I'm trying to create contacts in my google account using the 2lo (2 legged oauth), to achieve this Ive created a service account using my test account AAAAAAA#gmail.com, this step creates a "new email address" for the service, something like: XXXXXXX#YYYYYYYY.iam.gserviceaccount.com.
I'm able to access the google api with this account without the user intervention (2lo), and when I create a new contact using the api, this contact is related to XXXXXXX#YYYYYYYY.iam.gserviceaccount.com and not to the account I used to create the service account AAAAAAA#gmail.com, I can't see the created contact using my test account (AAAAAAA#gmail.com).
Is it possible to create a contact on my AAAAAAA#gmail.com account using a service account? what steps shou;d I follow?
Thanks
No, you cannot create contact. You need service account, which is an account that belongs to your application instead of an individual end user. Your application calls Google APIs on behalf of the service account, so users aren't directly involved.
If you want to access user data for users in your Google Apps domain, then delegate domain-wide access to the service account. Then, your application prepares to make authorized API calls by using the service account's credentials to request an access token from the OAuth 2.0 auth server.
You may follow the steps listed here: . It shows how to create a service account.
Related
How to send service emails
from my backend with smtp.google.com or Gmail API while making sure
the secret stored on the backend server can only be used to send emails from a specific sender?
Goal
send user account activation emails from my backend
use smtp.google.com or Gmail API (i.e. no own SMTP server)
authenticate with OAuth2.0 (i.e. don't enable "less secure apps")
Current state
implemented the email sending part
for testing, I created a noreply#**.** Google Suite account
for testing, I generated an accessToken via OAuth2 Playground
using the accessToken I can send emails via smtp.googl.com
Problem
Google suggests to use a service account for this
But to send emails from no-reply#x.y I have to enable Domain-wide Delegation
Domain-wide delegation allows to impersonate every domain account
the secret stored on the backend should only allow to send mails from no-reply#**.**
Lets start with send user account activation emails from my server I am gong to assume that you have a web app. This web app allows users to register with your system. Now when a user registers with your system you want to automatically send them an account creation email. Your idea is to use Google rather than setting up your own smtp server and sending these emails from your own system. Not a bad idea really.
Lets think about this for a minute the emails would need to be sent automatically so you need some kind of service sending them. To do that you want to use a service account. Again this is a great idea using a pre authorized service account that you will not need to have a user to authorize the app.
The only issue is that service accounts do not work with normal gmail accounts. To use a service account with Gmail api you need to use a google workspace domain account. The workspace domain admin would then be able to add permissions to the service account letting it act like a user on the domain. In this case your idea of no-reply.
So your workspace domain account would have a user called no-reply. The domain admin would then configure domain wide delegation to the service account allowing it to pretend that it is the user called no-reply. For all intents and purposes the service account is the no-reply user. It will be able to send mails as if they are coming from that user.
For all this to work you will need the workspace account with that user.
Have a look at the following link, it's actually one of Google's better examples it shows how to set up the delegation.
Perform Google Workspace Domain-Wide Delegation of Authority
Here you create a service account with credentials, allow this account to impersonate other users (e.g. the no-reply user), to only use the Gmail API and to only use it to send emails.
the documentation is a bit outdated, you can skip the step Grant users access to this service account and create the service account key afterwards via the service account edit function: Manage keys
in the step Domain wide delegation you need Google Admin not the Google Cloud Platform Admin Console as in the previous step
Just remember to swap out the lines about
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user,
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.group
and use
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.send
instead as you want to access the Gmail API and only allow the service account to send (not read) emails
tip
in the sample code in that link
.setServiceAccountUser(userEmail)
userEmail is the email address of the user you want to impersonate in this case no-reply#x.y
So I guess what I am saying is that what you want to do is definitely possible, however, it may be easier just to set up your own SMTP server.
I am able to create an event in Google Calendar using Service account and Google Calendar API, where Project and Service Account is created in Google Workspace admin account and in the same account, I have enabled domain-wide delegation property. I haven't created separate calendar and haven't given access to Service account. If I use my workspace-google account in createDelegated(), with this event is getting created in 'abc#myworkspace.com' calendar and 'created by' property is also the same for every attendee I have added.
GoogleCredentials googleCredentials = GoogleCredentials
.fromStream(new FileInputStream(CREDENTIALS_FILE_PATH)).createScoped(SCOPES)
.createDelegated("abc#myworkspace.com");
So my question is what if I need to create event for non-workspace google account(lets say def#gmail.com)
Can I pass 'def#gmail.com' into the createDelegated()? If I do, I am getting,
Error getting access token for service account: 400 Bad Request
So how to create event for non-workspace google account?
