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I have been studying the Google Calendar API and the docs on authentication (http://code.google.com/apis/calendar/v3/using.html#auth). It seems that the use case mentioned here is writing an application that accesses the user's calendar. However, I am writing a web page that will access the web site owner's calendar and display just that one calendar's information. So, I don't want the user to enter in their Google account information which is what oAuth wants to do.

Basically, I am looking for a way to access a single private Google calendar and authenticate to it by passing the credentials directly to the service.

There is a similar questions here: How to use OAuth with Google Calendar to access only ONE calendar? that seems to indicate that the poster originally was passing the credentials directly. Is this feature still available? How do you handle the use case I described?

Community
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Jon Hargett
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3 Answers3

18

If I'm not wrong, they've launched Service Account for this now: https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2ServiceAccount

Edit:

Here's the modification from their Prediction API

    session_start();
    require_once "google-api-php-client/src/Google_Client.php";
    require_once "google-api-php-client/src/contrib/Google_CalendarService.php";

    const CLIENT_ID = '...';
    const SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME = '...';

    // Make sure you keep your key.p12 file in a secure location, and isn't
    // readable by others.
    const KEY_FILE = '...';

    $client = new Google_Client();
    $client->setApplicationName("...");


    if (isset($_SESSION['token'])) {
     $client->setAccessToken($_SESSION['token']);
    }

    // Load the key in PKCS 12 format (you need to download this from the
    // Google API Console when the service account was created.
    $key = file_get_contents(KEY_FILE);
    $client->setAssertionCredentials(new Google_AssertionCredentials(
        SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME,
        array('https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar', "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly"),
        $key)
    );

    $client->setClientId(CLIENT_ID);
    $service = new Google_CalendarService($client);

    //Save token in session
    if ($client->getAccessToken()) {
      $_SESSION['token'] = $client->getAccessToken();
    }

    //And now you can use the code in their PHP examples, like: $service->events->listEvents(...)
gabriel garcia
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gX.
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13

I have the same problem. I found this 3 part tutorial that makes exactly what you want . Web page for bookings
You create a web page that writes directly into your own calendar (not the users) and that is why users don't have to give you permission to access their calendar.
This solution works for me, but you have to manage it directly with REST.

I am looking for a way to use google api php client because it seems a bit simpler. But I have not yet found a way to how to properly edit the google-api-php-client/src/config.php file to work in a way where you authenticate yourself not the actual user, because you need access to your calendar. If anyone has an idea or a script that would do that I would be very grateful.

Andrej Bergant
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  • The 3 part article you point to does seem to be the answer. I will try it out as soon as I have a chance and mark this as the answer if it works. I had planned on using the REST API and just dealing with the JSON data anyway, so this should get me going. Thanks! – Jon Hargett Jan 26 '12 at 19:55
  • This worked! The key is viewing the application as an "installed application". After rigging something temporarily to get a refresh token, you can thereafter use the refresh token to get a new access token without prompting the user. – Jon Hargett Jan 27 '12 at 15:27
1

Also take a look here:

https://github.com/googleapis/google-api-php-client#authentication-with-service-accounts

After creating a service account you can authenticate without the user prompt for adding items to a calendar your service owns.

Vasil Levski
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