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Deploy a Grails app to App Engine flexible environment

Author(s): @sdelamo ,   Published: 2017-08-08

Sergio del Amo | Object Computing, Inc.

Contributed by the Google Cloud community. Not official Google documentation.

Getting started

In this guide, you deploy a Grails 3 application to App Engine flexible environment, upload images to Cloud Storage and use a MySQL database provided by Cloud SQL.

Costs

This guide uses paid services. You may need to enable billing in Google Cloud to complete some steps in this guide.

What you will need

To complete this guide, you need the following:

  • Some time on your hands
  • A decent text editor or IDE
  • JDK 1.7 or greater installed with JAVA_HOME configured appropriately

How to complete the guide

To get started do the following:

  1. Download and unzip the source or Clone the Git repository:

    git clone https://github.com/grails-guides/grails-google-cloud.git

    The Grails guides repositories contain two folders:

    • initial: An initial project. A Grails app with additional code to give you a head start.
    • complete: A completed example. It is the result of working through the steps presented by the guide and applying those changes to the initial folder.

  2. Change directory into the initial folder:

    cd initial

Writing the application

Domain class

The initial project includes a Grails domain class to map Book instances to a MySQL table.

A domain class fulfills the M in the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern and represents a persistent entity that is mapped onto an underlying database table. In Grails a domain is a class that lives in the grails-app/domain directory.

grails-app/domain/demo/Book.groovy

package demo

import grails.compiler.GrailsCompileStatic

@GrailsCompileStatic
class Book {
    String name
    String featuredImageUrl
    String fileName

    static constraints = {
        name unique: true
        featuredImageUrl nullable: true
        fileName nullable: true
    }
}

Seed data

When the application starts, it loads some seed data. In particular, it loads a list of books.

Modify BootStrap.groovy:

grails-app/init/demo/BootStrap.groovy

package demo

import groovy.transform.CompileStatic

@CompileStatic
class BootStrap {
    def init = { servletContext ->
        Book.saveAll(
            new Book(name: 'Grails 3: A Practical Guide to Application Development'),
            new Book(name: 'Falando de Grails',),
            new Book(name: 'The Definitive Guide to Grails 2'),
            new Book(name: 'Grails in Action'),
            new Book(name: 'Grails 2: A Quick-Start Guide'),
            new Book(name: 'Programming Grails')
        )
    }
    def destroy = {
    }
}

Root URL

You want to display the books persisted when the Grails app starts (BootStrap.groovy) in the home page of the application.

Map the home page to be resolved by BookController by modifying UrlMappings.groovy

Replace:

grails-app/controllers/demo/UrlMappings.groovy

"/"(view:"/index")

with:

grails-app/controllers/demo/UrlMappings.groovy

'/'(controller: 'book')

The initial project modifies slightly the output of the Grails static scaffolding command generate-all to provide CRUD functionality for the domain class Book.

You can find the code: BookController, BookGormService and GSP views in the \§ 21initial` project.

Cloud SDK

  1. Signup for Google Cloud and create a new project:

    Create Project

    Create Project

    The previous image shows a project named grailsgooglecloud.

  2. Install Cloud SDK for your operating system.

  3. After you have installed the SDK, run the init command in your terminal:

    gcloud init

    It prompts you to select the Google account and the project which you want to use.

App Engine

This guide deploys a Grails application to App Engine flexible environment.

App Engine allows developers to focus on doing what they do best: writing code. Based on Compute Engine, the App Engine flexible environment automatically scales your app up and down while balancing the load. Microservices, authorization, SQL and NoSQL databases, traffic splitting, logging, versioning, security scanning, and content delivery networks are all supported natively.

Run the command:

gcloud app create

to initialize an App Engine application within the current Google Cloud project.

You need to choose the region where you want your App Engine application located.

Google App Engine Gradle plugin

To deploy to App Engine, add the Google App Engine Gradle plugin to your project.

