Using OAuth 2.0 for Server to Server Applications

Creating a JWT

A JWT is composed of three parts: a header, a claim set, and a signature. The header and claim set are JSON objects. These JSON objects are serialized to UTF-8 bytes, then encoded using the Base64url encoding. This encoding provides resilience against encoding changes due to repeated encoding operations. The header, claim set, and signature are concatenated together with a period (.) character.

A JWT is composed as follows:

{Base64url encoded header}.{Base64url encoded claim set}.{Base64url encoded signature}

The base string for the signature is as follows:

{Base64url encoded header}.{Base64url encoded claim set}

Forming the JWT header

The header consists of three fields that indicate the signing algorithm, the format of the assertion, and the [key ID of the service account key](https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/reference/rest/v1/projects.serviceAccounts.keys) that was used to sign the JWT. Algorithm and format are mandatory, and each field has only one value. As additional algorithms and formats are introduced, this header will change accordingly. The key ID is optional and if an incorrect Key ID is specified GCP will try all keys associated with the service account to verify the token and reject the token if no valid key is found. Google reserves the right to reject tokens with incorrect key IDs in the future.

Service accounts rely on the RSA SHA-256 algorithm and the JWT token format. As a result, the JSON representation of the header is as follows:

{"alg":"RS256","typ":"JWT", "kid":"370ab79b4513eb9bad7c9bd16a95cb76b5b2a56a"}

The Base64url representation of this is as follows:

          eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCIsICJraWQiOiIzNzBhYjc5YjQ1MTNlYjliYWQ3YzliZDE2YTk1Y2I3NmI1YjJhNTZhIn0=

Forming the JWT claim set

The JWT claim set contains information about the JWT, including the permissions being requested (scopes), the target of the token, the issuer, the time the token was issued, and the lifetime of the token. Most of the fields are mandatory. Like the JWT header, the JWT claim set is a JSON object and is used in the calculation of the signature.

Required claims

The required claims in the JWT claim set are shown below. They may appear in any order in the claim set.

The JSON representation of the required fields in a JWT claim set is shown below:

{
  "iss": "761326798069-r5mljlln1rd4lrbhg75efgigp36m78j5@developer.gserviceaccount.com",
  "scope": "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only",
  "aud": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
  "exp": 1328554385,
  "iat": 1328550785
}

Additional claims

In some enterprise cases, an application can use domain-wide delegation to act on behalf of a particular user in an organization. Permission to perform this type of impersonation must be granted before an application can impersonate a user, and is usually handled by a super administrator. For more information, see Control API access with domain-wide delegation.

To obtain an access token that grants an application delegated access to a resource, include the email address of the user in the JWT claim set as the value of the sub field.

If an application does not have permission to impersonate a user, the response to an access token request that includes the sub field will be an error.

An example of a JWT claim set that includes the sub field is shown below:

{
  "iss": "761326798069-r5mljlln1rd4lrbhg75efgigp36m78j5@developer.gserviceaccount.com",
  "sub": "some.user@example.com",
  "scope": "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/prediction",
  "aud": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
  "exp": 1328554385,
  "iat": 1328550785
}

Encoding the JWT claim set

Like the JWT header, the JWT claim set should be serialized to UTF-8 and Base64url-safe encoded. Below is an example of a JSON representation of a JWT Claim set:

{
  "iss": "761326798069-r5mljlln1rd4lrbhg75efgigp36m78j5@developer.gserviceaccount.com",
  "scope": "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/prediction",
  "aud": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
  "exp": 1328554385,
  "iat": 1328550785
}

Computing the signature

JSON Web Signature (JWS) is the specification that guides the mechanics of generating the signature for the JWT. The input for the signature is the byte array of the following content:

{Base64url encoded header}.{Base64url encoded claim set}

The signing algorithm in the JWT header must be used when computing the signature. The only signing algorithm supported by the Google OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server is RSA using SHA-256 hashing algorithm. This is expressed as RS256 in the alg field in the JWT header.

Sign the UTF-8 representation of the input using SHA256withRSA (also known as RSASSA-PKCS1-V1_5-SIGN with the SHA-256 hash function) with the private key obtained from the Google API Console. The output will be a byte array.

