Authentication

Token-based Authentication

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 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 while you use it. Using a token that will soon expire may cause API calling failures.

You can obtain a token by calling an API.

When calling the API used for obtaining a user token, you must set auth.scope in the request body to project.

{
    "auth": {
        "identity": {
            "methods": [
                "password"
            ],
            "password": {
                "user": {
                    "name": "username", //IAM username.
                    "password": "********",  //IAM user password. You are advised to store it in ciphertext in the configuration file or an environment variable.
                    "domain": {
                        "name": "domainname"  //Name of the account of the IAM user.
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "scope": {
            "project": {
                "name": "xxxxxxxx"   //Project name.
            }
        }
    }
}

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:

GET https://iam.my-kualalumpur-1.myhuaweicloud.com/v3/auth/projects
Content-Type: application/json
X-Auth-Token: ABCDEFJ....

AK/SK-based Authentication

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.

• 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.
• APIG checks the time format and compares the time with the time when APIG receives the request. If the time difference exceeds 15 minutes, APIG will reject the request. The local time on the client must be synchronized with the clock server to avoid a large offset in the value of the X-Sdk-Date request header.

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.

The signature SDK only supports signature, which is different from the SDKs provided by services.