Initialize using Network Credentials

iControl uses the same authentication scheme as the BIG-IP GUI and that this point the only option is Basic Authentication over HTTP. This is a encoded version of the username:password over our SSL connection. As far as I know, no one has been able to use other client-based authentication schemes (client certificates, etc) with BIG-IP. So, at this point, you will need to use credentials (username and password) to establish a connection.

 

 

The initializeWithToken method is for Enterprise Manager. It is an unsupported feature where EM will do a one time username/password request and request a user token from iControl. It can then cache this token to use later. The idea was for folks using EM, not to have to have EM store their passwords. We haven't documented this interface and I personally haven't tested it out with all the toolkits out there so I can't guarantee it will work with the .Net libraries. We have also included some other failsafes in there to avoid users from passing the tokens around so I'm not sure it would work for your environment anyway.

 

 

One other option you have is to build a middle tier (web app, etc) that the users can log into with whatever authentication scheme you would like and then you create a separated iControl call out the back with the admin credentials. Your users won't see them and you can control what they can and can't do. Again, not sure if this will work for you, but it's what I've seen others do.

 

 

-Joe