Note : App type is still 'Internal' in OAuth consent screen.
Could someone explain what am I missing here?
A service account with domain-wide delegation can only be used for domains
A Google Workspace account is a domain, a personal consumer account is not a domain.
Consequently, you can not perform a request on behalf of a consumer account user via a service account.
Instead, you would need to create the event directly as def#gmail.com similar to the documentation sample.
No you can only delgate to an account on your domain
createDelegated("abc#myworkspace.com");
You can not delgate to a standard google account as there would be no way for you to configure the permissions
perform-google-workspace-domain-wide-delegation-of-authority
Perform Google Workspace Domain-Wide Delegation of Authority
Note: Only users with access to the Admin APIs can access the Admin SDK Directory API, therefore your service account needs to impersonate one of those users to access the Admin SDK Directory API. Additionally, the user must have logged in at least once and accepted the Google Workspace Terms of Service.
Owner vs attendee.
A service account properly delegated. Will have permission to create an event on behalf of a user in the domain that they have been delegated permission.
Example: I have delegated permission to my service account to user User1#myDomain.com. For all intensive purposed the service account now has all permissions of User1. So the service account can create a new event on behalf of user1 and invite anyone to the event they choose.
As there is no way to set up deligation to user2#gmail.com there is no way for the service account to act like this user as it is a standard gmail user.
The only way for an application to create an event on behalf of user2#gmail.com would be to use Oauth2 and request consent of User2#gmail.com to access their private data. Then the application would be able to create a new event on behalf of User2#gmail.com.
Remember this is creating an event. There is nothing stopping the service account delegated as user1#mydomain.com from inviting user2#gmail.com to the event. user2#gmail.com will then be notified that they have been invited to the event they can then decide if they want to attend or not if they accept it then it will appear in their google calendar account. Notice how user2#gmail.com had to manually accept this. User1#mydomain.com did not have to manually accept that the event was created in their google calendar as the service account was acting on their behalf.
I'm working on one school app. I'm able to create events using google calender API with NodeJS. I created the clientID and secretID on the school google account. Every time event is created, only the admin has access to start the meeting. But I want teachers(who are creating the event) to be the organizer. How can I achieve this?
The organizer field of an event is a read-only field. You can use the move action to move the event and change the organizer but this can only be done if the authenticated user has write access to the destination calendar.
A solution would be to use a service account and perform domain wide delegation. In this way you will be able to impersonate the user in question and organize the event wanted.
According to the Service accounts documentation:
A service account is a special kind of account used by an application or a virtual machine (VM) instance, not a person. Applications use service accounts to make authorized API calls.
As for performing domain-wide delegation, you might want to take a look into this:
In enterprise applications you may want to programmatically access users data without any manual authorization on their part. In G Suite domains, the domain administrator can grant to third party applications domain-wide access to its users' data — this is referred as domain-wide delegation of authority. To delegate authority this way, domain administrators can use service accounts with OAuth 2.0.
Reference
Calendar API - Events:move;
Service Accounts;
Calendar API - Perform G Suite Domain-Wide Delegation of Authority;
Using OAuth 2.0 for Server to Server Applications.
I am trying to use google api for getting new emails from gmail account. However reading the docs I found that there are two types to access api the first one without authorization (with json credential) and second one one is Service Account (with p12 certificate and secretkey)
Can not understand what the difference between this access? What exactly should I use?
Thanks
Oauth2 is the first type you are looking at. With Oauth2 a consent screen is displayed to the user who must approve your access. Usage you want to access a users Gmail account, you want to access a users google calendar, you want to access a users google drive.
With a service account access is pre-authorized by taking the service account email address and adding it as a user for data in question. Usage: You want to allow other users to upload files to your google drive account, you would add the service account email address to a folder on google drive then the service account will be able to upload to that folder with out having to prompt any user for permissions.
Use Oauth2 when you want to access a users account, use a service account when you want to access an account controlled by you the developer.
If you want to access a users Gmail account you need to use Oauth2 you cant grant another user access to your Gmail so there is no way to give a service account access to it.
I know that the Google Analytics API requires Open Authorization, which requires user confirmation.
Is there any alternative if I just need it for my own internal usage? Can I skip the confirmation part?
You can use a service account. A service account will allow you to access your own Google Analytics data with out requiring authentication.
Once you have created a service account in the Google Developer console you can then take the service account email address and add it as a user at the ACCOUNT level like you would any other user.
Then you will be able to use the service account to authenticate to the Google analytics API.