Prime WebSocket Authentication

How to authenticate WebSocket connections to the Kraken Prime API using HMAC-SHA256 signed headers.

Authenticated connection. Connect to: wss://wss.prime.kraken.com/ws/v1

WebSocket connections must be authenticated by signing the request and sending the signature in HTTP headers.

Connection Headers

Header Schema

Header	Type	Description
ApiKey	string	Your Kraken API key
ApiSign	string	base64-encoded signature
ApiTimestamp	string	An ISO-8601 UTC string of the form 2019-02-13T05:17:32.000000Z

Signature Generation

The signature is a base64 encoded sha256 HMAC using the API secret of the following:

GET\n<ApiTimestamp>\n<host>\n<path>

For example:

GET\n2019-02-13T05:17:32.000000Z\nwss.sandbox.prime.kraken.com\n/ws/v1

Python Example

# to install websocket lib:
# $ pip install websocket-client
from websocket import create_connection
import datetime
import hmac
import hashlib
import base64

api_key = "<apikey>"
api_secret = "<apisecret>"

utc_now = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
utc_datetime = utc_now.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.000000Z")

host = "<websocket host>"  # wss.sandbox.prime.kraken.com, for example
path = "/ws/v1"

params = "\n".join([
    "GET",
    utc_datetime,
    host,
    path,
])

hash = hmac.new(
    api_secret.encode('ascii'), params.encode('ascii'), hashlib.sha256)
hash.hexdigest()

signature = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(hash.digest()).decode()

header = {
    "ApiKey": api_key,
    "ApiSign": signature,
    "ApiTimestamp": utc_datetime,
}

ws = create_connection("wss://" + host + path, header=header)

while True:
    print(ws.recv())

Environments

Environment	WebSocket Endpoint
Sandbox	wss://wss.sandbox.prime.kraken.com/ws/v1
Production	wss://wss.prime.kraken.com/ws/v1

API Keys

If you do not have an API key and a signature assigned, you will need to obtain them first. You can do so by contacting Kraken support staff at: [e-mail].

You will need separate API Keys for connecting to the sandbox and production environments.

Rate Limits

There is no limit to how many concurrent websocket connections you’re allowed, though this may change in the future. If you expect to have more than ~10 active connections, please contact [e-mail].