I would like to use the google cloud datastore from Android, so I would not have to set up cloud endpoints et al. Trying the snapshot 1.0.0 libs, the only way to add credentials seems to be via a file name to the private key file. That does not sound right for Android, is there some better way, ideally with an Android example?
You should be able to use the AccountManager for identity management and authentication storage, see https://code.google.com/p/google-api-java-client/wiki/Android.
You should be able to use the Oauth2 flow to get the appropriate credentials, and just pass that in to the DatastoreOptions.
Note that the Cloud Datastore API does not support fine grain ACLs, so the user will have to be an admin of your Project in order to access the API.
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I'm developing an android app with firebase as a backend and I heard a word named Admin SDK. I had searched for it and found it is used to manage data.
But I have a doubt that firebase provides a console webpage (console.firebase.google.com) to manage data, but why there is a separate Admin SDK?
Can someOne please explain...
The firebase admin SDK provides a simple and easy way to modify firebase settings and data using API calls.
For example, you might ask: why should you even have a regular SDK to store data? After all, you can store and save data directly from the web interface. It is, however, simply not secure or practical to have users update their own data each time using the console.
Similarly, the admin SDK is just like the regular SDK but with administrator permissions. For example, it allows you to bypass the rules set up using your firestore rules. The Firebase admin SDK is meant to be used on your backend - so you know it is running trusted software. You know that it will act the way you expect it to, unlike code running client-side that can't be trusted.
For example, let's say that you want to be able to delete a user's post if certain conditions are met. The user will make the request to your server, and it will check if the conditions are met, and then delete the post using its admin privilages. Sure you could technically automate this using firestorm rules, but those can be quite cumbersome and might not work in more complicated examples.
You can also even use it to integrate with other applications like connecting your app to a moderation tool or a curse detector that can't or shouldn't run on the client's device.
Is your question is why does Admin SDK exists?
There are several administrative tasks such as deleting users, listing collections and many more which the client cannot and should not be able to do.
Firebase Admin SDK has admin access to your Firebase project's resources.
It does not obey any security rules and can read/write any of your database, storage bucket..
That is why you must use Admin SDK in a server (or cloud function only). Although I feel Firebase Admin SDK is more useful if you use your own servers and authentication method. If you are using a custom server then:
It can be used to generate custom token so you can authenticate users using your own method (maybe legacy auth system) but still use Firebase Authentication to handle the auth tokens thereafter.
If you use your own database (and not any from Firebase), the Admin SDK can verify the ID Token sent by client and get identity of that user. Thereafter it's could be a simple if-else statement for you to decide if the user has access to the request resource or not.
I need to create Firebase projects, get the Admin SDK private keys, and add resources programmatically.
I can create projects with CLI - firebase projects:create. But after that to use Admin SDK or REST API to add resources to the project, I need to get Admin SDK private key.
My plan is web scraping with direct HTTP requests. I know Fastlane use same logic to control Apple Developer Portal UI and fetch data from it programmatically.
First, I need to go: https://console.firebase.google.com/project/<project_id>/settings/serviceaccounts/adminsdk with required cookies, headers etc.
Then, I should mimic the Generate new Private Key button below and get the private key.
But I have never used this method, especially with a web page that contaions sessions, cookies etc. And, I want to build it as a microservice and deploy to a server. So, I believe 2FA might be a problem.
My questions:
Is there any more cost-effective way to get Admin SDK? Maybe, I am missing some feature in Firebase resources.
Can I mimic this button's behaviour without using any front-end scraping? Is there any precautions in Firebase servers to prevent this kind of solution.
If I do it in this way and deploy to a server, would 2FA be a problem? Can microservice work with 1-month valid sessions? Or, would it asks 2FA all the time that it works? (I have never used headless browsers etc. I just some basic web-scraping experience with Selenium.)
It looks like scraping is not necessary, gcloud CLI do the job. If you want to create Firebase projects and get service accounts programmatically do the steps below:
Create with firebase CLI: firebase projects:create --display-name "<project-name>" <project-id> (Or, probably you can create with gcloud CLI as well)
Change active project in gcloud CLI with gcloud config set project <project-id>
gcloud iam service-accounts list and store the EMAIL here. (There is just automatically created service account here, no private key created.)