  1. Add the plugin as a buildscript dependency.

    build.gradle

    buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenLocal()
        maven { url "https://repo.grails.org/grails/core" }
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath "org.grails:grails-gradle-plugin:$grailsVersion"
        classpath "com.bertramlabs.plugins:asset-pipeline-gradle:2.14.1"
        classpath "org.grails.plugins:hibernate5:${gormVersion-".RELEASE"}"
        classpath 'com.google.cloud.tools:appengine-gradle-plugin:1.3.2'
    }
}

  2. Apply the plugin:

    build.gradle

    apply plugin:"eclipse"
apply plugin:"idea"
apply plugin:"war"
apply plugin:"org.grails.grails-web"
apply plugin:"org.grails.grails-gsp"
apply plugin:"asset-pipeline"
apply plugin:"codenarc"
apply plugin: 'com.google.cloud.tools.appengine'

Application deployment configuration

To deploy to Google App Engine, add the file src/main/appengine/app.yaml.

It describes the application’s deployment configuration:

src/main/appengine/app.yaml

runtime: java
env: flex

runtime_config:
    jdk: openjdk8
    server: jetty9

resources:
    cpu: 1
    memory_gb: 2.3

manual_scaling:
    instances: 1

Here, app.yaml specifies the runtime used by the app, and sets env: flex, specifying that the app uses the flexible environment.

The minimal app.yaml application configuration file shown above is sufficient for a simple Grails application. Depending on the size, complexity, and features that your application uses, you may need to change and extend this basic configuration file. For more information on what can be configured via app.yaml, please see the Configuring Your App with app.yaml guide.

For more information on how the Java runtime works, see Java 8 / Jetty 9.3 Runtime.

SpringBoot Jetty

As shown in the previous app engine configuration file, the app uses Jetty.

Grails is built on top of SpringBoot. Following SpringBoot’s documentation, you need to do the following changes to deploy to Jetty instead of Tomcat.

  1. Replace:

    build.gradle

    compile "org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-tomcat"

    with:

    build.gradle

    provided "org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-jetty"

  2. Exclude the tomcat-juli other dependency as well:

    build.gradle

    configurations {
    compile.exclude module: "tomcat-juli"
    compile.exclude module: "spring-boot-starter-tomcat"
}

Cloud SQL

This guide’s Grails application uses a MySQL database created with Cloud SQL.

Cloud SQL is a fully-managed database service that makes it easy to set up, maintain, manage, and administer your relational PostgreSQL BETA and MySQL databases in the cloud. Cloud SQL offers high performance, scalability, and convenience. Hosted on Google Cloud, Cloud SQL provides a database infrastructure for applications running anywhere.

Enable the Cloud SQL API

If you have not enabled Cloud SQL and the Cloud SQL API already, go to your project dashboard and enable them:

Create a Cloud SQL Instance

Create a new instance of Cloud SQL associated to the same project which you created before:

  1. Go to the Cloud SQL section of the console:

  2. The next screenshots illustrate the process:

  3. Once the instance is ready, create a database:

Datasource using Cloud SQL

As described in Using Cloud SQL with a flexible environment documentation, you need to add several runtime dependencies and configure the production URL to use the Cloud SQL MySQL database which you created before.

  1. Add the MySQL dependencies JDBC library and Cloud SQL MySQL Socket Factory:

    build.gradle

    runtime 'mysql:mysql-connector-java:8.0.16'
runtime 'com.google.cloud.sql:mysql-socket-factory-connector-j-8:1.0.14'

  2. Replace the production environment datasource configuration to point to the Cloud SQL MySQL database in application.yml:

    grails-app/conf/application.yml

    production:
    dataSource:
        dialect: org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect
        driverClassName: com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver
        dbCreate: update
        url: jdbc:mysql://google/grailsgooglecloud?socketFactory=com.google.cloud.sql.mysql.SocketFactory&cloudSqlInstance=inner-topic-174815:us-central1:grailsgooglecloud&useSSL=true
        username: root
        password: grailsgooglecloud

The production datasource URL uses a custom URL which is built with several components:

jdbc:mysql://google/[DATABASE_NAME]?socketFactory=com.google.cloud.sql.mysql.SocketFactory&cloudSqlInstance=[INSTANCE_NAME]&useSSL=true
  • For [DATABASE_NAME], use the database name you used when you created the database.

