Using PassportJS google authentication with the nodejs google api library

Question

I'm currently looking at implementing a google api, using the nodejs client:

https://github.com/google/google-api-nodejs-client/

I'm trying to use passport in order to authenticate, which seems to be working@

passport.use(new GoogleStrategy({
  clientID: GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID,
  clientSecret: GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET,
  callbackURL: "http://localhost:3000/auth/google/callback"
},
function(accessToken, refreshToken, profile, done) {
    process.nextTick(function () {

      var user = {
        id: profile.id,
        email: profile.email,
        firstName: profile.given_name,
        lastName: profile.family_name,
        accessToken: accessToken
      };

      return done(null, user);
    });
  }
  ));

In my google auth callback:

app.get('/auth/google/callback',
  passport.authenticate('google', { failureRedirect: '/login' }),
  function(req, res) {

    //do something here with the google api

  });

I can get hold of req.user, and this has the accessToken

However, the docs for the Google api nodejs client aren't clear on how to use an accessToken. The example included shows the OAauth2Client retrieving a token, but I guess that part has already been covered using Passport?

Yes, once Passport invokes the success callback, it's succeeded and has profile, so I assume that it has already done all the work of comparing tokens or whatever. — Plato

Jared Hanson Jared Hanson · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-29T20:23:52

I'm not familiar with google-api-nodejs-client, but this is in their documentation:

oauth2Client.credentials = {
  access_token: 'ACCESS TOKEN HERE',
  refresh_token: 'REFRESH TOKEN HERE'
};

client
  .plus.people.get({ userId: 'me' })
  .withAuthClient(oauth2Client)
  .execute(callback);

I assume you can just set the credentials to those provided by Passport, and things will work fine.

Honestly, though, I find these API wrappers really contrived, and recommend just using request. That way you can access any API service from any provider using a familiar module.

Using PassportJS google authentication with the nodejs google api library

1 Answers