Locating your service credentials

You can find the credentials for any service that is associated with your account.

Objectives

  1. Locate your service credentials in IBM Cloud.
  2. Understand your service credentials.

Before you begin

Create a service instance in the IBM Cloud Dashboard by following the Getting started with IBM Cloudant tutorial.

How to find your service credentials

  1. Go to IBM Cloud and log in.

  2. Find the service instance called Cloudant-o7 and open it.

    This instance is the one you created as in the Before you begin section.

    This Resource list is a list of all the instances in your service. Cloudant-07 is the instance we use in this tutorial.
    Selecting the IBM Cloudant service

  3. Click Service credentials. If you have no pre-existing service credentials, the list will be empty:

    The Service Credentials list is empty.
    Service Credentials list before any are created

  4. Click Create credential to create a new set of service credentials:

    New Service Credentials form.
    The form to be completed to create a new service credential

  5. Choose a name for your credential, choose a role from the pull-down list (e.g. Manager) and click Create.

    Service credentials created.
    Service credentials are displayed and ready to copy

  6. Make a note of the service credentials immediately as they will not be displayed again.

Understanding your service credentials

Service credentials are valuable. If anyone or any application has access to the credentials, they can effectively do whatever they want with the service instance. For example, they might create spurious data, or delete valuable information. Protect these credentials carefully.

The service credentials include the following fields:

Service credential fields
Field Purpose
api_key The IBM IAM API key. This key is exchanged for time-limited access token. The token is used to authenticated API requests.
iam_apikey_description Description of the IAM API key.
iam_apikey_id The unique ID of the IAM API key.
iam_apikey_name The name of the IAM API key, as chosen in the form above.
iam_serviceid_crn The CRN of the service ID that the IAM API key is associated with.
url The HTTPS URL to access the IBM Cloudant instance on the public network.
vpe_url The HTTP URL to access the IBM Cloudant instance on the private network.