Authentication for a Rest Api on Google App Engine

Question

I have an a Rest API on Google App Engine (Java) and I want to add an authentication. I will have an Angular.js and ios/ android clients. Users should be able to log in with email/password or social medias.

With OAuth can I have a email/password authentication? What are the other way to do that?

Answer 1

By default, you can add authentication for users with a Google Account:

• Have a look at https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/java/endpoints/getstarted/clients/js/add_auth for web clients (JavaScript)
• Have a look at https://rominirani.com/google-cloud-endpoints-tutorial-part-7-8cc471fccbf6#.pp02fjo8u for Android client (note that this very good tutorial also covers web clients)

Recently, during last Google I/O, Google announced that it will be possible to authenticate users on Google App Engine using Firebase Authentication. The interesting aspect is that Firebase Authentication "supports authentication using passwords, popular federated identity providers like Google, Facebook and Twitter, and more." while the solution proposed above is only for Google accounts.

More recently, Google has published on its GCP Blog the detailed explanantion on how to authenticate users on Google App Engine using Firebase, but ... for Python only, see https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/10/how-to-authenticate-users-on-Google-App-Engine-using-Firebase.html . We are currently waiting for the same OFFICIAL explanations for Java! Hoping it will be published soon.