Create a VPN gateway and peer gateway

This page describes how to create a VPN gateway or a peer gateway resource.

VPN gateways provide secure connectivity between multiple sites, such as between on-premises data centers and cloud environments. There are two gateway components to configure for Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) air-gapped VPN:

A VPN gateway in GDC.
Your peer VPN gateway. This is a physical VPN gateway device or software application in the peer network to which the VPN gateway connects. The peer gateway can either be an on-premises VPN gateway or one hosted by another cloud provider.

Before you begin

To manage or view VPN resources from the GDC console, you must have the necessary identity and access roles:

VPN Admin: has read and write permissions on all VPN-related resources. Ask your Organization IAM Admin to grant you the VPN Admin (vpn-admin) role.
VPN Viewer: has read permissions on all VPN-related resources. Ask your Organization IAM Admin to grant you the VPN Viewer (vpn-viewer) role.
For more information, see Role definitions.

Create a VPN gateway

To create a VPN gateway, follow these steps:

Specify an interface name on the gateway to represent the IP address. When the gateway is created an external IPv4 address is automatically allocated. Create the VPN gateway object in the platform namespace:
```
kubectl --kubeconfig MANAGEMENT_API_SERVER create -n platform -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: networking.gdc.goog/v1
kind: VPNGateway
metadata:
  name: VPN_GW_NAME
spec:
  interfaces:
  - name: VPN_INTERFACE_NAME
EOF
```
Replace the following:
- MANAGEMENT_API_SERVER: the zonal API server's kubeconfig path. If you have not yet generated a kubeconfig file for the API server in your targeted zone, see Sign in for details.
- VPN_GW_NAME: the name of the VPN gateway object. For example, vpngateway.
- VPN_INTERFACE_NAME: the name of the VPN interface. For example, interface0.

Verify that the VPN_GW_NAME object was correctly reconciled by examining the Status field. Get the details for the VPN gateway object:

kubectl --kubeconfig MANAGEMENT_API_SERVER describe -n platform vpngateway VPN_GW_NAME

Examine the output, it must look similar to the following example:


status:
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-05-10T00:12:58Z"
    message: All interfaces are assigned an IP.
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: Ready
    status: "True"
    type: IPsAssigned
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-05-10T00:12:36Z"
    message: Condition "TunnelsAttached" is not ready.
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: NotReady
    status: "False"
    type: Ready
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-05-10T00:12:36Z"
    message: 'At least one interface is not attached to any VPNTunnel: ["interface0"]'
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: NoTunnelAttached
    status: "False"
    type: TunnelsAttached
  interfaces:
  - ip: 10.252.218.240
    name: interface0

The VPNGateway object must be attached to a VPNTunnel. We handle this step in Create a VPN Tunnel.

Create a peer VPN gateway

Create a peer VPN gateway by creating a PeerGateway object in the Management API server. The PeerGateway object represents a remote VPN endpoint. An interface on a PeerGateway object is used by a VPN tunnel to establish an encrypted tunnel to the remote site. To create a peer VPN gateway, follow these steps:

Specify an interface name and the static external IPv4 address of your peer VPN gateway. Create the PeerGateway object must be created in the platform namespace:
```
kubectl --kubeconfig MANAGEMENT_API_SERVER create -n platform -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: networking.gdc.goog/v1
kind: PeerGateway
metadata:
  name: PEER_GW_NAME
spec:
  interfaces:
  - name: PEER_INTERFACE_NAME
    ip: PEER_INTERFACE_IP
EOF
```
Replace the following:
- PEER_GW_NAME: the name of the peer VPN gateway. For example, peergateway.
- PEER_INTERFACE_NAME: the name of the peer interface. For example, interface0.
- PEER_INTERFACE_IP: the static external IPv4 address of your peer VPN gateway.

Verify that the PEER_GW_NAME object was correctly reconciled by examining the Status field.

Get the details for the peer VPN gateway object:

kubectl --kubeconfig MANAGEMENT_API_SERVER describe -n platform peergateway PEER_GW_NAME

Examine the output, it must look similar to the following example:

Status:
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:  2024-05-10T00:15:25Z
    Message:               Condition "TunnelsAttached" is not ready.
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                NotReady
    Status:                False
    Type:                  Ready
    Last Transition Time:  2024-05-10T00:20:45Z
    Message:               Ready
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                Ready
    Status:                True
    Type:                  ValidGatewayIPs
    Last Transition Time:  2024-05-10T00:15:25Z
    Message:               At least one interface is not attached to any VPNTunnel: ["interface0"]
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                NoTunnelAttached
    Status:                False
    Type:                  TunnelsAttached

The PeerGateway object must be referenced by a VPNTunnel. We handle this step in Create a VPN Tunnel.

Create a VPN gateway and peer gateway

Before you begin

Create a VPN gateway

Create a peer VPN gateway

What's next