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# Validator Client API: Authorization Header
## Overview
The validator client HTTP server requires that all requests have the following
HTTP header:
- Name: `Authorization`
- Value: `Basic <api-token>`
Where `<api-token>` is a string that can be obtained from the validator client
host. Here is an example `Authorization` header:
```
Authorization Basic api-token-0x03eace4c98e8f77477bb99efb74f9af10d800bd3318f92c33b719a4644254d4123
```
## Obtaining the API token
The API token can be obtained via two methods:
### Method 1: Reading from a file
The API token is stored as a file in the `validators` directory. For most users
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this is `~/.lighthouse/{network}/validators/api-token.txt` . Here's an
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example using the `cat` command to print the token to the terminal, but any
text editor will suffice:
```
$ cat api-token.txt
api-token-0x03eace4c98e8f77477bb99efb74f9af10d800bd3318f92c33b719a4644254d4123
```
### Method 2: Reading from logs
When starting the validator client it will output a log message containing an
`api-token` field:
```
Sep 28 19:17:52.615 INFO HTTP API started api_token: api-token-0x03eace4c98e8f77477bb99efb74f9af10d800bd3318f92c33b719a4644254d4123, listen_address: 127.0.0.1:5062
```
## Example
Here is an example `curl` command using the API token in the `Authorization` header:
```bash
curl localhost:5062/lighthouse/version -H "Authorization: Basic api-token-0x03eace4c98e8f77477bb99efb74f9af10d800bd3318f92c33b719a4644254d4123"
```
The server should respond with its version:
```json
{"data":{"version":"Lighthouse/v0.2.11-fc0654fbe+/x86_64-linux"}}
```
