Create headless-auth.ipynb

[jeremy-dl]

Short tutorial showing how to authenticate the Python client without using the command-line. This is useful for environments that may not have disk access, or where files persisted to disk may not reliably stick around (ex: Google Colab). Care should be taken not to save/accidentally share the refresh token info copied from https://iam.descarteslabs.com/auth/login?refresh_token=true&destination=/auth/refresh_token

[karla-dl]

@jeremy-descartes do you think this is an appropriate candidate to add to our public facing docs? I may have a platform engineer review it as well if that is the case as I have less knowledge of its implications.

[karla-dl]

Also, thank you for contributing!

[jeremy-dl]

We do make mention of using the credentials (fetched from `descarteslabs auth creds`) in the docs, but don't really show how. I've have a few customers ask how to do it (which is what provided the impetus to make this PR today). Agree it's not best practice to persist (or provide avenues to persist) those credentials in code - but for server to server interactions without disk access (like Cloud Endpoints / App Engine) this is the only way to authenticate right now.

[cmertes]

@jeremy-descartes, in Colab can't you just prepend a bash command with !? e.g.

!pip install descarteslabs
!descarteslabs auth login

You'll have to reinstall and re-authenticate each time of course. Can you give an example of a dev environment where this isn't feasible?

[jeremy-dl]

Yep that works great in Colab (not so much in other Jupyters, but you usually have shell there). This is something you might do in an environment where there is no shell access at all. Definitely an edge case, but people apparently do it.

…

On Tue, May 21, 2019 at 3:54 PM Carly Beneke (Mertes) < ***@***.***> wrote: @jeremy-descartes <https://github.com/jeremy-descartes>, in Colab can't you just prepend a bash command with !? e.g. !pip install descarteslabs !descarteslabs auth login You'll have to reinstall and re-authenticate each time of course. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AKFFS6LLNN7ZEGJBOAAY6BDPWRHQPANCNFSM4HOMQJLA> .

-- [image: Displaying DL_Symbol_Color_160726.png] Jeremy Malczyk Solutions Architect jeremy@descarteslabs.com 860.385.1818 Descartes Labs, Inc. www.descarteslabs.com

[kornholi]

what i've seen before:

import os
os.environ['DESCARTESLABS_CLIENT_ID'] = 'xxx'
os.environ['DESCARTESLABS_CLIENT_SECRET'] = 'xxx'
import descarteslabs as dl

however this will save the credentials back to disk. we can always reevaluate that decision.