Basic Tokens

An Aspera basic token is created from an access key ID and secret, which authorizes a transfer user access to a specific area of a storage and authenticates that user to the storage. Basic tokens are less restrictive than transfer tokens. They can be used to transfer with any Aspera server that supports access keys (all but IBM Aspera on Cloud).

Create an access key for the storage and retrieve its ID and secret, as described in Access Key Authentication.
Create a basic token by encoding the access_key_id:secret in base64.
```
# echo -n access_key_id:access_key_secret | base64
```
For example:
```
# echo -n diDeuFLcpG9IYdsvxj0SCq4mOohNJTKvp5Q2nRWjDgIA:aspera | base64
```
The basic token looks similar to the following:
```
ZGlEZXVGTGNwRzlJWWRzdnhqMFNDcTRtT29oTkpUS3ZwNVEyblJXakRnSUE6YXNwZXJh
```
If the basic token breaks across lines in the output, rerun the command using the -w0 option to remove the line break. For example:
```
# echo -n access_key_id:access_key_secret | base64 -w0
```
Set the basic token as an environment variable by running the following command:
```
# export ASPERA_SCP_TOKEN="Basic token_string"
```
You can also specify the basic token on the command line by using the -W "Basic token_string".
Transfer content.
To upload a file, use the following syntax:
```
# ascp -i path/to/private_key_file -d source_path username@hostname:destination_path 
```
Where the path to the private key file is:
- /opt/aspera/var/aspera_tokenauth_id_rsa
The destination_path can be / to indicate the top of the access key storage, or /path to indicate a subdirectory.

For example:
```
# ascp  -i /opt/aspera/var/aspera_tokenauth_id_rsa -d testfile03 xfer@10.0.3.4/tmp
```