Firebase "throw new Error('Invalid service account provided');" error message

Question

I noticed that Firebase has changed recently. I'm building a node.js app that requires firebase and previously this was enough:

var Firebase = require("firebase");
var firebaseRef = new Firebase("https://blabla.firebaseio.com/");

According to this link: https://firebase.google.com/docs/web/setup#prerequisites

you need to create a firebase project in the new firebase console and then add firebase to your web app. That gives you something similar to:

// Initialize Firebase
var config = {
  apiKey: '<your-api-key>',
  authDomain: '<your-auth-domain>',
  databaseURL: '<your-database-url>',
  storageBucket: '<your-storage-bucket>'
};
firebase.initializeApp(config);

However, when I run my node.js application, I receive the following error message:

throw new Error('Invalid service account provided');
^

Error: Invalid service account provided
    at new Auth (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\auth-node\auth.js:61:11)
    at Object.serviceFactory [as auth] (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\auth-node\index.js:14:14)
    at F.u (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\app-node.js:14:94)
    at C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\auth-node\index.js:31:9
    at C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\app-node.js:11:272
    at Array.forEach (native)
    at Object.e.initializeApp (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\app-node.js:11:245)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\index.js:44:10)
    at Module._compile (module.js:409:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:416:10)

What exactly am I missing?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It's not obvious from the docs but for server-side use of Firebase, you need to authenticate with a "service account" which means creating some credentials, downloading them and initialising the firebase library differently than you would in a browser.

If you are migrating a Node.js app, you will now need to authenticate with a service account. See the server SDK docs for full instructions.

More detail in the docs here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/server/setup#add_firebase_to_your_app