Using the App Engine flexible environment on a Shared VPC network

In the App Engine flexible environment, you can specify a network to deploy your service's instances on. This page shows you how to configure your project to use the App Engine flexible environment on a Shared VPC network.

See Provisioning Shared VPC for more information about setting up a Shared VPC network.

Setting up the App Engine flexible environment with Shared VPC

Deploying App Engine flexible environment instances on a Shared VPC network involves three steps:

  1. Create a firewall rule to allow App Engine flexible environment traffic on the Shared VPC network

  2. Grant appropriate permissions to service accounts in the Shared VPC service project

  3. Configure your App Engine services to use the Shared VPC network

If you use the Google Cloud CLI, update to the latest version before following this guide by running the command:

gcloud components update

Allowing traffic to the Shared VPC network

A Shared VPC Admin needs to create a firewall rule in the Shared VPC host project in order to allow traffic to the App Engine flexible environment on the Shared VPC network. The firewall rule allows serving and health check traffic to flexible environment instances.

The firewall rule must have the following properties:

  • Network: The name of the Shared VPC network
  • Direction of traffic: Ingress
  • Action on match: Allow
  • Targets: Specified target tags
  • Target tags: aef-instance
  • Source filter: IP ranges
  • Source IP ranges: 35.191.0.0/16, 130.211.0.0/22
  • Protocols and ports: Specified protocols and ports
    • tcp: 8443, 10402

A Shared VPC Admin can create the firewall rule using the Google Cloud console or the Google Cloud CLI:

Console

To create the firewall rule using the Google Cloud console:

  1. Go to the firewall rule creation page.

    Create a firewall rule

  2. In the Name and Description fields, provide a name and description for the firewall rule.

  3. Fill in the necessary properties as specified above.

  4. Click Create.

gcloud

To create the firewall rule using the Google Cloud CLI, run the following command:

gcloud compute firewall-rules create NETWORK_NAME-flex-firewall \
--project HOST_PROJECT_ID \
--network NETWORK_NAME \
--allow tcp:10402,tcp:8443 \
--target-tags aef-instance \
--source-ranges 35.191.0.0/16,130.211.0.0/22 \
--description 'Allows traffic to App Engine flexible environment'

where:

  • NETWORK_NAME is the name of the Shared VPC network.
  • HOST_PROJECT_ID is the Google Cloud project ID of the Shared VPC host project.

Setting up permissions

A Shared VPC Admin must grant the following two service accounts the Compute Network User role in order to allow a service project to deploy instances in the App Engine flexible environment to the network:

  • Google APIs service agent (PROJECT_NUM@cloudservices.gserviceaccount.com)
  • App Engine flexible environment service agent (service-PROJECT_NUM@gae-api-prod.google.com.iam.gserviceaccount.com)

Console

To set up permissions using the Google Cloud console:

  1. Go to the IAM Settings page for the service project and take note of the Project number.

    Go to IAM Settings

  2. Go to the IAM page for the host project.

    Go to IAM

  3. Click Add.

  4. In the New members field, enter the following email addresses separated by a comma. Replace PROJECT_NUM with the project number obtained in step 1.

    • PROJECT_NUM@cloudservices.gserviceaccount.com
    • service-PROJECT_NUM@gae-api-prod.google.com.iam.gserviceaccount.com

  5. In the Select a role dropdown, select Compute Engine > Compute Network User.

  6. Click Save.

gcloud

  1. Get the project number of the service project where the App Engine app is deployed. Run the following command, replacing SERVICE_PROJECT_ID with the project ID of the service project:

    export SERVICE_PROJECT_NUM=$(gcloud projects describe SERVICE_PROJECT_ID --format="value(projectNumber)")

  2. Grant the service project's Google APIs Service Agent the compute.networkUser role in the host project:

    gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding HOST_PROJECT_ID \
--member=serviceAccount:$SERVICE_PROJECT_NUM@cloudservices.gserviceaccount.com \
--role=roles/compute.networkUser

    where HOST_PROJECT_ID is the Google Cloud project ID of the Shared VPC host project.

  3. Grant the service project's App Engine Flexible Environment Service Agent the compute.networkUser role in the host project:

    gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding HOST_PROJECT_ID \
--member=serviceAccount:service-$SERVICE_PROJECT_NUM@gae-api-prod.google.com.iam.gserviceaccount.com \
--role=roles/compute.networkUser

Configuring and deploying your service

After the firewall rule and proper permissions are set up, you can deploy either a new service or an existing App Engine flexible environment service to the Shared VPC network.

  1. In the app.yaml file, use the network settings name field to specify the fully-qualified name of the Shared VPC network:

    network:
  name: projects/HOST_PROJECT_ID/global/networks/NETWORK_NAME

    where

    • HOST_PROJECT_ID is the Google Cloud project ID of the Shared VPC host project.
    • NETWORK_NAME is the name of the Shared VPC network.

    To configure the service to be part of a subnetwork named SUBNETWORK_NAME, also set the subnetwork_name field:

    network:
  name: projects/HOST_PROJECT_ID/global/networks/NETWORK_NAME
  subnetwork_name: SUBNETWORK_NAME

  2. Deploy the service: 

    gcloud app deploy

Verifying your configuration

To verify that your App Engine flexible environment service is running on the Shared VPC network, view the version configuration on the App Engine versions page in the Google Cloud console:

  1. Go to the App Engine Versions page.

    Go to App Engine versions

  2. In the Config column on the right, click on View for the desired version.

  3. Verify that the network name in the configuration is the name of the Shared VPC network.