Authenticate to Vault API

Your first API call will be an authentication request, which provides your session ID for other API calls. To do this, call the auth endpoint.

The auth endpoint (/api/{version}/auth) expects two URL-encoded form parameters (x-www-form-urlencoded): username and password.

Request

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
-d 'username={username}&password={password}' \
"https://{server}/api/{version}/auth"

This call returns a JSON response that contains the session ID.

Response

{
  "responseStatus": "SUCCESS",
  "sessionId": "3B3C45FD240E26F0C3DB4F82BBB0C15C7EFE4B29EF9916AF41AF7E44B170BAA01F232B462BE5C2BE2ACB82F6704FDA216EBDD69996EB23A6050723D1EFE6FA2B",
  "userId": 12021,
  "vaultIds": [
    {
      "id": 1776,
      "name": "PromoMats",
      "url": "https://promo-vee.veevavault.com/api"
    },
    {
      "id": 1782,
      "name": "Platform",
      "url": "https://platform-vee.veevavault.com/api"
    }
  ],
  "vaultId": 1776
}

Congratulations, you've authenticated to Vault API!

Similar to logging in with the Vault UI, your API user has all the permissions your Vault UI user has.

Your session ID expires after a period of inactivity. This period of time is configured by your Vault Admin. When this happens, you need to run the /api API to authenticate again.

Even if you keep your session active, the maximum session duration for a single session is 48 hours. After 48 hours, you will need to authenticate again.

Continued Learning

To keep your session active without compromising performance, learn more about best practices for session management.
To understand what happens if you try to authenticate to an inactive Vault, learn more about authentication defaulting.
If you're a Vault Admin, learn how to configure Session Duration in Vault Help.