Authenticating to Google Cloud with service accounts

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a Google Cloud service account, assign roles to authenticate to Google Cloud services, and use service account credentials in applications running on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

This example uses Pub/Sub, although the instructions can be applied to any Google Cloud service. The example application in this tutorial authenticates to Pub/Sub using a service account and subscribes to messages published to a Pub/Sub topic from a Python-based application.

Objectives

This tutorial covers the following steps:

  • How to create a service account
  • How to assign necessary roles for your service account to work with Pub/Sub
  • How to save the account key as a Kubernetes Secret
  • How to use the service account to configure and deploy an application

The sample application used in this tutorial subscribes to a Pub/Sub topic and prints the messages published to the standard output. You must configure the application with correct permissions, use gcloud command-line tool to publish messages, and inspect the container's output stream to observe that the messages are received correctly.

Authenticating with service accounts

You can authenticate to Google Cloud services with service accounts from within GKE using Workload Identity, the default Compute Engine service account, or Secrets.

Use Workload Identity

Workload Identity is the recommended way to authenticate to Google Cloud services from GKE. Workload Identity allows you to configure Google Cloud service accounts using Kubernetes resources. If this method of authentication fits your use case, it should be your first option. This example is meant to cover use cases where Workload Identity is not a good fit.

Use the default Compute Engine service account

Each node in a GKE cluster is a Compute Engine instance. Therefore, applications running on a GKE cluster by default attempt to authenticate using the "Compute Engine default service account", and inherit the associated scopes.

This default service account might not have permissions to use the Google Cloud services you need. It is possible to expand the scopes for the default service account, but that can create security risks and is not recommended.

Manage service account credentials using Secrets

You can create a service account for your application, and inject the authentication key as a Kubernetes secret. This option is the focus of this tutorial.

Why use Service Accounts?

Using separate service accounts for different applications provides the following benefits:

  • Better visibility into, and auditing of, the API requests that your application makes.

  • The ability to revoke keys for particular applications, instead of sharing a service account and having to revoke API access of all applications at the same time.

  • Reduced exposure in case of a potential security incident where the credentials of the service account are compromised.

Before you begin

Take the following steps to enable the Kubernetes Engine API:
  1. Visit the Kubernetes Engine page in the Google Cloud Console.
  2. Create or select a project.
  3. Wait for the API and related services to be enabled. This can take several minutes.

  4. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project. Learn how to confirm that billing is enabled for your project.

Install the following command-line tools used in this tutorial:

  • gcloud is used to create and delete Kubernetes Engine clusters. gcloud is included in the Google Cloud SDK.
  • kubectl is used to manage Kubernetes, the cluster orchestration system used by Kubernetes Engine. You can install kubectl using gcloud: 
    gcloud components install kubectl

Clone the sample code from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes-engine-samples
cd kubernetes-engine-samples/cloud-pubsub/deployment

Set defaults for the gcloud command-line tool

To save time typing your project ID and Compute Engine zone options in the gcloud command-line tool, you can set the defaults: 
gcloud config set project project-id
gcloud config set compute/zone compute-zone

Enable APIs

For this tutorial, enable the Pub/Sub API and Resource Manager API on your project:

gcloud services enable cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com pubsub.googleapis.com

Create a container cluster

Create a container cluster named pubsub-test to deploy the Pub/Sub subscriber application:

gcloud container clusters create pubsub-test

Creating a Pub/Sub topic

The Pub/Sub subscriber application uses a subscription named echo-read on a Pub/Sub topic called echo. Create these resources before deploying the application.

First, create a Pub/Sub topic:

gcloud

gcloud pubsub topics create echo

Config Connector

Note: This step requires Config Connector. Follow the installation instructions to install Config Connector on your cluster.

apiVersion: pubsub.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
kind: PubSubTopic
metadata:
  name: echo
To deploy this manifest, download it to your machine as topic.yaml, and run: 
kubectl apply -f topic.yaml

Then, create a subscription:

gcloud

gcloud pubsub subscriptions create echo-read --topic=echo

Config Connector

apiVersion: pubsub.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
kind: PubSubSubscription
metadata:
  name: echo-read
spec:
  topicRef:
    name: echo
To deploy this manifest, download it to your machine as subscription.yaml, and run: 
kubectl apply -f subscription.yaml

Deploying Pub/Sub subscriber application

Next, deploy the application container to retrieve the messages published to the Pub/Sub topic. This application is written in Python using Google Cloud Pub/Sub client libraries. You can find the source code on GitHub.

