GitLab CI template for Google Cloud Platform¶

This project implements a GitLab CI/CD template to deploy your application to the Google Cloud platform.

Usage¶

This template can be used both as a CI/CD component or using the legacy include:project syntax.

Use as a CI/CD component¶

Add the following to your .gitlab-ci.yml:

include:
  # 1: include the component
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/to-be-continuous/gcloud/gitlab-ci-gcloud@5.2.3
    # 2: set/override component inputs
    inputs:
      # ⚠ this is only an example
      base-app-name: wonderapp
      review-project: "prj-12345" # enable review env
      staging-project: "prj-12345" # enable staging env
      prod-project: "prj-12345" # enable production env

Use as a CI/CD template (legacy)¶

Add the following to your .gitlab-ci.yml:

include:
  # 1: include the template
  - project: 'to-be-continuous/gcloud'
    ref: '5.2.3'
    file: '/templates/gitlab-ci-gcloud.yml'

variables:
  # 2: set/override template variables
  # ⚠ this is only an example
  GCP_BASE_APP_NAME: wonderapp
  GCP_REVIEW_PROJECT: "prj-12345" # enable review env
  GCP_STAGING_PROJECT: "prj-12345" # enable staging env
  GCP_PROD_PROJECT: "prj-12345" # enable production env

Understand¶

This chapter introduces key notions and principle to understand how this template works.

Managed deployment environments¶

This template implements continuous delivery/continuous deployment for projects hosted on Google Cloud Platform.

It allows you to manage automatic deployment & cleanup of standard predefined environments. Each environment can be enabled/disabled by configuration. If you're not satisfied with predefined environments and/or their associated Git workflow, you may implement you own environments and workflow, by reusing/extending the base (hidden) jobs. This is advanced usage and will not be covered by this documentation.

The following chapters present the managed predefined environments and their associated Git workflow.

Review environments¶

The template supports review environments: those are dynamic and ephemeral environments to deploy your ongoing developments (a.k.a. feature or topic branches).

When enabled, it deploys the result from upstream build stages to a dedicated and temporary environment. It is only active for non-production, non-integration branches.

It is a strict equivalent of GitLab's Review Apps feature.

It also comes with a cleanup job (accessible either from the environments page, or from the pipeline view).

Integration environment¶

If you're using a Git Workflow with an integration branch (such as Gitflow), the template supports an integration environment.

When enabled, it deploys the result from upstream build stages to a dedicated environment. It is only active for your integration branch (develop by default).

Production environments¶

Lastly, the template supports 2 environments associated to your production branch (master or main by default):

a staging environment (an iso-prod environment meant for testing and validation purpose),
the production environment.

You're free to enable whichever or both, and you can also choose your deployment-to-production policy:

continuous deployment: automatic deployment to production (when the upstream pipeline is successful),
continuous delivery: deployment to production can be triggered manually (when the upstream pipeline is successful).

Supported authentication methods¶

The Google Cloud Platform template supports two kinds of authentication:

basic authentication with Service Account key file,
or federated authentication using OpenID Connect.

Service account authentication¶

To use this authentication method, simply generate and provide Service Account key file as secret GitLab CI/CD variables (of type File), using the appropriate variables (see doc below).

Can be provided globally and/or per environment.

Federated authentication using OpenID Connect¶

The GCP template supports a federated authentication using OpenID Connect.

If you wish to use this authentication mode, please activate and configure the OIDC variant.

Deployment context variables¶

In order to manage the various deployment environments, this template provides a couple of dynamic variables that you might use in your hook scripts, deployment manifests and other deployment resources:

${environment_type}: the current deployment environment type (review, integration, staging or production)
${environment_name}: a generated application name to use for the current deployment environment (ex: myapp-review-fix-bug-12 or myapp-staging) - details below

Generated environment name¶

The ${environment_name} variable is generated to designate each deployment environment with a unique and meaningful application name. By construction, it is suitable for inclusion in DNS, URLs, Kubernetes labels... It is built from:

the application base name (defaults to $CI_PROJECT_NAME but can be overridden globally and/or per deployment environment - see configuration variables)
GitLab predefined $CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG variable (sluggified name, truncated to 24 characters)

The ${environment_name} variable is then evaluated as:

<app base name> for the production environment
<app base name>-$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG for all other deployment environments
${environment_name} can also be overriden per environment with the appropriate configuration variable

Examples (with an application's base name myapp):

`$environment_type`	Branch	`$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG`	`$environment_name`
`review`	`feat/blabla`	`review-feat-bla-xmuzs6`	`myapp-review-feat-bla-xmuzs6`
`integration`	`develop`	`integration`	`myapp-integration`
`staging`	`main`	`staging`	`myapp-staging`
`production`	`main`	`production`	`myapp`

Deployment and cleanup scripts¶

The Google Cloud template requires you to provide a shell script that fully implements your application deployment and cleanup using the gcloud CLI and all other tools available in the selected Docker image.

