Set up ADC for a resource with an attached service account

Some Google Cloud services—such as Compute Engine, App Engine, and Cloud Run functions—support attaching a user-managed service account to some types of resources. Generally, attaching a service account is supported when that service's resources can run or include application code. When you attach a service account to a resource, the code running on the resource can use that service account as its identity.

Attaching a user-managed service account is the preferred way to provide credentials to ADC for production code running on Google Cloud.

Note: Many of these Google Cloud services also provide a default service account. Using the default service account is not recommended, because by default the default service account is highly privileged, which violates the principle of least privilege.

For help determining the roles that you need to provide to your service account, see Choose predefined roles.

For information about which resources you can attach a service account to, and help with attaching the service account to the resource, see the IAM documentation on attaching a service account.

Set up authentication:

1. Create the service account:

   gcloud iam service-accounts create SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME

   Replace SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME with a name for the service account.

2. To provide access to your project and your resources, grant a role to the service account:

   gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID --member="serviceAccount:SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME@PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com" --role=ROLE

   Replace the following:

   • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME: the name of the service account
   • PROJECT_ID: the project ID where you created the service account
   • ROLE: the role to grant
   Note: The --role flag affects which resources the service account can access in your project. You can revoke these roles or grant additional roles later. In production environments, do not grant the Owner, Editor, or Viewer roles. Instead, grant a predefined role or custom role that meets your needs.
3. To grant another role to the service account, run the command as you did in the previous step.

4. Grant the required role to the principal that will attach the service account to other resources.

   gcloud iam service-accounts add-iam-policy-binding SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME@PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com --member="user:USER_EMAIL" --role=roles/iam.serviceAccountUser

   Replace the following:

   • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME: the name of the service account
   • PROJECT_ID: the project ID where you created the service account
   • USER_EMAIL: the email address for a Google Account

What's next

• Understand best practices for using service accounts and service account keys.
• Learn more about how ADC finds credentials.
• Authenticate for using Cloud Client Libraries.
• Explore authentication methods.