useDomainAdminAccess creates error in Google Drive API using service account authentication

Question

I am creating a service to watch some of my Shared Drive folders on Google Drive. I am using a service account for authentication as this is a service running on a server. Here is my code snippet:

const { google } = require("googleapis");

const auth = new google.auth.GoogleAuth({
  keyFile: "./credentials.json",
  scopes: ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive"],
});

const drive = google.drive({ version: "v3", auth });

drive.drives
  .list({ q: "name = Clients", useDomainAdminAccess: true })
  .then((files) => {
    console.log(files);
  })
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log(err);
  });

If I leave the list method parameters empty, I get back a response with status code 200 and an empty list of drives as expected (as the service account does not own any shared drives). As soon as I add the use useDomainAdminAccess: true parameter, I get an error response as follows:

GaxiosError: Invalid Value
    at Gaxios._request (/Users/bteres/Projects/fw-docs/node_modules/gaxios/build/src/gaxios.js:85:23)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:97:5)
    at async JWT.requestAsync (/Users/bteres/Projects/fw-docs/node_modules/google-auth-library/build/src/auth/oauth2client.js:342:22) {
  response: {
    config: {
      url: 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/drives?q=name%20%3D%20Clients&useDomainAdminAccess=true',
      method: 'GET',
      userAgentDirectives: [Array],
      paramsSerializer: [Function],
      headers: [Object],
      params: [Object: null prototype],
      validateStatus: [Function],
      retry: true,
      responseType: 'json',
      retryConfig: [Object]
    },
    data: { error: [Object] },
    headers: {
      'alt-svc': 'h3-27=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-25=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-T050=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q050=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q049=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q048=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q046=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q043=":443"; ma=2592000,quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="46,43"',
      'cache-control': 'private, max-age=0',
      connection: 'close',
      'content-encoding': 'gzip',
      'content-security-policy': "frame-ancestors 'self'",
      'content-type': 'application/json; charset=UTF-8',
      date: 'Sun, 07 Jun 2020 10:43:54 GMT',
      expires: 'Sun, 07 Jun 2020 10:43:54 GMT',
      server: 'GSE',
      'transfer-encoding': 'chunked',
      vary: 'Origin, X-Origin',
      'x-content-type-options': 'nosniff',
      'x-frame-options': 'SAMEORIGIN',
      'x-xss-protection': '1; mode=block'
    },
    status: 400,
    statusText: 'Bad Request',
    request: {
      responseURL: 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/drives?q=name%20%3D%20Clients&useDomainAdminAccess=true'
    }
  },
  config: {
    url: 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/drives?q=name%20%3D%20Clients&useDomainAdminAccess=true',
    method: 'GET',
    userAgentDirectives: [ [Object] ],
    paramsSerializer: [Function],
    headers: {
      'x-goog-api-client': 'gdcl/4.2.1 gl-node/12.17.0 auth/6.0.1',
      'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip',
      'User-Agent': 'google-api-nodejs-client/4.2.1 (gzip)',
      Authorization: 'REDACTED',
      Accept: 'application/json'
    },
    params: [Object: null prototype] {
      q: 'name = Clients',
      useDomainAdminAccess: true
    },
    validateStatus: [Function],
    retry: true,
    responseType: 'json',
    retryConfig: {
      currentRetryAttempt: 0,
      retry: 3,
      httpMethodsToRetry: [Array],
      noResponseRetries: 2,
      statusCodesToRetry: [Array]
    }
  },
  code: 400,
  errors: [
    {
      domain: 'global',
      reason: 'invalid',
      message: 'Invalid Value',
      locationType: 'parameter',
      location: 'q'
    }
  ]
}

I tried leaving that out and only using the q parameter and I get the same response. If I leave out the q parameter, same problem.

I have been at this for a couple of days and any help would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: I have already enabled domain-wide delegation for the service account as can be seen below. I have also enabled this in my G-Suite admin API Management controls as seen below. Did I possibly get some of the config incorrect here?

Answer 1

After hours of struggle and another nudge, I managed to figure this out. Google's API documentation is not so clear on this. Basically, you can use your service account but the service account need to impersonate a specific user, it is not by default an admin user in your domain even if you have all the configuration done.

So the easiest option I could figure out was to use google-auth's JWT credentials method as below:

const { google } = require("googleapis");

const credentials = require("./credentials.json");
const scopes = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive"];

const auth = new google.auth.JWT(
  credentials.client_email,
  null,
  credentials.private_key,
  scopes,
  "admin@domain.com"
);

const drive = google.drive({ version: "v3", auth });

After changing the auth method to this, the query above works as expected.