Create and store the private key: gcloud iam service-accounts keys create key.json --iam-account= <EMAIL-you-stored>
I would like to avoid exposing private credentials in client apps. Doug Stevenson said firebase-authentication-vs-firebase-admin :
The reason why you can't use the Firebase Admin SDK in your app is
because you would have to ship private credentials with your app in
order for the SDK to operate
By saying Admin SDK did he mean when we use for example:
import * as admin from "firebase-admin";
And what about :
import firebase from "firebase/app";
firebase.database().ref ... ?
Is this snippet considered as admin SDK ? To configure firebase we would still need to ship private credential with our client app, which is a security hole. So should we consider NEVER use firebase.database() or firebase.firestore() in client apps and instead use a cloud function ?
If you ship your administrative credentials with your application, anyone can grab those credentials and start calling any API on your project in whatever way they see fit. You have no control whatsoever over this usage, as they'll have the administrative credentials.
For this reason you should indeed not use the Admin SDK in the app, but instead wrap the functionality you need in a custom API (such as in a Cloud Function), where you can ensure its usage is authorized.
This is different from the second snippet in your question, which uses the regular JavaScript SDKs from Firebase. These SDKs don't use administrative credentials to access the project, but instead use the configuration data that is explained here: Is it safe to expose Firebase apiKey to the public?
Access through this configuration data is guarded by the server-side security rules that you've configured for your project. So while the user can still copy the configuration data and call the API on their own, any access has to go through the security rules you configured. And in those security rules you then ensure they can only access data they're authorized to.
But since the Admin SDKs bypass the security rules by design, you won't have that option when you ship the administrative credentials in your app.
I want to develop an Ionic app for android and ios using firebase backend.
Requirement:
1. I want to use anonymous authentication silently so that user does not have to be worry about login.
2. I just want to display list of some items on the home page using Firestore api.
Question/Problem:
1. How does firebase will get to know that only the my app using the firestore get api.
2. If I am storing api credentials/secrets in my android app and if other user somehow knows these credentials, will that person be able to use api on behalf of my credentials and I will not be able to track the usage.
Top Level:
If someone know my firebase api credentials/secrets, will that person be able to utilize my firebase quota in case I am using firebase anonymous authentication.
Thanks in advance.
The settings you use to initialize the Firebase SDK are not "secrets". It's all very much public information that identifies your app from all the other Firebase apps out there. Every Firebase app has a similar set of public data. Once you publish your app, you should assume that everyone is able to see that data.
This means that anyone can use that data. That's why it's important to use Firebase Authentication along with security rules to make sure that people logged in can only make use of whatever resources you specify. That's the only way to lock down the data in your Firebase project. If you are concerned about security, then you should be thinking about your security rules from the very beginning.
Is it possible to set up Firebase to allow Auth/DB access into a common/shared database instance - where that instance is setup to be a centralized storage location for some 3rd party service?
For example, let's say there's an analytics service called StackOverflowAnalytics.com .. and so anyone who signs up for that service, can add tracking to their app with some secret user key. And then all the tracking for that Key is pushed to the same Firebase DB instance. And then the user can login via Firebase auth and the rules will restrict that they can only access the node for their Key.
I'm working on a 3rd party analytics client for Android - along the lines https://mint.splunk.com - where I would like to provide users a small Java/Android library they can add to their Android project, and this will help them track different data points while their app is running. The data is made accessible by saving it to the cloud from the device.
I am currently using Firebase, but it seems in order for the Firebase Auth & DB of a given Firebase instance to be accessible - the "specific app signing key" (package name/etc combo) needs to be set in the console for that Firebase instance.
It seems sharing across across unknown apps is not possible on Firebase. And that if I want to support something like that with Firebase (and not have to go to another cloud storage option), then I need to set up some proxy REST client .. like in Java or PHP .. that can serve as a centralized access point to that Firebase instance. Just wanted to check with other folks first in case this has been encountered and perhaps there are best practices already established around this particular case. Thanks
Firebase client libraries are generally not meant to be repackaged for use in other libraries. They're meant to be used at the app level.
A unique SHA-1 key is required on Android for Authentication to work with a particular app identified by package name. This requirement will definitely become a problem for you if you want this to work with arbitrary apps, since you would have to manually enter one for each app that wants to integrate.
As far as I know it's not possible to do what you want without creating a proxy, as you mentioned. I assume that firebase has some app validation that make unfeasible to share the Auth/DB.
Maybe a solution for you is to make a proxy too to access data:
"It looks like in order to access Firebase Analytics data, you export it to BigQuery. This is working for me and is automated."