Verify the Google ID token on your server side

AI-generated Key Takeaways

Google ID tokens are submitted to your login endpoint via an HTTP POST request with the parameter name credential.
To validate and consume the ID token, you should first verify the Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) token using the double-submit-cookie pattern.
The ID token is returned in the credential field, not the g_csrf_token field.
After confirming the token's validity, you can use the Google ID token information to determine the account status of the user on your site (unregistered, existing, or returning federated user).
Only use the Google ID token's sub field as the unique identifier for the user and associate it with the user in your account management system.

After Google returns an ID token, it's submitted by an HTTP POST method request, with the parameter name credential, to your login endpoint.

The following is an example in the Python language that shows the usual steps to validate and consume the ID token:

Verify the Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) token. When you submit credentials to your login endpoint, we use the double-submit-cookie pattern to prevent CSRF attacks. Before each submission, we generate a token. Then, the token is put into both the cookie and the post body, as shown in the following code example:

csrf_token_cookie = self.request.cookies.get('g_csrf_token')
if not csrf_token_cookie:
    webapp2.abort(400, 'No CSRF token in Cookie.')
csrf_token_body = self.request.get('g_csrf_token')
if not csrf_token_body:
    webapp2.abort(400, 'No CSRF token in post body.')
if csrf_token_cookie != csrf_token_body:
    webapp2.abort(400, 'Failed to verify double submit cookie.')

Verify the ID token.

To verify that the token is valid, ensure that the following criteria are satisfied:
- The ID token is properly signed by Google. Use Google's public keys (available in JWK or PEM format) to verify the token's signature. These keys are regularly rotated; examine the Cache-Control header in the response to determine when you should retrieve them again.
- The value of aud in the ID token is equal to one of your app's client IDs. This check is necessary to prevent ID tokens issued to a malicious app being used to access data about the same user on your app's backend server.
- The value of iss in the ID token is equal to accounts.google.com or https://accounts.google.com.
- The expiry time (exp) of the ID token has not passed.
- If you need to validate that the ID token represents a Google Workspace or Cloud organization account, you can check the hd claim, which indicates the hosted domain of the user. This must be used when restricting access to a resource to only members of certain domains. The absence of this claim indicates that the account does not belong to a Google hosted domain.
Using the email, email_verified and hd fields, you can determine if Google hosts and is authoritative for an email address. In the cases where Google is authoritative, the user is known to be the legitimate account owner, and you may skip password or other challenge methods.

Cases where Google is authoritative:
- email has a @gmail.com suffix, this is a Gmail account.
- email_verified is true and hd is set, this is a Google Workspace account.
Users may register for Google Accounts without using Gmail or Google Workspace. When email does not contain a @gmail.com suffix and hd is absent, Google is not authoritative and password or other challenge methods are recommended to verify the user. email_verified can also be true as Google initially verified the user when the Google account was created, however ownership of the third party email account may have since changed.

Rather than writing your own code to perform these verification steps, we strongly recommend using a Google API client library for your platform, or a general-purpose JWT library. For development and debugging, you can call our tokeninfo validation endpoint.

Using a Google API Client Library

Using one of the Google API Client Libraries (e.g. Java, Node.js, PHP, Python) is the recommended way to validate Google ID tokens in a production environment.
Java

To validate an ID token in Java, use the GoogleIdTokenVerifier object. For example:
```
import com.google.api.client.googleapis.auth.oauth2.GoogleIdToken;
import com.google.api.client.googleapis.auth.oauth2.GoogleIdToken.Payload;
import com.google.api.client.googleapis.auth.oauth2.GoogleIdTokenVerifier;

...

GoogleIdTokenVerifier verifier = new GoogleIdTokenVerifier.Builder(transport, jsonFactory)
    // Specify the WEB_CLIENT_ID of the app that accesses the backend:
    .setAudience(Collections.singletonList(WEB_CLIENT_ID))
    // Or, if multiple clients access the backend:
    //.setAudience(Arrays.asList(WEB_CLIENT_ID_1, WEB_CLIENT_ID_2, WEB_CLIENT_ID_3))
    .build();

// (Receive idTokenString by HTTPS POST)

GoogleIdToken idToken = verifier.verify(idTokenString);
if (idToken != null) {
  Payload payload = idToken.getPayload();

  // Print user identifier. This ID is unique to each Google Account, making it suitable for
  // use as a primary key during account lookup. Email is not a good choice because it can be
  // changed by the user.
  String userId = payload.getSubject();
  System.out.println("User ID: " + userId);

  // Get profile information from payload
  String email = payload.getEmail();
  boolean emailVerified = Boolean.valueOf(payload.getEmailVerified());
  String name = (String) payload.get("name");
  String pictureUrl = (String) payload.get("picture");
  String locale = (String) payload.get("locale");
  String familyName = (String) payload.get("family_name");
  String givenName = (String) payload.get("given_name");

  // Use or store profile information
  // ...

} else {
  System.out.println("Invalid ID token.");
}
```
The GoogleIdTokenVerifier.verify() method verifies the JWT signature, the aud claim, the iss claim, and the exp claim.

