope to domain in the request body as follows:

{ 
     "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...., add X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFG.... 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. An access key ID is a unique identifier associated with a secret access key and is used together with the secret access key to sign requests cryptographically.
• SK: secret access key used 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 Signature Guide.