Unless otherwise configured, the client libraries use Application Default Credentials to authenticate with Google Cloud Services. While this works for most applications, in some cases you may need to override this default. You can do so by providing the UnifiedCredentialsOption The following example shows how to explicitly load a service account key file:
[](std::string const& keyfile) {
auto is = std::ifstream(keyfile);
is.exceptions(std::ios::badbit); // Minimal error handling in examples
auto contents = std::string(std::istreambuf_iterator<char>(is.rdbuf()), {});
auto options =
google::cloud::Options{}.set<google::cloud::UnifiedCredentialsOption>(
google::cloud::MakeServiceAccountCredentials(contents));
return google::cloud::iam_admin_v1::IAMClient(
google::cloud::iam_admin_v1::MakeIAMConnection(options));
}
Follow these links to find examples for other *Client classes:
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-03-14 UTC."],[[["This page provides documentation for overriding default authentication credentials when using Google Cloud C++ client libraries, specifically through the use of `UnifiedCredentialsOption`."],["The latest version of the documentation available is 2.37.0-rc, and it includes a list of versioned documentation ranging from 2.11.0 up to the latest version."],["A code example is given demonstrating how to load a service account key file explicitly to override the default authentication, using `google::cloud::MakeServiceAccountCredentials`."],["Links are provided to examples for various client classes, including `iam_admin_v1::IAMClient`, `iam_credentials_v1::IAMCredentialsClient`, `iam_v1::IAMPolicyClient`, and `iam_v2::PoliciesClient`."],["The document references the \"Best practices for managing service account keys\" guide for more in-depth information and points users towards the \"Authentication Components\" documentation for creating `google::cloud::Credentials` objects."]]],[]]