IAM permissions to run "gcloud compute images import" - google-cloud-platform

Question

We are attempting to import an image into GCP with the following command
gcloud compute images import
under the context of a service account. When running this command, the message states that it wants to elevate the permissions of the service account to a "Service Account Actor". Since this role is deprecated (i.e. - https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/service-accounts#the_service_account_actor_role ) and the recommendation of effectively setting the service account to a "service account user" and "service account token creator" does not work. What would be the correct role or set of roles for the execution of this command?
We are running the following version for the gcloud cli
Google Cloud SDK 232.0.0
alpha 2019.01.27
beta 2019.01.27
bq 2.0.40
core 2019.01.27
gsutil 4.35
kubectl 2019.01.27
Also, if this is not the correct forum to ask this type of question, please let me know which and I will be glad to move this to the correct location.

Answer 1

If this is a one-time operation, upload the image to a bucket and execute gcloud compute image import from the cloud shell--which will execute using your user permissions (likely owner). Reference the image in the shell like gs://my-bucket/my-image.vmd
The instructions below will be necessary if you are forced to use a service account on a VM or another resource.
You'll need to (a) identify the active service account and (b) grant the roles/compute.admin role.
(a) Identify the service Account
On the system running gcloud compute images import run this command to identify the active service account
gcloud auth list
Credentialed Accounts
ACTIVE ACCOUNT
* SERVICE_ACCOUNT#googlexxx.com
(b) Add the roles/compute.admin role
You'll need to add the role roles/compute.admin (once working, find a privileged role for POLP)
Open a separate Google Cloud Shell or another shell where you are authenticated with an "owner" role.
Grant the role.computeAdmin permission
# replace this with the active service acct above
ACTIVE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT=SERVICE_ACCOUNT#googlexxx.com
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT \
--member="serviceAccount:${ACTIVE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT}" \
--role=roles/compute.admin

Answer 2

this is what worked for me (in my case, compute.admin was not enough):
# this project hosts the service account and the instance that the service account calls `gcloud compute images import ...` from.
worker_project=my-playground-for-building-stuff
# this project hosts your images (it can be the same project as ${worker_project} if that's how you roll)
image_project=my-awesome-custom-images
# this bucket will host resources required by, and artifacts created by cloudbuild during image creation (if you have already run `gcloud compute images import ...` as a normal user (not serviceaccount), then the bucket probably already exists in your ${image_project})
cloudbuild_bucket=${image_project}-daisy-bkt-us
# this is your service account in your ${worker_project}
service_account=my-busy-minion-who-loves-to-work#${worker_project}.iam.gserviceaccount.com
for legacy_role in legacyBucketReader legacyBucketWriter; do
gsutil iam ch serviceAccount:${service_account}:${legacy_role} gs://${cloudbuild_bucket}
done
for role in editor compute.admin iam.serviceAccountTokenCreator iam.serviceAccountUser; do
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding ${image_project} --member serviceAccount:${service_account} --role roles/${role}
done
for api in cloudbuild cloudresourcemanager; do
gcloud services enable ${api}.googleapis.com --project ${worker_project}
done