list google drive files with curl

Question

I'm trying to get the list of files on Google Drive with curl, but OAuth 2 is getting the best of me.

Here are some of the things I tried:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files

Where $token is a 460 character string I got using:

https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin

and this upload script (which works great). This is the error I received:

 {
  "error": {
   "errors": [
    {
      "domain": "global",
      "reason": "authError",
      "message": "Invalid Credentials",
      "locationType": "header",
      "location": "Authorization"
    }
   ],
   "code": 401,
   "message": "Invalid Credentials"
  }
 }

Also tried:

curl https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files?key=apiKey

Error:

{
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "global",
    "reason": "required",
    "message": "Login Required",
    "locationType": "header",
    "location": "Authorization"
   }
  ],
  "code": 401,
  "message": "Login Required"
 }
}

And:

curl -H "Authorization: GoogleLogin auth=${token}" "https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files"

Error:

{
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "usageLimits",
    "reason": "dailyLimitExceededUnreg",
    "message": "Daily Limit for Unauthenticated Use Exceeded. Continued use requires signup.",
    "extendedHelp": "https://code.google.com/apis/console"
   }
  ],
  "code": 403,
  "message": "Daily Limit for Unauthenticated Use Exceeded. Continued use requires signup."
 }
}

I had little success with both the JavaScript and PHP client libraries, both seem optimized for the situation where the user provides log/pass in order to authorize the app. What I need is a way to list the files from a single account, every time.

Answer 1

I just spent like 30 minutes to figure this out myself for accessing contacts API and redid the steps for drive API and documented them for future reference. There are 5 steps and the first 4 are one time setup.

Step 1: Create new OAuth2 credentials

Note down the client ID and client secret.

Step 2: Request authorization with drive as scope.

Using the client ID and https://docs.google.com/feeds as scope, construct the below curl command:

$ curl -d "client_id=413437979384-05efiod756k5hp2eji5tsn2lmlg0qslc.apps.googleusercontent.com&scope=https://docs.google.com/feeds" https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/device/code
{
  "device_code" : "KRYU-NTVW4/qi6ysOpK2AtsmtZz4MB9LAthlYGGgAepxpBnGQLvhqo",
  "user_code" : "KRYU-NTVW",
  "verification_url" : "https://www.google.com/device",
  "expires_in" : 1800,
  "interval" : 5
}

Copy the user_code.

Step 3: Authorize the request.

Visit the verification URL https://www.google.com/device and enter the copied code.

Step 4: Obtain access_token.

Add the device_code obtained from the auth request to the client ID and client secret and construct the below curl command:

$ curl -d "client_id=413437979384-05efiod756k5hp2eji5tsn2lmlg0qslc.apps.googleusercontent.com&client_secret=0zWNribRJ4PcYWH-rDkCpCcm&grant_type=http://oauth.net/grant_type/device/1.0&code=KRYU-NTVW4/qi6ysOpK2AtsmtZz4MB9LAthlYGGgAepxpBnGQLvhqo" https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token
{
 "access_token": "ya29.kgKW4Z4IDqK7lCjUQw-u5VT2uAx19MtgdoKeAC9ikKYGwKh7Nh46pY8nQsANQ5lRwA",
 "token_type": "Bearer",
 "expires_in": 3600,
 "refresh_token": "1/qinFVaMPYvhWtUtmjb1qCpnQt48XyvQhB_ILZJ4H1Uw"
}

We now have the required access_token, save it and use it with all the drive REST API requests.

Step 5: Drive API request.

$ curl -H 'GData-Version: 3.0' -H 'Authorization: Bearer ya29.kgKW4Z4IDqK7lCjUQw-u5VT2uAx19MtgdoKeAC9ikKYGwKh7Nh46pY8nQsANQ5lRwA' https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files
{
 "kind": "drive#fileList",
...

Answer 2

For future googlers:

If you want to save yourself an afternoon of pain, forget google's doumentation and head over here

The gist of it, since I know stackoverflow prefers quoting the content to linking:

In your browser:

https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?scope=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fanalytics&redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob&response_type=code&client_id=1234567890.apps.googleusercontent.com

Allow the access, of course, and copy the code which should look like 4/v6xr77ewYqjkslsdUOKwAzu

curl -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" -d 'code=4/v6xr77ewYqjkslsdUOKwAzu&client_id=1234567890.apps.googleusercontent.com&client_secret=xywzxywzxywzxywzxywz&redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob&grant_type=authorization_code' https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token

You’ll get a JSON like this one:

{
  "access_token" : "ya29.AHES6Zkjhkjhahskjhskkskjh",
  "token_type" : "Bearer",
  "expires_in" : 3600,
  "refresh_token" : "1/HH9E7k5D0jakjhsd7askdjh7899a8sd989"
}

If you curl:

curl 'https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/tokeninfo?access_token=ya29.AHES6Zkjhkjhahskjhskkskjh'

you’ll get something like:

{
 "issued_to": "562211803675.apps.googleusercontent.com",
 "audience": "562211803675.apps.googleusercontent.com",
 "scope": "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/analytics",
 "expires_in": 3556
}

Done

curl 'https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/management/accounts?access_token=ya29.AHES6Zkjhkjhahskjhskkskjh

Renew the token

You have to use the “refresh_token” received previously

curl -d "client_id=562211803675.apps.googleusercontent.com&client_secret=ZQxoOBGbvMGnZOYUrVIDXrgl&refresh_token=1/HH9E7k5D0jakjhsd7askdjh7899a8sd989&grant_type=refresh_token" https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token

and you’ll get a new access_token.