The deployment script is searched as follows:

look for a specific gcp-deploy-$environment_type.sh in the $GCP_SCRIPTS_DIR directory in your project (e.g. gcp-deploy-staging.sh for staging environment),
if not found: look for a default gcp-deploy.sh in the $GCP_SCRIPTS_DIR directory in your project,
if not found: the deployment job will fail.

The cleanup script is searched as follows:

look for a specific gcp-cleanup-$environment_type.sh in the $GCP_SCRIPTS_DIR directory in your project (e.g. gcp-cleanup-staging.sh for staging environment),
if not found: look for a default gcp-cleanup.sh in the $GCP_SCRIPTS_DIR directory in your project,
if not found: the cleanup job will fail.

Your deployment (and cleanup) scripts have to be able to cope with various environments, each with different application names, exposed routes, settings, ... Part of this complexity can be handled by the lookup policies described above (ex: one script per env) and also by using available environment variables:

deployment context variables provided by the template:

${environment_type}: the current environment type (review, integration, staging or production)

${environment_name}: the application name to use for the current environment (ex: myproject-review-fix-bug-12 or myproject-staging)

${hostname}: the environment hostname, extracted from the current environment url (after late variable expansion - see below)

any GitLab CI variable

any custom variable (ex: ${SECRET_TOKEN} that you have set in your project CI/CD variables)

Environments URL management¶

The GCP template supports two ways of providing your environments url:

a static way: when the environments url can be determined in advance, probably because you're exposing your routes through a DNS you manage,
a dynamic way: when the url cannot be known before the deployment job is executed.

The static way can be implemented simply by setting the appropriate configuration variable(s) depending on the environment (see environments configuration chapters):

$GCP_ENVIRONMENT_URL to define a default url pattern for all your envs,
$GCP_REVIEW_ENVIRONMENT_URL, $GCP_INTEG_ENVIRONMENT_URL, $GCP_STAGING_ENVIRONMENT_URL and $GCP_PROD_ENVIRONMENT_URL to override the default.

Each of those variables support a late variable expansion mechanism with the %{somevar} syntax, allowing you to use any dynamically evaluated variables such as ${environment_name}.

Example:

variables:
  GCP_BASE_APP_NAME: "wonderapp"
  # global url for all environments
  GCP_ENVIRONMENT_URL: "https://%{environment_name}.nonprod.acme.domain"
  # override for prod (late expansion of $GCP_BASE_APP_NAME not needed here)
  GCP_PROD_ENVIRONMENT_URL: "https://$GCP_BASE_APP_NAME.acme.domain"
  # override for review (using separate resource paths)
  GCP_REVIEW_ENVIRONMENT_URL: "https://wonderapp-review.nonprod.acme.domain/%{environment_name}"

To implement the dynamic way, your deployment script shall simply generate a environment_url.txt file in the working directory, containing only the dynamically generated url. When detected by the template, it will use it as the newly deployed environment url.

Deployment output variables¶

Each deployment job produces output variables that are propagated to downstream jobs (using dotenv artifacts):

$environment_type: set to the type of environment (review, integration, staging or production),
$environment_name: the application name (see below),
$environment_url: set to the environment URL (whether determined statically or dynamically).

Those variables may be freely used in downstream jobs (for instance to run acceptance tests against the latest deployed environment).

You may also add and propagate your own custom variables, by pushing them to the gcloud.env file in your deployment script.

Configuration reference¶

Secrets management¶

Here are some advices about your secrets (variables marked with a ):

Manage them as project or group CI/CD variables:
- masked to prevent them from being inadvertently displayed in your job logs,
- protected if you want to secure some secrets you don't want everyone in the project to have access to (for instance production secrets).
In case a secret contains characters that prevent it from being masked, simply define its value as the Base64 encoded value prefixed with @b64@: it will then be possible to mask it and the template will automatically decode it prior to using it.
Don't forget to escape special characters (ex: $ -> $$).

Global configuration¶

The Google Cloud template uses some global configuration used throughout all jobs.