The signature must then be Base64url encoded. The header, claim set, and signature are concatenated together with a period (.) character. The result is the JWT. It should be the following (line breaks added for clarity):

{Base64url encoded header}.
{Base64url encoded claim set}.
{Base64url encoded signature}

Below is an example of a JWT before Base64url encoding:

{"alg":"RS256","typ":"JWT"}.
{
"iss":"761326798069-r5mljlln1rd4lrbhg75efgigp36m78j5@developer.gserviceaccount.com",
"scope":"https://www.googleapis.com/auth/prediction",
"aud":"https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
"exp":1328554385,
"iat":1328550785
}.
[signature bytes]

Below is an example of a JWT that has been signed and is ready for transmission:

eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiI3NjEzMjY3OTgwNjktcjVtbGpsbG4xcmQ0bHJiaGc3NWVmZ2lncDM2bTc4ajVAZGV2ZWxvcGVyLmdzZXJ2aWNlYWNjb3VudC5jb20iLCJzY29wZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lmdvb2dsZWFwaXMuY29tL2F1dGgvcHJlZGljdGlvbiIsImF1ZCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lmdvb2dsZWFwaXMuY29tL29hdXRoMi92NC90b2tlbiIsImV4cCI6MTMyODU1NDM4NSwiaWF0IjoxMzI4NTUwNzg1fQ.UFUt59SUM2_AW4cRU8Y0BYVQsNTo4n7AFsNrqOpYiICDu37vVt-tw38UKzjmUKtcRsLLjrR3gFW3dNDMx_pL9DVjgVHDdYirtrCekUHOYoa1CMR66nxep5q5cBQ4y4u2kIgSvChCTc9pmLLNoIem-ruCecAJYgI9Ks7pTnW1gkOKs0x3YpiLpzplVHAkkHztaXiJdtpBcY1OXyo6jTQCa3Lk2Q3va1dPkh_d--GU2M5flgd8xNBPYw4vxyt0mP59XZlHMpztZt0soSgObf7G3GXArreF_6tpbFsS3z2t5zkEiHuWJXpzcYr5zWTRPDEHsejeBSG8EgpLDce2380ROQ

Making the access token request

After generating the signed JWT, an application can use it to request an access token. This access token request is an HTTPS POST request, and the body is URL encoded. The URL is shown below:

https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token

The following parameters are required in the HTTPS POST request:

Below is a raw dump of the HTTPS POST request used in an access token request:

POST /token HTTP/1.1
Host: oauth2.googleapis.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

grant_type=urn%3Aietf%3Aparams%3Aoauth%3Agrant-type%3Ajwt-bearer&assertion=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiI3NjEzMjY3OTgwNjktcjVtbGpsbG4xcmQ0bHJiaGc3NWVmZ2lncDM2bTc4ajVAZGV2ZWxvcGVyLmdzZXJ2aWNlYWNjb3VudC5jb20iLCJzY29wZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lmdvb2dsZWFwaXMuY29tL2F1dGgvcHJlZGljdGlvbiIsImF1ZCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYWNjb3VudHMuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS9vL29hdXRoMi90b2tlbiIsImV4cCI6MTMyODU3MzM4MSwiaWF0IjoxMzI4NTY5NzgxfQ.ixOUGehweEVX_UKXv5BbbwVEdcz6AYS-6uQV6fGorGKrHf3LIJnyREw9evE-gs2bmMaQI5_UbabvI4k-mQE4kBqtmSpTzxYBL1TCd7Kv5nTZoUC1CmwmWCFqT9RE6D7XSgPUh_jF1qskLa2w0rxMSjwruNKbysgRNctZPln7cqQ

Below is the same request, using curl:

curl -d 'grant_type=urn%3Aietf%3Aparams%3Aoauth%3Agrant-type%3Ajwt-bearer&assertion=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiI3NjEzMjY3OTgwNjktcjVtbGpsbG4xcmQ0bHJiaGc3NWVmZ2lncDM2bTc4ajVAZGV2ZWxvcGVyLmdzZXJ2aWNlYWNjb3VudC5jb20iLCJzY29wZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lmdvb2dsZWFwaXMuY29tL2F1dGgvcHJlZGljdGlvbiIsImF1ZCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYWNjb3VudHMuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS9vL29hdXRoMi90b2tlbiIsImV4cCI6MTMyODU3MzM4MSwiaWF0IjoxMzI4NTY5NzgxfQ.RZVpzWygMLuL-n3GwjW1_yhQhrqDacyvaXkuf8HcJl8EtXYjGjMaW5oiM5cgAaIorrqgYlp4DPF_GuncFqg9uDZrx7pMmCZ_yHfxhSCXru3gbXrZvAIicNQZMFxrEEn4REVuq7DjkTMyCMGCY1dpMa8aWfTQFt3Eh7smLchaZsU
' https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token

Handling the response

If the JWT and access token request are properly formed and the service account has permission to perform the operation, then the JSON response from the Authorization Server includes an access token. The following is an example response:

{
  "access_token": "1/8xbJqaOZXSUZbHLl5EOtu1pxz3fmmetKx9W8CV4t79M",
  "scope": "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/prediction"
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_in": 3600
}

Access tokens can be reused during the duration window specified by the expires_in value.

When access tokens expire

Access tokens issued by the Google OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server expire after the duration provided by the expires_in value. When an access token expires, then the application should generate another JWT, sign it, and request another access token.