Tutorial purpose

This tutorial explains how to request an authentication token from the DSS server.

This is the starting point and a pre-requisite for all the other tutorials.

It also illustrates how to get user information using the token, which is a way to test if it is still valid.

A Postman collection and environment are available in the downloads, but you can also enter HTTP requests manually.

Table of contents

• User authentication
• Authentication - HTTP request
• Authentication - HTTP response
• Get user information - HTTP request
• Get user information - HTTP response

User authentication

The DSS REST API requires a valid DSS username and password in order to access any of the API capabilities. These username and password are the same as those used for your DSS web GUI, FTP or DSS SOAP API credentials.

The DSS username and password are used to request an authentication token. The received token must be cached, and attached to all following requests to the DSS server.

The tokens are valid for 24 hours, after which a 401 (Unauthorized, Authentication Required) status code is returned. At that point a new token must be requested.

Authentication - HTTP request

Note: you must provide valid DSS credentials (username and password) in the body of the request.

URL:          

Method:          POST

Headers:

Body:

Authentication - HTTP response

Status:                        200 OK

Relevant headers:

The content is in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format. 

Body:

The returned value is the token.

Get user information - HTTP request

Notes:

• For all requests, we need to include a user token in the header of our request. That is the token we just retrieved.
• The DSS user name is set as a parameter in the path.

Let us make a request for user information. Making a simple request allows us to test the validity of a token.

URL:      

Method:          GET

Headers:

Get user information - HTTP response

If the token is valid, this is the response we get:

Status:                        200 OK

Relevant headers:

Body:

If the token is not valid, or has expired, a 401 (Unauthorized, Authentication Required) status code is returned.