Authenticate to Cloud services using client libraries

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This page describes how you can use client libraries and Application Default Credentials to access Google APIs.

Client libraries make it easier to access Google Cloud APIs using a supported language. You can use Google Cloud APIs directly by making raw requests to the server, but client libraries provide simplifications that significantly reduce the amount of code you need to write. This is especially true for authentication, because the client libraries support Application Default Credentials (ADC).

Types of client libraries

There are two types of client libraries available: Cloud Client Libraries and Google API Client Libraries. Both types support Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Client libraries explained.

Use Application Default Credentials with client libraries

To use Application Default Credentials to authenticate your application, you must first set up ADC for the environment where your application is running. When you use the client library to create a client, the client library automatically checks for and uses the credentials you have provided to ADC to authenticate to the APIs your code uses. Your application does not need to explicitly authenticate or manage tokens; these requirements are managed automatically by the authentication libraries.

The preferred methods for setting up ADC are by using the gcloud CLI (for local development) or by using the attached service account (for production environments).

Example client creation

The following code samples create a client for the Cloud Storage service. Your code is likely to need different clients; these samples are meant only to show how you can create a client and use it without any code to explicitly authenticate.

Before you can run the following samples, you must set up ADC for your environment and install the Cloud Storage client library.

Go

auth/authenticate_implicit_with_adc.go 
import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"io"

	"cloud.google.com/go/storage"
	"google.golang.org/api/iterator"
)

// authenticateImplicitWithAdc uses Application Default Credentials
// to automatically find credentials and authenticate.
func authenticateImplicitWithAdc(w io.Writer, projectId string) error {
	// projectId := "your_project_id"

	ctx := context.Background()

	// NOTE: Replace the client created below with the client required for your application.
	// Note that the credentials are not specified when constructing the client.
	// The client library finds your credentials using ADC.
	client, err := storage.NewClient(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("NewClient: %v", err)
	}
	defer client.Close()

	it := client.Buckets(ctx, projectId)
	for {
		bucketAttrs, err := it.Next()
		if err == iterator.Done {
			break
		}
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
		fmt.Fprintf(w, "Bucket: %v\n", bucketAttrs.Name)
	}

	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Listed all storage buckets.\n")

	return nil
}

Java

samples/snippets/src/main/java/AuthenticateImplicitWithAdc.java 

import com.google.api.gax.paging.Page;
import com.google.cloud.storage.Bucket;
import com.google.cloud.storage.Storage;
import com.google.cloud.storage.StorageOptions;
import java.io.IOException;

public class AuthenticateImplicitWithAdc {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    // TODO(Developer):
    //  1. Before running this sample,
    //  set up Application Default Credentials as described in
    //  https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication/external/set-up-adc
    //  2. Replace the project variable below.
    //  3. Make sure you have the necessary permission to list storage buckets
    //  "storage.buckets.list"
    String projectId = "your-google-cloud-project-id";
    authenticateImplicitWithAdc(projectId);
  }

  // When interacting with Google Cloud Client libraries, the library can auto-detect the
  // credentials to use.
  public static void authenticateImplicitWithAdc(String project) throws IOException {

    // *NOTE*: Replace the client created below with the client required for your application.
    // Note that the credentials are not specified when constructing the client.
    // Hence, the client library will look for credentials using ADC.
    //
    // Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created
    // once, and can be reused for multiple requests.
    Storage storage = StorageOptions.newBuilder().setProjectId(project).build().getService();

    System.out.println("Buckets:");
    Page<Bucket> buckets = storage.list();
    for (Bucket bucket : buckets.iterateAll()) {
      System.out.println(bucket.toString());
    }
    System.out.println("Listed all storage buckets.");
  }
}

Node.js

samples/authenticateImplicitWithAdc.js 
/**
 * TODO(developer):
 *  1. Uncomment and replace these variables before running the sample.
 *  2. Set up ADC as described in https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication/external/set-up-adc
 *  3. Make sure you have the necessary permission to list storage buckets "storage.buckets.list"
 *    (https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/access-control/iam-permissions#bucket_permissions)
 */
// const projectId = 'YOUR_PROJECT_ID';

const {Storage} = require('@google-cloud/storage');

async function authenticateImplicitWithAdc() {
  // This snippet demonstrates how to list buckets.
  // NOTE: Replace the client created below with the client required for your application.
  // Note that the credentials are not specified when constructing the client.
  // The client library finds your credentials using ADC.
  const storage = new Storage({
    projectId,
  });
  const [buckets] = await storage.getBuckets();
  console.log('Buckets:');

  for (const bucket of buckets) {
    console.log(`- ${bucket.name}`);
  }

  console.log('Listed all storage buckets.');
}

authenticateImplicitWithAdc();

Python

samples/cloud-client/snippets/authenticate_implicit_with_adc.py 

from google.cloud import storage


def authenticate_implicit_with_adc(project_id="your-google-cloud-project-id"):
    """
    When interacting with Google Cloud Client libraries, the library can auto-detect the
    credentials to use.

    // TODO(Developer):
    //  1. Before running this sample,
    //  set up ADC as described in https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication/external/set-up-adc
    //  2. Replace the project variable.
    //  3. Make sure that the user account or service account that you are using
    //  has the required permissions. For this sample, you must have "storage.buckets.list".
    Args:
        project_id: The project id of your Google Cloud project.
    """

    # This snippet demonstrates how to list buckets.
    # *NOTE*: Replace the client created below with the client required for your application.
    # Note that the credentials are not specified when constructing the client.
    # Hence, the client library will look for credentials using ADC.
    storage_client = storage.Client(project=project_id)
    buckets = storage_client.list_buckets()
    print("Buckets:")
    for bucket in buckets:
        print(bucket.name)
    print("Listed all storage buckets.")

Ruby

samples/authenticate_implicit_with_adc.rb 
def authenticate_implicit_with_adc project_id:
  # The ID of your Google Cloud project
  # project_id = "your-google-cloud-project-id"

  ###
  # When interacting with Google Cloud Client libraries, the library can auto-detect the
  # credentials to use.
  # TODO(Developer):
  #   1. Before running this sample,
  #      set up ADC as described in https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication/external/set-up-adc
  #   2. Replace the project variable.
  #   3. Make sure that the user account or service account that you are using
  #      has the required permissions. For this sample, you must have "storage.buckets.list".
  ###

  require "google/cloud/storage"

  # This sample demonstrates how to list buckets.
  # *NOTE*: Replace the client created below with the client required for your application.
  # Note that the credentials are not specified when constructing the client.
  # Hence, the client library will look for credentials using ADC.
  storage = Google::Cloud::Storage.new project_id: project_id
  buckets = storage.buckets
  puts "Buckets: "
  buckets.each do |bucket|
    puts bucket.name
  end
  puts "Plaintext: Listed all storage buckets."
end

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