Running GAM7 securely on a Google Compute Engine

Running GAM7 securely on a Google Compute Engine

• thanks
• Introduction
• Setup Steps

Thanks

Thanks to Jay Lee for the original version of this document.

Introduction

GAM7 can run on a Linux or Windows Google Compute Engine (GCE) VM and use the attached service account to access Google Workspace APIs. The advantage of this configuration is that no service account private key is accessible to GAM7 directly and there is no risk of the key being stolen/lost.

GAM7 version 6.50.00 or higher is required.

Setup Steps

1. Create a GCP project.

2. Create a service account which will be used by GAM7.

   • Enter a value in Service account name
   • Enter text in Service account description
   • Click Create and Continue
   • Click Continue under Grant this service account access to project
   • Click Done under Grant users access to this service account

3. Grant the service account rights to generate authentication tokens.

   • Go to console.cloud.google.com.
   • Go to IAM & Admin > Service accounts
   • Click on the service account you created (not the default service account).
   • Copy the email address of your service account to the clipboard.
   • Click on the Permissions tab.
   • Click Grant Access.
   • In the New principals text box, paste the service account email you copied.
   • Give your service account the Service Account Token Creator and View Service Accounts roles.
   • Click Save

4. Create a Windows or Linux virtual machine.

   • Scroll down and start at Create a VM and attach the service account
   • Click Go to VM instances
   • Click Create Instance
   • Enter a value for Name
   • Configure Manage Tags and Labels
   • You can choose a region physically close to you though you may be limited in your choices if you want to use the free tier.
   • GAM7 can run on the minimal e2-micro free tier VM though performance may suffer. If you are performing batch operations, raising the CPU count will help performance. If you have a very large and busy Workspace instance downloading reports or Drive file lists may require more RAM.
   • Set Service account under Identity and API access/API and identity management; choose the service account you created above.
   • Select Set access for each API
   • Enable Cloud Platform
   • GAM7 does not use a significant amount of storage, unless you have specific storage needs the default disk size should suffice.
   • Leave other VM instance settings at their defaults unless you know what you are doing.
   • Click Create

5. Install GAM7 on the VM

   • See: https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM/wiki/How-to-Install-GAM7

6. Logout and log back in to the VM, you should now be able to run GAM7 commands like:

gam version

7. Create the special oauth2service.json file GAM7 will use:

gam create gcpserviceaccount

If you'd like, take a look at the generated oauth2service.json file; you'll notice that while the file has some fields similar to a normal service account file, there is no private_key attribute containing an RSA private key.

8. Enable the Google APIs GAM7 will use:

gam enable apis

You are given the option to enable them automatically or manually. Automatic enablement will ask you to authenticate to GAM7. You should authenticate as a user with rights to manage project APIs, probably a project owner. If you are not the project owner you can choose manual enablement and GAM7 will provide two or more URLs which you can send to the project owner. When the owner opens these URLs, they'll be prompted to enable all the APIs GAM7 needs.

9. Perform admin actions (manage users, groups, orgunits, Chrome devices, etc)

   • Configure delegated admin service account (DASA); start at step 4.

10. Manage user data

• Run gam user [email protected] check serviceaccount and follow the instructions to perform domain-wide delegation.