If you need to validate that the ID token represents a Google Workspace or Cloud organization account, you can verify the hd claim by checking the domain name returned by the Payload.getHostedDomain() method. The domain of the email claim is insufficient to ensure that the account is managed by a domain or organization.
Node.js

To validate an ID token in Node.js, use the Google Auth Library for Node.js. Install the library:
```
npm install google-auth-library --save
```
Then, call the verifyIdToken() function. For example:
```
const {OAuth2Client} = require('google-auth-library');
const client = new OAuth2Client();
async function verify() {
  const ticket = await client.verifyIdToken({
      idToken: token,
      audience: WEB_CLIENT_ID,  // Specify the WEB_CLIENT_ID of the app that accesses the backend
      // Or, if multiple clients access the backend:
      //[WEB_CLIENT_ID_1, WEB_CLIENT_ID_2, WEB_CLIENT_ID_3]
  });
  const payload = ticket.getPayload();
  // This ID is unique to each Google Account, making it suitable for use as a primary key
  // during account lookup. Email is not a good choice because it can be changed by the user.
  const userid = payload['sub'];
  // If the request specified a Google Workspace domain:
  // const domain = payload['hd'];
}
verify().catch(console.error);
```
The verifyIdToken function verifies the JWT signature, the aud claim, the exp claim, and the iss claim.

If you need to validate that the ID token represents a Google Workspace or Cloud organization account, you can check the hd claim, which indicates the hosted domain of the user. This must be used when restricting access to a resource to only members of certain domains. The absence of this claim indicates that the account does not belong to a Google hosted domain.
PHP

To validate an ID token in PHP, use the Google API Client Library for PHP. Install the library (for example, using Composer):
```
composer require google/apiclient
```
Then, call the verifyIdToken() function. For example:
```
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

// Get $id_token via HTTPS POST.

$client = new Google_Client(['client_id' => $WEB_CLIENT_ID]);  // Specify the WEB_CLIENT_ID of the app that accesses the backend
$payload = $client->verifyIdToken($id_token);
if ($payload) {
  // This ID is unique to each Google Account, making it suitable for use as a primary key
  // during account lookup. Email is not a good choice because it can be changed by the user.
  $userid = $payload['sub'];
  // If the request specified a Google Workspace domain
  //$domain = $payload['hd'];
} else {
  // Invalid ID token
}
```
The verifyIdToken function verifies the JWT signature, the aud claim, the exp claim, and the iss claim.

If you need to validate that the ID token represents a Google Workspace or Cloud organization account, you can check the hd claim, which indicates the hosted domain of the user. This must be used when restricting access to a resource to only members of certain domains. The absence of this claim indicates that the account does not belong to a Google hosted domain.
Python

To validate an ID token in Python, use the verify_oauth2_token function. For example:
```
from google.oauth2 import id_token
from google.auth.transport import requests

# (Receive token by HTTPS POST)
# ...

try:
    # Specify the WEB_CLIENT_ID of the app that accesses the backend:
    idinfo = id_token.verify_oauth2_token(token, requests.Request(), WEB_CLIENT_ID)

    # Or, if multiple clients access the backend server:
    # idinfo = id_token.verify_oauth2_token(token, requests.Request())
    # if idinfo['aud'] not in [WEB_CLIENT_ID_1, WEB_CLIENT_ID_2, WEB_CLIENT_ID_3]:
    #     raise ValueError('Could not verify audience.')

    # If the request specified a Google Workspace domain
    # if idinfo['hd'] != DOMAIN_NAME:
    #     raise ValueError('Wrong domain name.')

    # ID token is valid. Get the user's Google Account ID from the decoded token.
    # This ID is unique to each Google Account, making it suitable for use as a primary key
    # during account lookup. Email is not a good choice because it can be changed by the user.
    userid = idinfo['sub']
except ValueError:
    # Invalid token
    pass
```
The verify_oauth2_token function verifies the JWT signature, the aud claim, and the exp claim. You must also verify the hd claim (if applicable) by examining the object that verify_oauth2_token returns. If multiple clients access the backend server, also manually verify the aud claim.
Key Point: The ID token is returned in the credential field, instead of the g_csrf_token field.
Once the token's validity is confirmed, you can use the information in the Google ID token to correlate the account status of your site:
- An unregistered user: You can show a sign-up user interface (UI) that allows the user to provide additional profile information, if required. It also allows the user to silently create the new account and a logged-in user session.
- An existing account that already exists in your site: You can show a web page that allows the end user to input their password and link the legacy account with their Google credentials. This confirms that the user has access to the existing account.
- A returning federated user: You can silently sign the user in.

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AI-generated Key Takeaways

Using a Google API Client Library

Verify the Google ID token on your server side