  • For [INSTANCE_NAME], use your instance name, which is visible in your Cloud SQL instance details:

  • For this guide, use username root, and use the password which you entered when you created the SQL instance; see previous sections.

The Cloud SQL Socket Factory for JDBC drivers Github Repository contains a tool in examples/getting-started that can help generate the JDBC URL and verify that connectivity can be established.

Cloud Storage

The app allows users to upload a book cover image. To store the images in Google Cloud, use Cloud Storage.

Cloud Storage is unified object storage for developers and enterprises, from live data serving to data analytics/ML to data archiving.

Enable the Cloud Storage API for the project, if you have not enabled it already.

Screenshot showing how to locate API Manager

Screenshot showing how to search for Cloud Storage

Screenshot showing Enable button

  1. You can create a Cloud Storage Bucket as illustrated in the images below. Name the bucket grailsbucket:

    Screenshot showing the Storage menu

    Screenshot showing the create bucket option

    Screenshot showing how to name and create a bucket

  2. Add Cloud Storage dependency to your project dependencies:

    build.gradle

    compile 'com.google.cloud:google-cloud-storage:1.84.0'

  3. Exclude com.google.guava:guava-jdk5 too:

    build.gradle

    configurations {
    compile.exclude module: "tomcat-juli"
    compile.exclude module: "spring-boot-starter-tomcat"
    compile.exclude(group: "com.google.guava", module: "guava-jdk5")
}

  4. Append these configuration (Cloud Storage Bucket and Project id) parameters to application.yml:

    grails-app/conf/application.yml

    ---
googlecloud:
    projectid: grailsgooglecloud
    cloudStorage:
        bucket: grailsbucket

    These configuration parameters are used by the services described below.

  5. Create a Grails command object to manage file upload parameters.

    grails-app/controllers/demo/FeaturedImageCommand.groovy

    package demo

import grails.compiler.GrailsCompileStatic
import grails.validation.Validateable
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile

@GrailsCompileStatic
class FeaturedImageCommand implements Validateable {
    MultipartFile featuredImageFile
    Long id
    Long version

    static constraints = {
        id nullable: false
        version nullable: false
        featuredImageFile  validator: { MultipartFile val, FeaturedImageCommand obj ->
            if ( val == null ) {
                return false
            }
            if ( val.empty ) {
                return false
            }

            ['jpeg', 'jpg', 'png'].any { String extension ->
                val.originalFilename?.toLowerCase()?.endsWith(extension)
            }
        }
    }
}

  6. Add two controller actions to BookController:

    grails-app/controllers/demo/BookController.groovy

    UploadBookFeaturedImageService uploadBookFeaturedImageService

@Transactional(readOnly = true)
def editFeaturedImage(Book book) {
    respond book
}
@CompileDynamic
def uploadFeaturedImage(FeaturedImageCommand cmd) {

    if (cmd.hasErrors()) {
        respond(cmd.errors, model: [book: cmd], view: 'editFeaturedImage')
        return
    }

    def book = uploadBookFeaturedImageService.uploadFeaturedImage(cmd)
    if (book == null) {
        notFound()
        return
    }

    if (book.hasErrors()) {
        respond(book.errors, model: [book: book], view: 'editFeaturedImage')
        return
    }

    request.withFormat {
        form multipartForm {
            flash.message = message(code: 'default.updated.message', args: [message(code: 'book.label', default: 'Book'), book.id])
            redirect book
        }
        '*' { respond book, [status: OK] }
    }
}

