You can use either of the following authentication methods when calling APIs:
- Token-based authentication: Requests are authenticated using a token.
- AK/SK-based authentication: Requests are authenticated by encrypting the request body using an AK/SK pair. AK/SK-based authentication is recommended because it is more secure than token-based 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.
You can obtain a token by calling the API used for obtaining a user token. When you call the API, set auth.scope in the request body to project.
{
"auth": {
"identity": {
"methods": [
"password"
],
"password": {
"user": {
"name": "username",
"password": "********",
"domain": {
"name": "domainname"
}
}
}
},
"scope": {
"project": {
"name": "xxxxxxxx"
}
}
}
}
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:
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.
The signing SDK is only used for signing requests and is different from the SDKs provided by services.