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Vapor on App Engine

Author(s): @asciimike ,   Published: 2017-03-21

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

This tutorial shows a sample Swift app built with Vapor deployed to App Engine.

Vapor is "a web framework and server for Swift that works on macOS and Ubuntu." It is open source on GitHub.

This tutorial assumes basic familiarity with Swift programming.

Objectives

• Create a Swift "Hello, world" app that uses the Vapor framework.
• Deploy the app to the App Engine flexible environment.

Costs

This tutorial uses billable components of Google Cloud, including App Engine flexible environment.

Use the Pricing Calculator to generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage.

Before you begin

1. Create a project in the Cloud Console.
2. Enable billing for your project.
3. Install the Cloud SDK.

Handling dependencies

We'll use the Swift Package Manager to manage our app's dependencies.

1. Create a Package.swift file with the following contents:

   import PackageDescription
   
   let package = Package(
       name: "VaporGAE",
       targets: [
           Target(name: "VaporGAE", dependencies: [])
       ],
       dependencies: [
           .Package(url: "https://github.com/vapor/vapor.git", majorVersion: 1, minor: 1)
       ]
   )
   

Writing the server

1. Create a main.swift with the following contents:

   import Foundation
   import Vapor
   
   let drop = Droplet()
   
   // Respond to App Engine health check requests
   // TODO: see #2
   
   // Basic GET request
   // TODO: see #3
   
   // Start server on 8080 (default)
   drop.run()
   

2. Create a route to handle App Engine health-check requests (per the custom runtime docs):

   // Respond to App Engine health check requests
   drop.get("/_ah/health") { request in
       print("ALL - /_ah/health route handler...")
       return "OK"
   }
   

3. Create a route to handle GET requests to /hello:

   // Basic GET request
   drop.get("/hello") { request in
       print("GET - /hello route handler...")
       return "Hello from Vapor on App Engine flexible environment!"
   }
   

Creating the Dockerfile

Since Swift doesn't have an officially supported App Engine runtime, we'll create our own.

1. Create a Dockerfile with the following contents:

   FROM ibmcom/swift-ubuntu:latest
   LABEL Description="Docker image for Swift + Vapor on App Engine flexible environment."
   
   # Expose default port for App Engine
   EXPOSE 8080
   
   # Add app source
   ADD . /app
   WORKDIR /app
   
   # Build release
   RUN swift build --configuration release
   
   # Run the app
   ENTRYPOINT [".build/release/VaporGAE"]
   

Deploying the app

1. Create an app.yaml file with the following contents:

   runtime: custom
   env: flex
   

2. Run the following command to deploy your app (make take several minutes):

   gcloud app deploy
   

3. Run the following command to view your app, then append /hello to the URL:

   gcloud app browse
   

If all goes well, you should see "Hello from Swift on App Engine flexible environment!".

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