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Authenticate to the Rackspace Cloud#

Whether you use cURL, a REST client, or a command-line client (CLI) to send requests to the Rackspace Cloud Images API, you need an authentication token to include in the X-Auth-Token header of each request. You get a token by submitting an authentication request with valid account credentials to the following Rackspace Identity API service endpoint:

https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0

With a valid token, you can send API requests to any of the API service endpoints that you are authorized to use. The authentication response includes a token expiration date. When a token expires, you can send another authentication request to get a new one.

Note

For more information about authentication tokens, see the following topics in the Rackspace Identity API documentation:

  • Authentication token operations

    The examples in this API guide show how to authenticate by using username and API key credentials, which is a more secure way to communicate with API services. The authentication token operations reference in the Rackspace Identity API documentation describes other types of credentials that you can use for authentication.

  • Manage authentication tokens

To start using the API and run the examples in this section, you need the following items:

Follow these steps to authenticate to the Rackspace Cloud by using cURL.

Important

The cURL examples in this guide are provided for reference only. Because the use of cURL has environmental dependencies, copying and pasting the examples might not work in your environment.

Send an authentication request#

From a command prompt, send a POST tokens request to the Rackspace Cloud Identity service. Include your username and API key, as shown in the following example.

$ curl https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/tokens  \
 -X POST \
 -d '{"auth":{"RAX-KSKEY:apiKeyCredentials":{"username":"yourUserName","apiKey":"$apiKey"}}}' \
 -H "Content-type: application/json" \
 | python -m json.tool

Review the authentication response#

If your credentials are valid, the Identity service returns an authentication response that includes the following information:

  • An authentication token
  • A service catalog with information about the services that you can access
  • User information and role assignments

Note

For detailed information about the authentication response, see the Annotated authentication request and response in the Rackspace Cloud API documentation.

In the following example, the ellipsis (...) represents other service endpoints, which are not shown. The values shown in this and other examples vary because the information returned is specific to your account.

Example: Authentication response

{
   "access": {
      "token": {
         "id": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
         "expires": "2014-11-24T22:05:39.115Z",
         "tenant": {
            "id": "110011",
            "name": "110011"
         },
         "RAX-AUTH:authenticatedBy": [
           "APIKEY"
         ]
      },
      "serviceCatalog": [
         {
            "name": "cloudDatabases",
            "endpoints": [
               {
                  "publicURL": "https://syd.databases.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0/110011",
                  "region": "SYD",
                  "tenantId": "110011"
               },
               {
                  "publicURL": "https://dfw.databases.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0/110011",
                  "region": "DFW",
                  "tenantId": "110011"
               },
               {
                  "publicURL": "https://hkg.databases.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0/110011",
                  "region": "HKG",
                  "tenantId": "110011"
               }
            ],
            "type": "rax:database"
         },

         ...

         {
            "name": "cloudDNS",
            "endpoints": [
               {
                  "publicURL": "https://dns.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0/110011",
                  "tenantId": "110011"
               }
            ],
            "type": "rax:dns"
         }
      ],
      "user": {
         "id": "123456",
         "roles": [
            {
               "description": "A Role that allows a user access to keystone Service methods",
               "id": "6",
               "name": "compute:default",
               "tenantId": "110011"
            },
            {
               "description": "User Admin Role.",
               "id": "3",
               "name": "identity:user-admin"
            }
         ],
         "name": "jsmith",
         "RAX-AUTH:defaultRegion": "ORD"
      }
   }
}

If the request was successful, it returns the following values that you need to include when you make service requests to the Rackspace product API:

token ID

The token ID value is required to confirm your identity each time you access the service. Include it in the X-Auth-Token header for each API request.

The expires attribute indicates the date and time that the token will expire, unless it is revoked before the expiration. To get a new token, submit another authentication request. For more information, see Manage authentication tokens.

tenant ID
The tenant ID provides your account number. For most Rackspace Cloud service APIs, the tenant ID is appended to the API endpoint in the service catalog automatically. For Rackspace Cloud services, the tenant ID has the same value as the tenant name.
endpoint
The API endpoint provides the URL that you use to access the API service. For guidance on choosing an endpoint, see Service access.

If the request failed, review the response message and the following error message descriptions to determine next steps.

  • If you see the following error message, review the authentication request for syntax or coding errors. If you are using cURL, see Using cURL.

    400 Invalid request body: unable to parse Auth data. Please review XML or
JSON formatting

  • If you see the following error message, verify the authentication credentials submitted in the authentication request. If necessary, contact your Rackspace Cloud Administrator or Rackspace Support to get valid credentials.

    401 Unable to authenticate user with credentials provided.

Note

For additional information about authentication errors, see the Identity API Reference documentation.

Configure environment variables#

To make it easier to include the token ID, tenant ID, endpoint, and other values in API requests, use the export command to create environment variables that can be substituted for the actual values. For example, you can create an ENDPOINT variable to store the URL for accessing an API service. To reference the value in an API request, prefix the variable name with a $, for example $ENDPOINT.

Note

The environment variables created with the export command are valid only for the current terminal session. If you start a new session, run the export commands again.

To reuse the variables across sessions, update the configuration file for your shell environment to include the export statements. For details about using and managing environment variables on different systems, see the environment variables wiki.

Create environment variables

  1. In the token section of the authentication response, copy the token id and tenant id values from the token object. The following example shows example values only.

    {
"access": {
   "token": {
      "id": "AA2345631l1NVdD6D1OCauKA0e9fioquZqVlS-hpbCqQ5Yx1zLOREGf4efBh10CfB5AvjC1yld4ZNJUouE7DA0QB0n5nRbdDsYADA-ORICIqHNqOVS_kYmedqDh75c_PLe123456789101",
      "expires": "2015-11-18T18:35:45.013Z",
      "tenant": {
         "id": "123456",
         "name": "123456"
      },
      "RAX-AUTH:authenticatedBy": [
         "APIKEY"
      ]
 },

  2. Export the token ID to an environment variable that can be supplied in the X-Auth-Token header required in each API request.

    $ export AUTH_TOKEN="token-id"

    Replace token-id with the authentication token id value returned in the authentication response.

  3. Export the tenant ID to an environment variable that can be supplied in requests that require you to specify a tenant ID or tenant name.

    $ export TENANT_ID="tenant-id"

    Replace tenant-id with the authentication token id value returned in the authentication response.

  4. In the service catalog section of the authentication response, copy the publicURL value for the Rackspace Cloud Images API, version, and region that you want to access.

    This example shows the endpoints available for the Rackspace Cloud Images API.

    {
  "name": "cloudImages",
  "type": "image",
  "endpoints": [
     {
        "publicURL": "https://dfw.images.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2",
        "region": "DFW",
        "tenantId": "000000"
     },
     {
        "publicURL": "https://iad.images.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2",
        "region": "IAD",
        "tenantId": "000000"
     }
  ]
}

    Note

    For some services, the publicURL value for the API consists of the endpoint URL with the tenant ID for your account appended after the final /.

  5. Export the URL to an environment variable, as shown in the following example:

    $ export API_ENDPOINT="publicURL"