An Access Grant is a security envelope that contains a satellite address, a restricted API Key, and a restricted path-based encryption key - everything an application needs to locate an object on the network, access that object, and decrypt it.

The Access Grant screen allows you to create or delete Access Grants, generate credentials for the Storj S3-compatible Gateway from an Access Grant, create an API key to generate an access grant in the CLI.

Create S3 Credentials

Storj has an Amazon S3 compatible API and you'll need generate S3 credentials to use it. S3 credentials consist of an access key, secret key, and endpoint.

Create S3 credentials in the Storj console:

1. Navigate to Access Keys on the left side menu.

2. Click the New Access Key button.

3. When the New Access dialog comes up, set specifications according to the following guidelines:

   • Name: The name of the credentials (e.g. my-access)
   • Type: S3 Credentials

4. Click Next to provide permissions, either Full Access or Advanced:

   • Permissions: All
   • Buckets: Feel free to specify the bucket you created above (e.g. my-bucket), or leave as “All”
   • End date: provide an expiration date for these credentials (optional)

5. Click Next to provide Access encryption Information

   In order to see the data uploaded to your bucket in the Storj console, you must unlock the bucket with the same encryption passphrase as the credentials.

   • Use the current passphrase: this is default option
   • Advanced: you may provide a different encryption phrase either your own or generate a new one.
     • Enter a new passphrase: use this option, if you would like to provide your own new encryption phrase
     • Generate 12-word passphrase: use this option, if you would like to generate a new encryption phrase

6. Click Create Access to finish creation of your S3 credentials

7. Click Confirm the Confirm details pop-up message

8. Your S3 credentials are created. Write them down and store them, or click the Download all button. You will need these credentials for the following steps.

Create Access Grant

A Storj access grant is a serialized, self-contained credential that allows users to access a specific bucket, or object, within a Storj project. It encapsulates everything needed for authentication and authorization on the Storj network.

Create Access Grant in the Storj Console:

1. Navigate to Access Keys on the left side menu.

2. Click the New Access Key button.

3. When the New Access dialog comes up, set specifications according to the following guidelines:

   • Name: The name of the credentials (e.g. my-access-grant)
   • Type: Access Grant

4. Click Next to provide permissions, either Full Access or Advanced:

   • Permissions: All

   • Buckets: Feel free to specify the bucket (e.g. my-bucket), or leave as “All”

   • End date: provide an expiration date for these credentials (optional)

5. Click Next to provide Access encryption Information

   In order to see the data uploaded to your bucket in the web console, you must unlock the bucket with the same encryption passphrase as the credentials.

   • Use the current passphrase: this is default option

   • Advanced: you may provide a different encryption phrase either your own or generate a new one.

     • Enter a new passphrase: use this option, if you would like to provide your own new encryption phrase

     • Generate 12-word passphrase: use this option, if you would like to generate a new encryption phrase

6. Click Create Access to finish creation of your Access key.

7. Click Confirm the Confirm details pop-up message

8. Your Access Grant is created. Write it down and store it, or click the Download button. You will need the Access Grant for the following steps.

Create Keys for CLI

1. You need to have a Storj account and Uplink CLI installed. See Create Your Account

2. To start, proceed through the initial steps of creating a new Access Grant.

3. Navigate to "Access Keys" page and click the New Access Key button, then type an access name and choose API Key as an Access type.

4. On the next step, select either Full Access or Advanced if you want to choose the permissions, buckets, and set an expiry date for this access key.

5. Once you create the access key, copy and save the Satellite Address and API Key in a safe place, or download them as they will only appear once.

6. Make sure you've already Download and Installation and run uplink setup.

   windowslinuxmacos

   ./uplink.exe setup
   

   ./uplink.exe setup
   

   CopyCopied!

   For anyone who has previously configured an Uplink, please use a named access. If you want to replace the default access, you need to either Create an Access Grant and use the access importcommand with--force flag to import it, or use theaccess importcommand with --force flag to create an Access Grant in CLI and import it to the specified access in the local store of Uplink.

7. Follow the prompts. When asked for your API Key, enter it (you should have saved it in step 5 above).

8. Generate the Access Grant by running uplink share with no restrictions.

   If you chose an access name, you'll need to specify it in the following command as --access=name

   windowslinuxmacos

   ./uplink.exe access restrict --readonly=false
   

   ./uplink.exe access restrict --readonly=false
   

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   Keep your full-rights Access Grant secret, it contains the encryption key and will enable uploading, downloading or deleting your data from the entire project!

9. Your Access Grant should have been output.

Delete Access Grant

To Delete an Access Grant, select three dots on the right side of the Access Grant and choose Delete Access:

You don't need to know everything in the whitepaper about our Access Grants, macaroon-based API Keys or our encryption implementation, but if you understand the general principles, you'll find these are some very sophisticated (but easy to use) tools for creating more secure and private applications.