Firebase Storage/Bucket public upload with node.js

Question

Code:

var storage = require('@google-cloud/storage');
var gcs = storage({
    projectId: config.google.projectId,
    keyFilename: config.google.keyFilenameFirebase
});

var bucket = gcs.bucket('project-id.appspot.com');
var destination = 'uploads/12345/full.jpg';

bucket.upload(myFile, { public: true, destination: destination }, function(err, file) {
    if (err) {
        console.log(err);
    }
});

My file is successfully uploaded to my firebase storage, but:

1. The file is now publicly accessible through the url: https://storage.googleapis.com/project-id.appspot.com/uploads/12345/full.jpg. Can I use this fixed URL in my App or is it likely, that it will change or expire?
2. public: true seems to break the Firebase Storage UI:

The preview of the image on the right side is not showing and I'm unable to download the image via the download button. Also, there is no download url (which I don't mind, cause I can access it via the link above) and when clicking "Create new download URL" Firebase yields

Error generating download URL

When removing public: true the preview is shown correctly and I can also generate a download URL. But the public url https://storage.googleapis.com/project-id.appspot.com/uploads/12345/full.jpg won't work anymore, which is necessary for me.

So my plan is to stick to public: true, but it still bugs me, that the preview/download button is not working and it looks like a bug in Firebase to me. Can anyone confirm that?

Answer 1

1) It will not expire as long as it is always public. (I added a link related to this at the bottom)

2) Here's the quick fix. (You can do either of the following)

• Add yourself in the default ACL (below is the command using gsutil)

gsutil defacl ch -u your_email@mail.com:OWNER gs://your_bucket;

• Add yourself as a Storage Admin in the Google IAM admin console

Then reupload your file....

TL;DR

Here's the reason why, according to the Firebase Documentation:

You can use the Google Cloud Storage APIs to access files uploaded via Firebase SDKs for Cloud Storage, especially to perform more complex operations, such as copying or moving a file, or listing all the files available at a reference.

It's important to note that these requests use Google Cloud Storage ACLs or Project Level IAM, rather than Firebase Authentication and Storage Security Rules.

With regard to the public:true, I think that it will only enable and create the public link. Refer here

Answer 2

Your URLs shouldn't change or expire, and they should be valid until revoked which can happen through an object update or explicitly through revoking a url in the firebase web console. At least to the best of my knowledge.

First thing that comes to my mind is that : have you configured CORS on the bucket? This could be one reason. Check this out

Second thing that I can think of is storage rules. If you have something like allow read: if request.auth.uid == userId; you might want to remove those to make files publicly accessible. You can use something like this to make all files in a path public:

 service firebase.storage {
  match /b/XXXXXX.appspot.com/o {
    match /{allPaths=**} {
      allow read;
    }
  }

If you've already done these two things, then unfortunately it might actually be a firebase bug too. Best of luck!