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::backupdr_v1::BackupDRClient(
google::cloud::backupdr_v1::MakeBackupDRConnection(options));
}
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThe content provides a list of documentation versions for BackupDR, ranging from version 2.23.0 to the latest release candidate, 2.37.0-rc, with each version linking to specific documentation about overriding authentication.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eBy default, client libraries utilize Application Default Credentials for Google Cloud Service authentication, but users can override this by supplying a UnifiedCredentialsOption.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided code example demonstrates how to override the default authentication by loading credentials from a service account key file, using the \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::UnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::MakeServiceAccountCredentials\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor more comprehensive information on service account key management and creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects, users are encouraged to consult the "Best practices for managing service account keys" and "Authentication Components" guides respectively.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]