Google Drive connector

General Concepts

The Google Drive Connector is used to establish a connection between Langstack and the Google Drive to access files from the Google Drive. With the Google Drive connector, a user can upload, download, and update files (csv and fixed-width) to and from google drive inside Langstack Cloud with a secure mechanism to ensure security.

To learn more, let's get familiar with a few concepts related to Google Drive.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Google Cloud Platform provides computing resources for developing, deploying and operating applications on the web.

Authentication

The authentication process verifies if the credentials for a user or an application are valid.

Authorization

The authorization process verifies the limits of the user or application in accessing data or files.

OAuth 2.0

OAuth 2.0 stands for “Open Authorization”. It is an authorization framework that allows an application (or website) to access resources hosted on other web apps on behalf of the user (delegated access). The data or files are accessed using relevant credentials and limits are defined in the scope or permissions. This type of authorization requires the user's consent.

Service Accounts

Service Accounts are accounts created on the GCP for applications to access and communicate with the GCP using relevant credentials (keys). Instead of users providing credentials of their personal accounts to communicate with an application, the service account information is provided. Users can be given access to these service accounts by assigning roles and permissions based on the level of information the user can access.

(Note: Files uploaded through Service Account are not visible on the any Google Drive UI.)

API Key

API keys identify the GCP project that contains the application calling the API. When calling an API on Google, this key verifies if the calling application has enabled the relevant API and has the access to it. (Note: In case of authentication through API Key, the user can only read from (not write to) the relevant file and only if the file is set up as “public”.)

Prerequisites

In order to establish the connection through the Google Drive Connector, the user must have the following information:

1. Google Account.

2. Project setup and Google Drive API enabled on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

3. GCP is set up according to the selected Credentials Type on the Connector.