  7. The previous controller actions use a service to manage the business logic. Create UploadBookFeaturedImageService.groovy:

    grails-app/services/demo/UploadBookFeaturedImageService.groovy

    package demo

import groovy.util.logging.Slf4j
import groovy.transform.CompileStatic

@Slf4j
@CompileStatic
class UploadBookFeaturedImageService {

    BookGormService bookGormService

    GoogleCloudStorageService googleCloudStorageService

    private static String fileSuffix() {
        new Date().format('-YYYY-MM-dd-HHmmssSSS')
    }

    Book uploadFeaturedImage(FeaturedImageCommand cmd) {
        String fileName = "${cmd.featuredImageFile.originalFilename}${fileSuffix()}"

        log.info "cloud storage file name $fileName"

        String fileUrl = googleCloudStorageService.storeMultipartFile(fileName, cmd.featuredImageFile)

        log.info "cloud storage media url $fileUrl"

        def book = bookGormService.updateFeaturedImageUrl(cmd.id, cmd.version, fileName, fileUrl)
        if ( !book || book.hasErrors() ) {
            googleCloudStorageService.deleteFile(fileName)
        }
        book
    }
}

  8. Encapsulate the code which interacts with Cloud Storage in a service:

    grails-app/services/demo/GoogleCloudStorageService.groovy

    package demo

import com.google.cloud.storage.Acl
import com.google.cloud.storage.BlobId
import com.google.cloud.storage.BlobInfo
import com.google.cloud.storage.Storage
import com.google.cloud.storage.StorageOptions
import grails.config.Config
import grails.core.support.GrailsConfigurationAware
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile
import groovy.transform.CompileStatic

@SuppressWarnings('GrailsStatelessService')
@CompileStatic
class GoogleCloudStorageService implements GrailsConfigurationAware {

    Storage storage = StorageOptions.defaultInstance.service

    // Google Cloud project ID.
    String projectId

    // Cloud Storage Bucket
    String bucket

    @Override
    void setConfiguration(Config co) {
        projectId = co.getRequiredProperty('googlecloud.projectid', String)
        bucket = co.getProperty('googlecloud.cloudStorage.bucket', String, projectId)
    }

    String storeMultipartFile(String fileName, MultipartFile multipartFile) {
        storeInputStream(fileName, multipartFile.inputStream)
    }

    String storeInputStream(String fileName, InputStream inputStream) {
       BlobInfo blobInfo = storage.create(readableBlobInfo(bucket, fileName), inputStream)
        blobInfo.mediaLink
    }

    String storeBytes(String fileName, byte[] bytes) {
        BlobInfo blobInfo = storage.create(readableBlobInfo(bucket, fileName), bytes)
        blobInfo.mediaLink
    }

    private static BlobInfo readableBlobInfo(String bucket, String fileName) {
        BlobInfo.newBuilder(bucket, fileName)
                // Modify access list to allow all users with link to read file
                .setAcl([Acl.of(Acl.User.ofAllUsers(), Acl.Role.READER)])
                .build()
    }

    boolean deleteFile(String fileName) {
        BlobId blobId = BlobId.of(bucket, fileName)
        storage.delete(blobId)
    }
}

  9. If the upload of an image to Google Cloud is successful, save the reference to the media URL in our domain class. Add this method to the BookGormService class:

    grails-app/services/demo/BookGormService.groovy

    @SuppressWarnings('LineLength')
Book updateFeaturedImageUrl(Long id, Long version, String fileName, String featuredImageUrl, boolean flush = false) {
    Book book = Book.get(id)
    if ( !book ) {
        return null
    }
    book.version = version
    book.fileName = fileName
    book.featuredImageUrl = featuredImageUrl
    book.save(flush: flush)
    book
}

  10. Create a file named grails-app/views/book/editFeaturedImage.gsp from the content found in editFeaturedImage.gsp.

Deploying the app

To deploy the app to Google App Engine run:

./gradlew appengineDeploy

Initial deployment may take a while. When finished, you can access your app:

Grails app deployed in Google Cloud

Go to the Versions section in the App Engine administration panel and see the deployed app.

