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Authenticating to Microsoft Dev Box REST APIs

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Tip

Before authenticating, ensure that the user or identity has the appropriate permissions to perform the desired action. For more information, see configuring project admins and configuring Dev Box users.

Using Microsoft Entra authentication for REST APIs

Use the following procedures to authenticate with Microsoft Entra ID. You can follow along in Azure Cloud Shell, on an Azure virtual machine, or on your local machine.

Sign in to the user's Azure subscription

Start by authenticating with Microsoft Entra ID by using the Azure CLI. This step isn't required in Azure Cloud Shell.

az login

The command opens a browser window to the Microsoft Entra authentication page. It requires you to give your Microsoft Entra user ID and password.

Next, set the correct subscription context. If you authenticate from an incorrect subscription or tenant you may receive unexpected 403 Forbidden errors.

az account set --subscription <subscription_id>

Retrieve the Microsoft Entra access token

Use the Azure CLI to acquire an access token for the Microsoft Entra authenticated user. Note that the resource ID is different depending on if you are accessing administrator (control plane) APIs or developer (data plane) APIs.

For administrator APIs, use the following command:

az account get-access-token

For developer APIs, use the following command:

az account get-access-token --resource https://devcenter.azure.com

After authentication is successful, Microsoft Entra ID returns an access token for current Azure subscription:

{
  "accessToken": "[TOKEN]",
  "expiresOn": "[expiration_date_and_time]",
  "subscription": "[subscription_id]",
  "tenant": "[tenant_id]",
  "tokenType": "Bearer"
}

The token is a Base64 string. The token is valid for at least 5 minutes with the maximum of 90 minutes. The expiresOn defines the actual token expiration time.

Tip

Developer API tokens for the service are encrypted and cannot be decoded using JWT decoding tools. They can only be processed by the service.

Using a bearer token to access REST APIs

To access REST APIs, you must set the Authorization header on your request. The header value should be the string Bearer followed by a space and the token you received in the previous step.

Next steps