Chapter 6. Google workload identity federation cloud authentication


Applications running outside Google Cloud use service account keys, such as usernames and passwords, to gain access to Google Cloud resources. These service account keys might become a security risk if they are not properly managed.

With Google’s workload identity federation, you can use Identity and Access Management (IAM) to offer IAM roles, including the ability to impersonate service accounts, to external identities. This eliminates the maintenance and security risks associated with service account keys.

Workload identity federation handles encrypting and decrypting certificates, extracting user attributes, and validation. Identity federation externalizes authentication, passing it over to Security Token Services (STS), and reduces the demands on individual developers. Authorization and controlling access to resources remain the responsibility of the application.

Note

Google workload identity federation is available for OADP 1.3.x and later.

When backing up volumes, OADP on Google Cloud with Google workload identity federation authentication only supports CSI snapshots.

OADP on Google Cloud with Google workload identity federation authentication does not support Volume Snapshot Locations (VSL) backups. VSL backups finish with a PartiallyFailed phase when Google Cloud workload identity federation is configured.

If you do not use Google workload identity federation cloud authentication, continue to Installing the Data Protection Application.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed a cluster in manual mode with Google Cloud Workload Identity configured.
  • You have access to the Cloud Credential Operator utility (ccoctl) and to the associated workload identity pool.

Procedure

  1. Create an oadp-credrequest directory by running the following command:

    $ mkdir -p oadp-credrequest
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Create a CredentialsRequest.yaml file as following:

    echo 'apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
    kind: CredentialsRequest
    metadata:
      name: oadp-operator-credentials
      namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
    spec:
      providerSpec:
        apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
        kind: GCPProviderSpec
        permissions:
        - compute.disks.get
        - compute.disks.create
        - compute.disks.createSnapshot
        - compute.snapshots.get
        - compute.snapshots.create
        - compute.snapshots.useReadOnly
        - compute.snapshots.delete
        - compute.zones.get
        - storage.objects.create
        - storage.objects.delete
        - storage.objects.get
        - storage.objects.list
        - iam.serviceAccounts.signBlob
        skipServiceCheck: true
      secretRef:
        name: cloud-credentials-gcp
        namespace: <OPERATOR_INSTALL_NS>
      serviceAccountNames:
      - velero
    ' > oadp-credrequest/credrequest.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Use the ccoctl utility to process the CredentialsRequest objects in the oadp-credrequest directory by running the following command:

    $ ccoctl gcp create-service-accounts \
        --name=<name> \
        --project=<gcp_project_id> \
        --credentials-requests-dir=oadp-credrequest \
        --workload-identity-pool=<pool_id> \
        --workload-identity-provider=<provider_id>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The manifests/openshift-adp-cloud-credentials-gcp-credentials.yaml file is now available to use in the following steps.

  4. Create a namespace by running the following command:

    $ oc create namespace <OPERATOR_INSTALL_NS>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  5. Apply the credentials to the namespace by running the following command:

    $ oc apply -f manifests/openshift-adp-cloud-credentials-gcp-credentials.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Red Hat logoGithubredditYoutubeTwitter

Learn

Try, buy, & sell

Communities

About Red Hat Documentation

We help Red Hat users innovate and achieve their goals with our products and services with content they can trust. Explore our recent updates.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. For more details, see the Red Hat Blog.

About Red Hat

We deliver hardened solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments, from the core datacenter to the network edge.

Theme

© 2026 Red Hat
Back to top