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
`cli-image` / `GCP_CLI_IMAGE`	the Docker image used to run Google Cloud CLI commands	`gcr.io/google.com/cloudsdktool/cloud-sdk:latest`
`GCP_KEY_FILE`	Default Service Account key file	none
`base-app-name` / `GCP_BASE_APP_NAME`	Base application name	`$CI_PROJECT_NAME` (see GitLab doc)
`environment-url` / `GCP_ENVIRONMENT_URL`	Default environments url (only define for static environment URLs declaration) supports late variable expansion (ex: `https://%{environment_name}.gcloud.acme.com`)	none
`scripts-dir` / `GCP_SCRIPTS_DIR`	Directory where Google Cloud scripts (deploy & cleanup) are located	`.` (root project dir)

Review environments configuration¶

Review environments are dynamic and ephemeral environments to deploy your ongoing developments (a.k.a. feature or topic branches).

They are disabled by default and can be enabled by setting the GCP_REVIEW_PROJECT variable (see below).

Here are variables supported to configure review environments:

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
`review-project` / `GCP_REVIEW_PROJECT`	Google Cloud project ID for `review` env	none (disabled)
`GCP_REVIEW_KEY_FILE`	Service Account key file to authenticate on `review` env (only define to override default)	`$GCP_KEY_FILE`
`review-app-name` / `GCP_REVIEW_APP_NAME`	Application name for `review` env	`"${GCP_BASE_APP_NAME}-${CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG}"` (ex: `myproject-review-fix-bug-12`)
`review-environment-url` / `GCP_REVIEW_ENVIRONMENT_URL`	The review environments url (only define for static environment URLs declaration and if different from default)	`$GCP_ENVIRONMENT_URL`
`review-autostop-duration` / `GCP_REVIEW_AUTOSTOP_DURATION`	The amount of time before GitLab will automatically stop `review` environments	`4 hours`

Integration environment configuration¶

The integration environment is the environment associated to your integration branch (develop by default).

It is disabled by default and can be enabled by setting the GCP_INTEG_PROJECT variable (see below).

Here are variables supported to configure the integration environment:

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
`integ-project` / `GCP_INTEG_PROJECT`	Google Cloud project ID for `integration` env	none (disabled)
`GCP_INTEG_KEY_FILE`	Service Account key file to authenticate on `integration` env (only define to override default)	`$GCP_KEY_FILE`
`integ-app-name` / `GCP_INTEG_APP_NAME`	Application name for `integration` env	`${GCP_BASE_APP_NAME}-integration`
`integ-environment-url` / `GCP_INTEG_ENVIRONMENT_URL`	The integration environment url (only define for static environment URLs declaration and if different from default)	`$GCP_ENVIRONMENT_URL`

Staging environment configuration¶

The staging environment is an iso-prod environment meant for testing and validation purpose associated to your production branch (main or master by default).

It is disabled by default and can be enabled by setting the GCP_STAGING_PROJECT variable (see below).

Here are variables supported to configure the staging environment:

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
`staging-project` / `GCP_STAGING_PROJECT`	Google Cloud project ID for `staging` env	none (disabled)
`GCP_STAGING_KEY_FILE`	Service Account key file to authenticate on `staging` env (only define to override default)	`$GCP_KEY_FILE`
`staging-app-name` / `GCP_STAGING_APP_NAME`	Application name for `staging` env	`${GCP_BASE_APP_NAME}-staging`
`staging-environment-url` / `GCP_STAGING_ENVIRONMENT_URL`	The staging environment url (only define for static environment URLs declaration and if different from default)	`$GCP_ENVIRONMENT_URL`

Production environment configuration¶

The production environment is the final deployment environment associated with your production branch (main or master by default).

It is disabled by default and can be enabled by setting the GCP_PROD_PROJECT variable (see below).

Here are variables supported to configure the production environment:

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
`prod-project` / `GCP_PROD_PROJECT`	Google Cloud project ID for `production` env	none (disabled)
`GCP_PROD_KEY_FILE`	Service Account key file to authenticate on `production` env (only define to override default)	`$GCP_KEY_FILE`
`prod-app-name` / `GCP_PROD_APP_NAME`	Application name for `production` env	`$GCP_BASE_APP_NAME`
`prod-environment-url` / `GCP_PROD_ENVIRONMENT_URL`	The production environment url (only define for static environment URLs declaration and if different from default)	`$GCP_ENVIRONMENT_URL`
`prod-deploy-strategy` / `GCP_PROD_DEPLOY_STRATEGY`	Defines the deployment to production strategy. One of `manual` (i.e. one-click) or `auto`.	`manual`

Examples¶

Google AppEngine application¶

Context¶

Let's imagine a backend service:

named coockedoodledoo,
developped in whichever language,
part of project named farmvoices
hosted on Google AppEngine with project ID farmvoices-12345
with review, staging and production environments enabled.

