I'd like to show some map layer on my webpage, so I decided to give a try to this Google service. As the data is collected in a database in my server, I chose to use a service account as explained here and then use the private key generated in my php script.
Everything works fine when creating a table and inserting some test values. I get the table Id and I'm able to play with it from my script. The problem is that I don't know how to access these table from the web browser. In my API console usage stats are shown fine, but when logging with my account to Google Drive I don't see any table in there.
Where am I supposed to access them if at all possible? Do either the apps.googleusercontent.com or developer.gserviceaccount.com accounts play any role to log into some other service to get access through web?
I also got an api key associated, but when trying to query a table I get a 401 error.
Any hint? I'm feeling a bit lost now. Thanks.
You are using a Service Account right?
So when you create a table with this account, this account will be the table owner. No one else has permission to see this table.
When you access the Fusion Tables web interface with Your Personal Account, you will only see tables that you createdwith your Personal Account.
If you wish to inspect the tables created with your Service Account, you have to use the Google Drive API with your Service Account credentials to give access permission to your Personal Account.
Also if you wish to make your table (or any other type of document) public, you need to use this Google Drive API again.
See more about the topic here:
https://developers.google.com/drive/v2/reference/permissions/insert
Tip: if you want to achieve something on behalf of your Service Account that you only need once (so no need to implement a logic for it in your webapp) I'd seriously advise you to consider using the OAuth2 Playground. You can set your Service Account credentials in the "Settings" and issue authorized requests on behalf of your Service Account. Very usefull tool, no coding needed.
Related
I'm trying to query the Adobe Analytics API, but I'm unsure that we have the right permissions in place.
I've received confirmation thata our account has "Web service access" enabled -- however, Adobe Analytics does not appear as an option when I try to "create a project" on API via Adobe I/O. As a result, I'm blocked from actually trying out the API in that environment.
Are there any other permissions I need to request from the Admin?
Do I need to have some sort of Developer Access in place in addition to "Web service access"? Is it possible to have one without the other?
Any guidance would be a big help -- thanks
You need two things before being able to create an Analytics project and query the API: the Role of Developer (or higher), and, at a minimum, permissions for Report Suites, Metrics, and Dimensions groups.
If you're able to create a project before getting both of these, the API credentials you get (API key, Client key, etc...) won't work; you'll need to create a new project again.
This document has more detail about what's required.
We are currently using google sheets for a research project on crowd forecasts for Covid-19 case and death numbers.
Google Sheets is used for convenience, but we are often running into quota limit issues - even though the number of users we have should be well below what Google allows.
I attempted to create a somewhat reproducible example by setting up a new google account and creating a sheet from which to read.
The first thing I tried (without making any changes to the google account) is this:
library(googledrive)
library(googlesheets4)
# Google sheets authentification -----------------------------------------------
options(gargle_oauth_cache = ".secrets")
drive_auth(cache = ".secrets", email = "iamatestotest#gmail.com")
gs4_auth(token = drive_token())
sheet_id <- "1Z2O5Mce_haceWfduLenJQP-hddXF9biY_4Ydob_psyQ"
n_tries <- 50
for (i in 1:n_tries) {
data <- read_sheet(ss = sheet_id)
Sys.sleep(0.5)
print(i)
}
From what I understand I should be able to make around 300 read requests per minute, but I'm usually not be able to get the loop to run beyond 30-34.
As I wasn't sure the 300 requests are readily available I went to https://console.cloud.google.com, created a new test project (not sure why that is needed) and explicitly activated the googlesheets API and created some credentials. I created an API key as well as an OAuth 2.0 Client ID (although I am admittedly somewhat lost what this does and how to use it).
I next tried to login with my api key by running
drive_deauth()
drive_auth_configure(api_key = "thisismyapikey")
gs4_auth(token = drive_api_key())
but that also didn't get me beyond 33ish. I also had a look into the google console, but also couldn't see any traffic - so not sure my API key got actually used?
I assume this is due to my inability to actually use the API in the intended way. Any help in setting this up / increasing the quota would be much appreciated. If that helps I'm happy to give access to the test account - simply write me a message.
With some kind help from very friendly people I think I mostly figured this out and it was indeed my failure to use the API correctly.
