Generate API Keys

Required User Role: Administrator or organizational user with appropriate permissions. For more information, see User Roles.

API keys allow you to authenticate as a specific user for Tenable Security Center API requests. Administrators can generate API keys for any user account. Other roles can generate API keys for user accounts with the same role. For more information, see API Key Authentication.

Note: If you generate API keys for a user that already has API keys, the old keys will be replaced. If you delete existing keys or generate new API keys for a user, Tenable Security Center deauthorizes API requests attempted with the old keys.

Before you begin:

Enable API keys to allow users to perform API key authentication, as described in Enable API Key Authentication.

To generate API keys:

Log in to Tenable Security Center via the user interface.
Click Users > Users.

The Users page appears.
Right-click the row for the user for which you want to generate an API key.

The actions menu appears.

-or-

Select the check box for the user for which you want to generate an API key.

The available actions appear at the top of the table.
Click API Keys > Generate API Key.

A confirmation window appears.
Click Generate.

The Your API Key window appears, displaying the access key and secret key for the user.
Save the API keys in a safe location.

Note: You cannot view API secret keys in the Tenable Security Center interface after initial generation. If you lose your existing secret key, you must generate new API keys.

What to do next:

Use the API keys to perform API requests, as described in API Key Authorization in the Tenable Security Center API Best Practices Guide.