`.gitlab-ci.yml`¶

include:
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/to-be-continuous/gcloud/gitlab-ci-gcloud@5.2.3
    inputs:
      base-app-name: coockedoodledoo
      review-project: "farm-12345" # enable review env
      staging-project: "farm-12345" # enable staging env
      prod-project: "farm-12345" # enable production env
      staging-environment-url: "https://staging-dot-coockedoodledoo-dot-farmvoices-12345.ew.r.appspot.com"
      prod-environment-url: "https://coockedoodledoo-dot-farmvoices-12345.ew.r.appspot.com"
      # GCP_KEY_FILE defined as secret CI/CD variable

# override review environment url (uses $CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG as app version)
gcp-review:
  environment:
    url: "https://$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG-dot-coockedoodledoo-dot-farmvoices-12345.ew.r.appspot.com"

AppEngine manifest¶

# Google AppEngine manifest
# see: https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/java11/config/appref
runtime: TODO # depends on languages
instance_class: F2
service: coockedoodledoo

...

variables:
  # this is an example of hardcoded (non-sensitive) configuration variable
  SOME_CONFIG: "some-value"
  # this is an example of variabilized (secret) configuration variable
  # will be replaced programmatically during deployment
  SOME_SECRET: "${SOME_SECRET}"

hook scripts¶

`gcp-deploy.sh`¶

This script is executed by the template to perform the application(s) deployment based on gcloud CLI.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "[gcp-deploy] Deploy burger/$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG..."

# prepare GAE deployment directory (copy build output)
mkdir -p gae
cp build/* gae

# copy manifest with variables substitution
awk '{while(match($0,"[$]{[^}]*}")) {var=substr($0,RSTART+2,RLENGTH-3);gsub("[$]{"var"}",ENVIRON[var])}}1' < src/app.yaml > gae/app.yaml

# gcloud deploy
# use $CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG as the version
cd gae

if [[ "$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG" == "production" ]]
then
  promote_opt="--promote"
else
  promote_opt="--no-promote"
fi

gcloud --quiet app deploy --project=${gcp_project_id} --version=${CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG} $promote_opt

`gcp-cleanup.sh`¶

This script is executed by the template to perform the application(s) cleanup based on gcloud CLI (review env only).

#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "[gcp-cleanup] Cleanup burger/$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG..."

# use $CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG as the version
gcloud --quiet app versions delete --project=${gcp_project_id} --service=coockedoodledoo ${CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG}

Variants¶

The Google Cloud template can be used in conjunction with template variants to cover specific cases.

OIDC variant¶

This variant enables federated authentication using OpenID Connect.

If you wish to use this authentication mode, please follow carefully the GitLab guide, then configure appropriately the related variables:

GPC_OIDC_PROVIDER / GPC_OIDC_ACCOUNT for any global/common access,
GPC_<env>_OIDC_PROVIDER / GPC_<env>_OIDC_ACCOUNT if you wish to use separate settings with any of your environments.

The GPC_OIDC_PROVIDER & GPC_<env>_OIDC_PROVIDER variable shall be of the form:

projects/<PROJECT_NUMBER>/locations/global/workloadIdentityPools/<POOL_ID>/providers/<PROVIDER_ID>

The following commands may help you retrieve the different values:

gcloud projects describe $GCP_PROJECT --format="value(projectNumber)" will return the PROJECT_NUMBER value
gcloud iam workload-identity-pools list --location=global --format="value(name)" will list you POOL_IDs available on your GCP_PROJECT
gcloud iam workload-identity-pools providers list --workload-identity-pool=<my-pool> --location=global --format="value(name)" will return the list of available PROVIDER_ID for one POOL_ID

Configuration¶

The variant supports the following configuration:

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
`oidc-aud` / `GCP_OIDC_AUD`	The `aud` claim for the JWT	`$CI_SERVER_URL`
`oidc-provider` / `GCP_OIDC_PROVIDER`	Default Workload Identity Provider associated with GitLab to authenticate with OpenID Connect	none
`oidc-account` / `GCP_OIDC_ACCOUNT`	Default Service Account to which impersonate with OpenID Connect authentication	none
`review-oidc-provider` / `GCP_REVIEW_OIDC_PROVIDER`	Workload Identity Provider associated with GitLab to authenticate with OpenID Connect on `review` environment	none
`review-oidc-account` / `GCP_REVIEW_OIDC_ACCOUNT`	Service Account to which impersonate with OpenID Connect authentication on `review` environment	none
`integ-oidc-provider` / `GCP_INTEG_OIDC_PROVIDER`	Workload Identity Provider associated with GitLab to authenticate with OpenID Connect on `integration` environment	none
`integ-oidc-account` / `GCP_INTEG_OIDC_ACCOUNT`	Service Account to which impersonate with OpenID Connect authentication on `integration` environment	none
`staging-oidc-provider` / `GCP_STAGING_OIDC_PROVIDER`	Workload Identity Provider associated with GitLab to authenticate with OpenID Connect on `staging` environment	none
`staging-oidc-account` / `GCP_STAGING_OIDC_ACCOUNT`	Service Account to which impersonate with OpenID Connect authentication on `staging` environment	none
`prod-oidc-provider` / `GCP_PROD_OIDC_PROVIDER`	Workload Identity Provider associated with GitLab to authenticate with OpenID Connect on `production` environment	none
`prod-oidc-account` / `GCP_PROD_OIDC_ACCOUNT`	Service Account to which impersonate with OpenID Connect authentication on `production` environment	none

