Using Google Drive API - node.js

Question

I am in the process of setting up data scraper that writes the data to an excel file and then I want to upload those files to a folder in my own drive account. This will be done once a day via a scheduler, so fully automated is the aim here.
I am looking at this quickstart guide and it goes through the process of Oauth2. I don't want to access any others user data, just push up the files i create. This may be a stupid question but do i have to go through the oAuth process and not just use an api key and secret for example?
In Step 4 it says The first time you run the sample, it will prompt you to authorize access:, how would i do that if this is running on an EC2 instance for example
Thanks

Answer 1

If you are only going to be accessing your own account then you should look into a service account. Service accounts are preauthorized so you wont get a window popping up asking for access. I am not a node.js programer so i cant help much with code. I dont see a service account example for node.js for google drive you may be able to find one for one of the other apis or check the client library sample examples
A service account is not you its a dummy user you can take the service account email address and share a folder or file on your personal google drive account with the service account and it will have access. read more about service accounts

Answer 2

I thought i would post how i got this to work (i need to look into checking if the file exists and then replace it, but that's later), firstly #DalmTo and #JoeClay had good points so i looked into them further and come across this blog post.
# index.js
const google = require('googleapis');
const fs = require('fs');
const config = require('./creds.json');
const drive = google.drive('v3');
const targetFolderId = "123456789"
const jwtClient = new google.auth.JWT(
config.client_email,
null,
config.private_key,
['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive'],
null
);
jwtClient.authorize((authErr) => {
if (authErr) {
console.log(authErr);
return;
}
const fileMetadata = {
name: './file.txt,
parents: [targetFolderId]
};
const media = {
mimeType: 'application/vnd.ms-excel',
body: fs.createReadStream('./file.txt' )
};
drive.files.create({
auth: jwtClient,
resource: fileMetadata,
media,
fields: 'id'
}, (err, file) => {
if (err) {
console.log(err);
return;
}
console.log('Uploaded File Id: ', file.data.id);
});
});
As I said previously my next step is to check if the file exists and if it does replace it