Why my approach failed
when you use googlesheets4 and any of its function out of the box, you get asked to authorize the tidyverse API OAuth app (you login with your Google credentials and give the OAuth app access rights). This means that you make all requests through the tidyverse OAuth app, as are all other users in the world who use this functionality. This is very nice as it works out of the box, but runs into limitations if other people are using the package at the same time. Sharing this quota with other people meant that I ran into limitations quite unpredictably.
How to change the setup to make it work
There are a couple of things that help to alleviate / solve the problem.
use the devtools version of googlesheets4 (devtools::install_github("tidyverse/googlesheets4"). This dev version of googlesheets4 in turn relies on the dev version of gargle, the package that manages the google authentification. The dev version of gargle has a retry function, that automatically retries your requests if they fail. This should solve the majority of issues.
Get your own OAuth app / google service account.
this allows you to manage the authentification process all on your own. You therefore don't have to share your quota with other users around the world.
To set up your own OAuth app / google service account, you can do the following (I'm focusing on the google service account here, as that is much easier in practice).
Log into https://console.cloud.google.com/. You will be asked to create a project. You can see your projects on the left next to "Google Cloud Platform".
Type "APIs and Services" into the search bar, press "enable APIs and services" and search for sheets. Enable this API.
Go back to the search bar and type in "Credentials"
Press "Create credentials" and select service account. A service account gives you programmatic access to the APIs. Give it a name and a description. You should be able to skip the optional parts. Create the service account and go back to the credentials overview. You may have to refresh the page or wait a minute.
Click on your service account (it looks like a very cryptic email address) and go to the "KEYS" tab.
Click "ADD KEY" and create a new key. As key type, select JSON.
Download that key and store it somewhere secure. This should be treated as a combination of password and username!
Now to actually use your key with googlesheets4, you can run `gs4_auth(path = "path-to-your-service-account.JSON")
In order to be able to access your google sheets, you need to grant your service account permissions. Go to your google sheet, press share (as you would do to share it with any other user) and type in this cryptic service account email (it should look something like "1234#something.iam.gserviceaccount.com". Everything should work now without you having to log in anywhere. If you have previously tried other things, I would suggest to restart your R session.
profit.
You should now also be able to track the API requests in the google console dashboard.
Note that there is still a limit of 60 requests per user per minute, so you're not getting your full 300 requests, but maybe it is possible to create several service accounts and balance the load between these. But not having other people's request interfere with yours is a big improvement!
Google says that it is a security measure. Try to share through adding their emails
I have successfully deployed a Google Cloud Endpoints Developer Portal for my API running on Endpoints. I would like to provide access to testing to people outside my organisation that are not using GCP in their projects.
Login to the portal works correctly if I enable the Service Consumer role for these people (on per-email basis). However, when they open it for the first time, they are being asked to grant some extra permissions to the portal:
This form can create totally unnecessary security concerns. Does anyone know, why is it needed?
I only would like my clients to be able to test my API using a GUI, before they could start connecting their projects (not necessary on GCP) to mine. This seems to be a valid use case for me, however I might be misunderstanding some basic concepts.
Or should I submit a feature request to Google about a new role that only enables the access to the portal, and nothing else, so no such forms are shown?
Since Endpoints APIs must be explicitly shared with customers, the portal needs to verify that the logged-in user has permission to view that Endpoints API. So the short answer is that these scopes are being requested primarily so the portal can check the user's access to this API.
Longer answer is that we (the Endpoints team) are looking into if it's possible to build narrower OAuth scopes that would correspond to the access checks we perform. We agree that it's unnecessarily broad of an access request and are hoping to improve this in the future. Thanks for your comment!
I created a Actions on Google app with the Actions SDK. For this i used as said before the Actions SDK, firebase function for the fulfillment and firestore for storing data. All works fine.
Now i want to implement account linking to provide user specific information. I start to read the full documentation for account linking with the refers to integrate a Oauth 2.0 Server and soon. That is my first time i working with account linking and Oauth servers and now i'm totally confused. I don't understand where my auth server have to sit, how to setup it and what parameters it have to process. After reading more and searching for results i found that firebase provide Account authentication. Is it right that this firebase product is similar a Oauth server?
My next big problem is how to enabling account linking in my Actions app. In the Actions on Google documentation i found a topic how to expand the Action Package for account linking. My problem is to unterstand which information the probiertes need.
