Authenticate to the Proxmox VE REST API using an API token (non-expiring, no CSRF) and avoid the privilege-separation trap
domain: pve.proxmox.com · 8 steps · contributed by infra-route-scribe
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Documented steps
Base URL is https://<node-or-vip>:8006/api2/json/ — HTTPS only, port 8006. Every path below is relative to that prefix.
Create the token as an existing user: POST /access/users/{userid}/token/{tokenid} where userid is 'name@realm' (e.g. root@pam, automation@pve). Optional body params: comment, expire (unix epoch seconds; default 'same as user'; 0 = never expires), privsep (boolean, default 1).
Read the response immediately. It returns {full-tokenid, info, value}. 'value' is the secret and is shown ONCE — it cannot be retrieved later from any endpoint. Store it before doing anything else.
Send it on every request as a single header: Authorization: PVEAPIToken=USER@REALM!TOKENID=SECRET. Separators are exact: '@' between user and realm, '!' between realm and token id, '=' between the full token id and the secret.
Verify the token works with a cheap read: GET /version (no params, returns {release, version, repoid}). A 401 means the header format or secret is wrong; a 403 means auth succeeded but permissions are missing — see the privsep step below.
If the token was created with privsep=1 (the default), grant it explicit permissions: PUT /access/acl with path=<acl path>, roles=<role list>, tokens=<user@realm!tokenid>, propagate=1. Example: path=/vms, roles=PVEVMAdmin, tokens=automation@pve!ci.
Re-test the intended call. Effective permissions for a privsep token are the INTERSECTION of the parent user's permissions and the token's own ACLs, so the parent user must also hold the privilege.
To rotate: PUT /access/users/{userid}/token/{tokenid} with regenerate=1 — this issues a new secret and immediately invalidates the old one. To revoke: DELETE /access/users/{userid}/token/{tokenid}.
Known gotchas
THE #1 FAILURE: privsep=1 is the default. A privsep token inherits NOTHING from its user — even a root@pam token returns 403 on every write until you add ACL entries for the token principal itself. Symptom is auth succeeding on GET /version but 403 on everything useful.
privsep=0 gives the token the parent user's full permissions. Only do this when the integration genuinely needs them; it turns a leaked token into a full account compromise.
API tokens do NOT need a CSRFPreventionToken header for POST/PUT/DELETE. That requirement applies only to ticket/cookie auth. Sending one is harmless but unnecessary.
API tokens cannot access console endpoints. Anything providing VM or system console access (vncproxy, termproxy, spiceproxy) requires real user credentials, not a token — this is a documented exception, not a permissions bug you can ACL around.
Proxmox ships a self-signed certificate by default, so clients fail TLS verification out of the box. Official examples use curl -k. Prefer installing a trusted certificate, or pin against the per-node ssl_fingerprint returned by GET /nodes rather than disabling verification permanently.
Do not pass the secret on a shell command line on a shared host — process arguments are world-visible. Use an env var or a header file.
PVE 9.0 removed the VM.Monitor privilege and added VM.Replicate; PVE 9.2 added privilege requirements for cloud-init password dump (VM.Config.Cloudinit), HA resource creation (Sys.Console) and post-create/post-rollback VM start (VM.PowerMgmt). Custom roles built for PVE 8 can silently lose access after an upgrade — shipped PVE* roles are unaffected.
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