App Identity API for legacy bundled services

Region ID

The REGION_ID is an abbreviated code that Google assigns based on the region you select when you create your app. The code does not correspond to a country or province, even though some region IDs may appear similar to commonly used country and province codes. For apps created after February 2020, REGION_ID.r is included in App Engine URLs. For existing apps created before this date, the region ID is optional in the URL.

Learn more about region IDs.

The App Identity API lets an application discover its application ID (also called the project ID). Using the ID, an App Engine application can assert its identity to other App Engine Apps, Google APIs, and third-party applications and services. The application ID can also be used to generate a URL or email address, or to make a run-time decision.

Getting the project ID

The project ID can be found using the ApiProxy.getCurrentEnvironment().getAppId() method.

Getting the application hostname

By default, App Engine apps are served from URLs in the form https://PROJECT_ID.REGION_ID.r.appspot.com, where the project ID is part of the hostname. If an app is served from a custom domain, it may be necessary to retrieve the entire hostname component. You can do this using the com.google.appengine.runtime.default_version_hostname attribute of the CurrentEnvironment.

@Override
public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws IOException {
  resp.setContentType("text/plain");
  ApiProxy.Environment env = ApiProxy.getCurrentEnvironment();
  resp.getWriter().print("default_version_hostname: ");
  resp.getWriter()
      .println(env.getAttributes().get("com.google.appengine.runtime.default_version_hostname"));
}

Asserting identity to other App Engine apps

If you want to determine the identity of the App Engine app that is making a request to your App Engine app, you can use the request header X-Appengine-Inbound-Appid. This header is added to the request by the URLFetch service and is not user modifiable, so it safely indicates the requesting application's project ID, if present.

Requirements:

  • Only calls made to your app's appspot.com domain will contain the X-Appengine-Inbound-Appid header. Calls to custom domains do not contain the header.
  • Your requests must be set to not follow redirects. If you use the URLFetchService class, your app must specify doNotFollowRedirect. Apps running on the Java 8 runtime do not use the URLFetch service by default. To enable URLFetch follow these instructions.
  • If your app uses java.net, update your code to not follow redirects: 
    connection.setInstanceFollowRedirects(false);

In your application handler, you can check the incoming ID by reading the X-Appengine-Inbound-Appid header and comparing it to a list of IDs allowed to make requests.

Asserting identity to Google APIs

Google APIs use the OAuth 2.0 protocol for authentication and authorization. The App Identity API can create OAuth tokens that can be used to assert that the source of a request is the application itself. The getAccessToken() method returns an access token for a scope, or list of scopes. This token can then be set in the HTTP headers of a call to identify the calling application.

The following example shows how to use the App Identity API to make a REST call to the Google URL Shortener API. 

/**
 * Returns a shortened URL by calling the Google URL Shortener API.
 *
 * <p>Note: Error handling elided for simplicity.
 */
public String createShortUrl(String longUrl) throws Exception {
  ArrayList<String> scopes = new ArrayList<>();
  scopes.add("https://www.googleapis.com/auth/urlshortener");
  final AppIdentityService appIdentity = AppIdentityServiceFactory.getAppIdentityService();
  final AppIdentityService.GetAccessTokenResult accessToken = appIdentity.getAccessToken(scopes);
  // The token asserts the identity reported by appIdentity.getServiceAccountName()
  JSONObject request = new JSONObject();
  request.put("longUrl", longUrl);

  URL url = new URL("https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?pp=1");
  HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
  connection.setDoOutput(true);
  connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
  connection.addRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/json");
  connection.addRequestProperty("Authorization", "Bearer " + accessToken.getAccessToken());

  OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(connection.getOutputStream());
  request.write(writer);
  writer.close();

  if (connection.getResponseCode() == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
    // Note: Should check the content-encoding.
    //       Any JSON parser can be used; this one is used for illustrative purposes.
    JSONTokener responseTokens = new JSONTokener(connection.getInputStream());
    JSONObject response = new JSONObject(responseTokens);
    return (String) response.get("id");
  } else {
    try (InputStream s = connection.getErrorStream();
        InputStreamReader r = new InputStreamReader(s, StandardCharsets.UTF_8)) {
      throw new RuntimeException(
          String.format(
              "got error (%d) response %s from %s",
              connection.getResponseCode(), CharStreams.toString(r), connection.toString()));
    }
  }
}

Note that the application's identity is represented by the service account name, which is typically applicationid@appspot.gserviceaccount.com. You can get the exact value by using the getServiceAccountName() method. For services which offer ACLs, you can grant the application access by granting this account access.

Asserting identity to third-party services

The token generated by getAccessToken() only works against Google services. However you can use the underlying signing technology to assert the identity of your application to other services. The signForApp() method will sign bytes using a private key unique to your application, and the getPublicCertificatesForApp() method will return certificates which can be used to validate the signature.

Here is an example showing how to sign a blob and validate its signature: 
// Note that the algorithm used by AppIdentity.signForApp() and
// getPublicCertificatesForApp() is "SHA256withRSA"

private byte[] signBlob(byte[] blob) {
  AppIdentityService.SigningResult result = appIdentity.signForApp(blob);
  return result.getSignature();
}

private byte[] getPublicCertificate() throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
  Collection<PublicCertificate> certs = appIdentity.getPublicCertificatesForApp();
  PublicCertificate publicCert = certs.iterator().next();
  return publicCert.getX509CertificateInPemFormat().getBytes("UTF-8");
}

private Certificate parsePublicCertificate(byte[] publicCert)
    throws CertificateException, NoSuchAlgorithmException {
  InputStream stream = new ByteArrayInputStream(publicCert);
  CertificateFactory cf = CertificateFactory.getInstance("X.509");
  return cf.generateCertificate(stream);
}

private boolean verifySignature(byte[] blob, byte[] blobSignature, PublicKey pk)
    throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeyException, SignatureException {
  Signature signature = Signature.getInstance("SHA256withRSA");
  signature.initVerify(pk);
  signature.update(blob);
  return signature.verify(blobSignature);
}

private String simulateIdentityAssertion()
    throws CertificateException, UnsupportedEncodingException, NoSuchAlgorithmException,
    InvalidKeyException, SignatureException {
  // Simulate the sending app.
  String message = "abcdefg " + Calendar.getInstance().getTime().toString();
  byte[] blob = message.getBytes();
  byte[] blobSignature = signBlob(blob);
  byte[] publicCert = getPublicCertificate();

  // Simulate the receiving app, which gets the certificate, blob, and signature.
  Certificate cert = parsePublicCertificate(publicCert);
  PublicKey pk = cert.getPublicKey();
  boolean isValid = verifySignature(blob, blobSignature, pk);

  return String.format(
      "isValid=%b for message: %s\n\tsignature: %s\n\tpublic cert: %s",
      isValid, message, Arrays.toString(blobSignature), Arrays.toString(publicCert));
}

Getting the default Cloud Storage Bucket name

Each application can have one default Cloud Storage bucket, which includes 5GB of free storage and a free quota for I/O operations.

To get the name of the default bucket, you can use the App Identity API. Call AppIdentityService.getDefaultGcsBucketName.