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::networksecurity_v1::NetworkSecurityClient(
google::cloud::networksecurity_v1::MakeNetworkSecurityConnection(
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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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\u003eThis webpage provides documentation for different versions of the C++ Network Security client library, ranging from version 2.13.0 up to the latest release candidate, 2.37.0-rc.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe client libraries typically use Application Default Credentials for authentication with Google Cloud Services, but this can be overridden if necessary.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can override the default authentication by utilizing \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e and explicitly loading a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided example demonstrates how to load a service account key file, while the \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/best-practices-for-managing-service-account-keys\"\u003eBest practices for managing service account keys\u003c/a\u003e offers further details.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAdditional information on creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects can be found in the \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/group__guac.html\"\u003eAuthentication Components\u003c/a\u003e section.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