Logging

For the version which you would like to inspect, select Logs in the diagnose dropdown:

Logs dropdown

Application log messages written to stdout and stderr are automatically collected and can be viewed in the Logs Viewer.

  1. Create a controller and log with level INFO and verify the log statement is visible in the Log Viewer:

    grails-app/controllers/demo/LegalController.groovy

    package demo

import groovy.transform.CompileStatic
import groovy.util.logging.Slf4j

@CompileStatic
@Slf4j
class LegalController {
    def index() {
        log.info 'inside legal controller'
        render 'Legal Terms'
    }
}

  2. Add the next line to grails-app/conf/logback.groovy:

    logger 'demo', INFO, ['STDOUT'], false

    to log INFO statements of classes under package demo to STDOUT appender with additivity false.

If you redeploy the app to App Engine and access the /legal end point, you will see the logging statements in Log Viewer.

Check the Writing Application Logs documentation to read more about logs in the flexible environment.

Write your application logs using stdout for output and stderr for errors. Note that this does not provide log levels that you can use for filtering in the Logs Viewer; however, the Logs Viewer does provide other filtering, such as text, timestamp, etc.

Cleaning up

When you finish this guide, clean up the resources you created on Google Cloud Platform so you won't be billed for them in the future. The following sections describe how to delete or turn off these resources.

Deleting the project

The easiest way to eliminate billing is to delete the project you created for the tutorial.

To delete the project:

Deleting a project has the following consequences:

  • If you used an existing project, you'll also delete any other work you've done in the project.
  • You can't reuse the project ID of a deleted project. If you created a custom project ID that you plan to use in the future, you should delete the resources inside the project instead. This ensures that URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, remain available.
  • If you are exploring multiple tutorials and quickstarts, reusing projects instead of deleting them prevents you from exceeding project quota limits.

  1. In the Cloud Console, go to the Projects page.

    GO TO THE PROJECTS PAGE

  2. In the project list, select the project you want to delete and click Delete project. After selecting the checkbox next to the project name, click Delete project.

  3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

Deleting or turning off specific resources

You can individually delete or turn off some of the resources that you created during the tutorial.

Deleting app versions

To delete an app version:

  1. In the Cloud Console, go to the App Engine Versions page.

    GO TO THE VERSIONS PAGE

  2. Click the checkbox next to the non-default app version you want to delete.

    The only way that you can delete the default version of your App Engine app is by deleting your project. However, you can stop the default version in the Cloud Console. This action shuts down all instances associated with the version. You can restart these instances later if needed.

    In the App Engine standard environment, you can stop the default version only if your app has manual or basic scaling.

  3. Click the Delete button at the top of the page to delete the app version.

Deleting Cloud SQL instances

To delete a Cloud SQL instance:

  1. In the Cloud Console, go to the SQL Instances page.

    GO TO THE SQL INSTANCES PAGE

  2. Click the name of the SQL instance you want to delete.

  3. Click the Delete button at the top of the page to delete the instance.

Deleting Cloud Storage buckets

To delete a Cloud Storage bucket:

  1. In the Cloud Console, go to the Cloud Storage browser.

    GO TO THE CLOUD STORAGE BROWSER

  2. Click the checkbox next to the bucket you want to delete.

  3. Click the Delete button at the top of the page to delete the bucket.

Learn More

Visit Grails Guides to learn more.

Moreover, if you want to learn more about Google Cloud and Grails integration, checkout a more complete sample app.

The Google Cloud Bookshelf with Grails application shows how to use a variety of Google Cloud products, including some of the services described in this guides and other services such as:

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