Set up the JavaScript fleet tracking library

Before using the JavaScript fleet tracking library, make sure you are familiar with and have set up Fleet Engine. For details, see Fleet Engine.

This document shows how to enable authorization between the web page app and Fleet Engine. Once your requests to Fleet Engine have been set up with the correct authorization tokens, you'll be ready to track a vehicle on a map.

Set up authorization

For API method calls from low-trust environments, Fleet Engine requires the use of JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) signed by an appropriate service account. Low-trust environments include smartphones and browsers. A JWT originates on your server, which is a fully-trusted environment. The JWT is signed, encrypted, and passed to the client for subsequent server interactions until it expires or is no longer valid.

Your backend should authenticate and authorize against Fleet Engine using standard Application Default Credentials mechanisms. Make sure to use JWTs that have been signed by an appropriate service account. For a list of service-account roles, see Fleet Engine service account roles in Fleet Engine Basics.

In contrast, your backend should authenticate and authorize against Fleet Engine using standard Application Default Credentials mechanisms.

How does authorization work?

Authorization with Fleet Engine data involves both server-side and client-side implementation.

Server-side authorization

Before you set up authentication and authorization in your Fleet tracking application, your backend server must be able to issue JSON Web Tokens to your Fleet tracking application for access to Fleet Engine. Your Fleet tracking application sends these JWTs with its requests so Fleet Engine recognizes the requests as authenticated and authorized to access the data in the request. For instructions on server-side JWT implementation, see Issue JSON Web Tokens under Fleet Engine Essentials.

To generate tokens from your server when implementing Fleet tracking, see the following:

General guidelines for issuing JSON Web Tokens, including sections for both on-demand trips and scheduled tasks
On-demand trips: Example token for a backend server operation
Scheduled tasks: Example token to track all tasks and vehicles in the fleet

Client-side authorization

When you use the JavaScript Fleet tracking library, it requests a token from the server using an authorization token fetcher. It does this when any of the following is true:

No valid token exists, such as when the SDK hasn't called the fetcher on a fresh page load, or when the fetcher hasn't returned with a token.
The token has expired.
The token is within one minute of expiring.

Otherwise, the JavaScript Fleet tracking library uses the previously-issued, valid token and does not call the fetcher.

Create an authorization token fetcher

Create your authorization token fetcher using these guidelines:

The fetcher must return a data structure with two fields, wrapped in a Promise as follows:
- A string token.
- A number expiresInSeconds. A token expires in this amount of time after fetching. The authentication token fetcher must pass the expiry time in seconds, from the time of fetching to the library as shown in the example.
The fetcher should call a URL on your server to retrieve a token. This URL--the SERVER_TOKEN_URL--depends on your backend implementation. The following example URL is for the sample app backend on GitHub:
- https://SERVER_URL/token/fleet_reader

Example - Create an authorization token fetcher

The following examples show how to create an authorization token fetcher:

JavaScript

async function authTokenFetcher(options) {
  // options is a record containing two keys called
  // serviceType and context. The developer should
  // generate the correct SERVER_TOKEN_URL and request
  // based on the values of these fields.
  const response = await fetch(SERVER_TOKEN_URL);
  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error(response.statusText);
  }
  const data = await response.json();
  return {
    token: data.Token,
    expiresInSeconds: data.ExpiresInSeconds
  };
}

TypeScript

function authTokenFetcher(options: {
  serviceType: google.maps.journeySharing.FleetEngineServiceType,
  context: google.maps.journeySharing.AuthTokenContext,
}): Promise<google.maps.journeySharing.AuthToken> {
  // The developer should generate the correct
  // SERVER_TOKEN_URL based on options.
  const response = await fetch(SERVER_TOKEN_URL);
  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error(response.statusText);
  }
  const data = await response.json();
  return {
    token: data.token,
    expiresInSeconds: data.ExpiresInSeconds,
  };
}