'gcloud: The user does not have access to service account "default"

I attempting to use an activated service account scoped to create and delete gcloud container clusters (k8s clusters), using the following commands:

gcloud config configurations create my-svc-account \
   --no-activate \
   --project myProject


gcloud auth activate-service-account [email protected] \
   --key-file=/path/to/keyfile.json \
   --configuration my-svc-account

gcloud container clusters create a-new-cluster \
   --configuration my-svc-account \
   --project= my-project
   --zone "my-zone"

I always receive the error:

...ERROR: (gcloud.container.clusters.create) ResponseError: code=400, message=The user does not have access to service account "default".

How do I grant my-svc-account access to the default service account for GKE?

Solution 1:^[1]

After talking to Google Support, the issue was that the service account did not have a "Service Account User" permissions activated. Adding "Service Account User" resolves this error.

Solution 2:^[2]

Add the following role to the service account who makes the operation:

Service Account User

Also see:

Solution 3:^[3]

For those that ended up here trying to do an Import of Firebase Firestore documents with a command such as:

gcloud beta firestore import --collection-ids='collectionA','collectionB' gs://YOUR_BUCKET

I got around the issue by doing the following:

From the Google Cloud Console Storage Bucket Browser, add the service account completing the operation to the list of members with a role of Storage Admin.
Re-attempt the operation.

For security, I revoked the role after the operation completed, but that's optional.

Solution 4:^[4]

Added Service Account User role to service account and it worked for me.

Solution 5:^[5]

iam.serviceAccounts.actAs is the exact permission you need from Service Account User

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	crizCraig
Solution 2	Eyal Levin
Solution 3	HondaGuy
Solution 4	suresh
Solution 5	Sar009

'gcloud: The user does not have access to service account "default"

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

Solution 3:[3]

Solution 4:[4]

Solution 5:[5]