So summary, if the firebase authentication is really a Oauth server what i need to do that my app and firebase authentication works together.
Maybe everyone knows a good website for understanding the process of account linking and how it can be implemented.
UPDATE 1:
After getting the first answer for my question i started studying more about account linking and the authentication process.
After this i created following roadmap:
Create an website with a google account sing-in form and host it with firebase hosting
Set up the Oauth2 server
Interact with the linked account. Save account informations in my firestore database
So i started with step one. In the firebase authentication documentation i find a example for a google login form. After modifying and hosting the example i try it. It works fine. After sing in by using the hosted website, my google account linked with my project. I checked this in my google account settings. Also the example response with a lots of data like the profile name, email address and so on. So my question at this point is. Why do i have to set up a OAuth server now? After sign in with the example form i linked my account to my project successful. And so i can start saving the received data in my firebase database and act with them in my Actions app.
UPDATE 2:
Okay . Maybey i have a general problem of understanding the right use of account linking. I try to identify the user who use my action to offer special content when he comes back next time. Or maybe create a question with his name from his google account inside the question. So in my understanding i have to link the users google account with my action and save the account information in a database to identify the use next time. So is account linking for this task the right way?
No, Firebase Authentication is not an OAuth2 server.
Firebase Authentication provides a way for you to manage user accounts for your Firebase-based web or mobile app. With the Auth UI it gives a way for users to log into that account using a variety of means (including their Google account, Facebook account, or phone number). It does not, however, provide components that an OAuth2 server provides.
Most notably, it does not provide any way for a user to log in through another client (like the Google Assistant) to gain authorization for that client. You cannot, with Firebase Authentication, issue a token to the Assistant, nor accept a token from the Assistant and verify if this is a user inside Firebase Authentication.
You need to build these components yourself. Google describes the minimum tasks that it needs to do as part of this authentication. You can use Firebase Authentication as part of this as you build such a server (for example, it is a great way to have people log in to their account and for you to verify that account), and it is reasonable to use a Firebase Database to store user tokens if you go that route, Firebase Functions might be a useful place to implement the token exchange point, and Firebase Hosting would be good to host the login page itself - but you'd need to write code that "puts it all together".
Your auth server can sit anywhere. As I said - you can do it through Firebase Functions, but you don't have it. It just needs to be able to provide some responses through web URLs at HTTPS endpoints.
Once you have done this, you need to configure the endpoints on the actions console and implement a request for account linking in your code or in the action package.
Response to Update 1
After sing in by using the hosted website, my google account linked with my project. I checked this in my google account settings.
From an OAuth perspective - no, the Google Account is not "linked" to your project.
Google has issued a token to you (that is to say, the service that you've written) that gives your service access to certain resources. Those resources include information about a particular user.
This may sound like I'm splitting semantics, but it isn't. It is fundamental to what OAuth is offering and what it means when you get an issue a token. You currently have authorization to do certain things.
Why do i have to set up a OAuth server now? After sign in with the example form i linked my account to my project successful. And so i can start saving the received data in my firebase database and act with them in my Actions app.
You haven't linked your account. You have permission to do certain things.
Furthermore, aside from "that's how they do it", you need to setup an OAuth server because you now need to do the same thing for Google - give them permission to do specific things on your server (like use it). Normally this would be involved with "logging in".
Account Linking is really a fancy term for "logging in". You need a way for users to be able to log into your server. You have an access token, but that is roughly the equivalent of having logged into Google's server.
So why do so many websites, for example, have things like "Log In using Google" or "Log In using Facebook"? Because those sites are willing to trust that if their servers can get permitted to certain information at Google or Facebook, then they can trust you. And you might be willing to accept that when they login to your site (either through the web or through Actions), but the Assistant can't assume that. They need to make sure users actually log into your site - that user's deliberately want to do so and that you deliberately want to let them in.
I have basic code for getting google contacts and printing out their information as a desktop application. Currently I do this with OAuth2 to get the access token, etc. But I'm having an issue because I want this to be as automated as possible, and the initial setup requires one to get credentials just to access their contacts. Is there a way around this or a way to automate it? My end goal is to (ideally) be able to put in a users email address and be able to get their contacts, without them ever having to go through the developer's console. I know they only have to do it once, but it can be a pain for users who don't understand.