Example¶

include:
  # main template
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/to-be-continuous/gcloud/gitlab-ci-gcloud@5.2.3
  # OIDC variant
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/to-be-continuous/gcloud/gitlab-ci-gcloud-oidc@5.2.3
    inputs:
      # audience claim for JWT
      oidc-aud: "https://iam.googleapis.com"
      # common OIDC config for non-prod envs
      oidc-provider: "projects/<gcp_nonprod_proj_id>/locations/global/workloadIdentityPools/<pool_id>/providers/<provider_id>"
      oidc-account: "<name>@$<gcp_nonprod_proj_id>.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
      # specific OIDC config for prod
      prod-oidc-provider: "projects/<gcp_prod_proj_id>/locations/global/workloadIdentityPools/<pool_id>/providers/<provider_id>"
      prod-oidc-account: "<name>@$<gcp_prod_proj_id>.iam.gserviceaccount.com"

Vault variant¶

This variant allows delegating your secrets management to a Vault server.

Configuration¶

In order to be able to communicate with the Vault server, the variant requires the additional configuration parameters:

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
`TBC_VAULT_IMAGE`	The Vault Secrets Provider image to use (can be overridden)	`registry.gitlab.com/to-be-continuous/tools/vault-secrets-provider:latest`
`vault-base-url` / `VAULT_BASE_URL`	The Vault server base API url	none
`vault-oidc-aud` / `VAULT_OIDC_AUD`	The `aud` claim for the JWT	`$CI_SERVER_URL`
`VAULT_ROLE_ID`	The AppRole RoleID	must be defined
`VAULT_SECRET_ID`	The AppRole SecretID	must be defined

Usage¶

Then you may retrieve any of your secret(s) from Vault using the following syntax:

@url@http://vault-secrets-provider/api/secrets/{secret_path}?field={field}

With:

Parameter	Description
`secret_path` (path parameter)	this is your secret location in the Vault server
`field` (query parameter)	parameter to access a single basic field from the secret JSON payload

Example¶

include:
  # main template
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/to-be-continuous/gcloud/gitlab-ci-gcloud@5.2.3
  # Vault variant
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/to-be-continuous/gcloud/gitlab-ci-gcloud-vault@5.2.3
    inputs:
      # audience claim for JWT
      vault-oidc-aud: "https://vault.acme.host"
      vault-base-url: "https://vault.acme.host/v1"
      # $VAULT_ROLE_ID and $VAULT_SECRET_ID defined as a secret CI/CD variable

variables:
  # Secrets managed by Vault
  SOME_SECRET_USED_IN_MY_APP: "@url@http://vault-secrets-provider/api/secrets/b7ecb6ebabc231/prod/gcloud/secret?field=my.app.secret"

GitLab CI template for Google Cloud Platform¶

Usage¶

Use as a CI/CD component¶

Use as a CI/CD template (legacy)¶

Understand¶

Managed deployment environments¶

Review environments¶

Integration environment¶

Production environments¶

Supported authentication methods¶

Service account authentication¶

Federated authentication using OpenID Connect¶

Deployment context variables¶

Generated environment name¶

Deployment and cleanup scripts¶

Environments URL management¶

Deployment output variables¶

Configuration reference¶

Secrets management¶

Global configuration¶

Review environments configuration¶

Integration environment configuration¶

Staging environment configuration¶

Production environment configuration¶

Examples¶

Google AppEngine application¶

Context¶

.gitlab-ci.yml¶

AppEngine manifest¶

hook scripts¶

gcp-deploy.sh¶

gcp-cleanup.sh¶

Variants¶

OIDC variant¶

Configuration¶

Example¶

Vault variant¶

Configuration¶

Usage¶

Example¶

`.gitlab-ci.yml`¶

`gcp-deploy.sh`¶

`gcp-cleanup.sh`¶