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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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\u003eThe latest release candidate version is 2.37.0-rc, and other versions of the network security documentation are available, spanning from 2.36.0 down to 2.13.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eClient libraries typically use Application Default Credentials for authentication with Google Cloud Services, but this can be overridden if needed.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can override default authentication by using \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e and specifying a service account key file, demonstrated with a code example to load a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided code example shows a simple method to override authentication, but best practices for managing service account keys are detailed in a separate guide.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor more information about creating credentials objects refer to the linked documentation regarding Authentication Components.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