The following manifest file describes a Deployment that runs a single instance of this application's Docker image:

cloud-pubsub/deployment/pubsub.yaml 
# Copyright 2020 Google LLC
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: pubsub
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: pubsub
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: pubsub
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: subscriber
        image: gcr.io/google-samples/pubsub-sample:v1

To deploy this manifest, run:

kubectl apply -f pubsub.yaml

After the application is deployed, query the Pods by running:

kubectl get pods -l app=pubsub
Output: 
NAME                      READY     STATUS             RESTARTS   AGE
pubsub-2009462906-1l6bh   0/1       CrashLoopBackOff   1          30s

You can see that the container fails to start and is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. Inspect the logs from the Pod by running:

kubectl logs -l app=pubsub

Output:

...
google.gax.errors.RetryError: RetryError(Exception occurred in retry method that
was not classified as transient, caused by <_Rendezvous of RPC that terminated
with (StatusCode.PERMISSION_DENIED, Request had insufficient authentication
scopes.)>)

The stack trace and the error message indicates that the application does not have permissions to query the Pub/Sub service.

Creating service account credentials

To give your application running on GKE access to Google Cloud services, use service accounts. Service accounts let you define a set of Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions associated with your application.

Console

To create a service account, go to Service Accounts on Cloud Console and click Create Service Account:

  1. Specify a Service Account Name (for example, pubsub-app).
  2. In the Role dropdown, select "Pub/Sub → Subscriber".
  3. Click Create key and choose key type as JSON.
  4. Click Create.

After the service account is created, a JSON key file containing the credentials of the service account is downloaded to your computer. You use this key file to configure the application to authenticate to the Pub/Sub API.

Config Connector

First, download the following resource as service-account.yaml.

apiVersion: iam.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
kind: IAMServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: pubsub-app
spec:
  displayName: Service account for PubSub example

Then, run:

kubectl apply -f service-account.yaml

Next, apply the "Pub/Sub Subscriber" Role to the service account. Download the following resource as service-account-policy.yaml. Replace [PROJECT_ID] with your Project ID.

apiVersion: iam.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
kind: IAMPolicyMember
metadata:
  name: policy-member-binding
spec:
  member: serviceAccount:pubsub-app@[PROJECT_ID].iam.gserviceaccount.com
  role: roles/pubsub.subscriber
  resourceRef:
    apiVersion: resourcemanager.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
    kind: Project
    external: projects/[PROJECT_ID]

Then, run:

kubectl apply -f service-account-policy.yaml

Importing credentials as a Secret

Now that you have the service account key, you need a way to load it into your container. Your first thought might be to add a step in your Dockerfile, but service account keys are security-sensitive files that should not be saved into container images.

Instead, Kubernetes offers the Secret resource type to securely mount private files inside Pods at runtime.

kubectl

To save the JSON key file as a Secret named pubsub-key, run the following command with the path to the downloaded service account credentials file:

kubectl create secret generic pubsub-key --from-file=key.json=PATH-TO-KEY-FILE.json

This command creates a Secret named pubsub-key that has a key.json file with the contents of the private key you downloaded from Cloud Console. After you create the Secret, remove the key file from your computer.

Config Connector

Download the following resource as service-account-key.yaml.

apiVersion: iam.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
kind: IAMServiceAccountKey
metadata:
  name: pubsub-key
spec:
  publicKeyType: TYPE_X509_PEM_FILE
  keyAlgorithm: KEY_ALG_RSA_2048
  privateKeyType: TYPE_GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS_FILE
  serviceAccountRef:
    name: pubsub-app

Then, run:

kubectl apply -f service-account-key.yaml

Configuring the application with the Secret

To use the pubsub-key Secret in your application, modify the Deployment specification to:

  1. Define a volume with the secret.
  2. Mount the secret volume to the application container.
  3. Set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable to point to the key file in the secret volume mount.

The updated manifest file looks like the following:

cloud-pubsub/deployment/pubsub-with-secret.yaml 
# Copyright 2020 Google LLC
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: pubsub
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: pubsub
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: pubsub
    spec:
      volumes:
      - name: google-cloud-key
        secret:
          secretName: pubsub-key
      containers:
      - name: subscriber
        image: gcr.io/google-samples/pubsub-sample:v1
        volumeMounts:
        - name: google-cloud-key
          mountPath: /var/secrets/google
        env:
        - name: GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS
          value: /var/secrets/google/key.json

This manifest file defines the following fields to make the credentials available to the application:

  • A volume named google-cloud-key which uses the Secret named pubsub-key.

  • A volume-mount that makes the google-cloud-key available at the /var/secrets/google directory inside the container.

  • A GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable set as /var/secrets/google/key.json, which contains the credentials file after the secret is mounted to the container as a volume.

Note that the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable is automatically recognized by Google Cloud client libraries, in this case the Pub/Sub client for Python.

To deploy this manifest, run:

kubectl apply -f pubsub-with-secret.yaml

Verify that the Pod status is Running:

kubectl get pods -l app=pubsub
Output: 
NAME                     READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pubsub-652482369-2d6h2   1/1       Running   0          29m

Testing receiving Pub/Sub messages

Now that you configured the application, publish a message to the Pub/Sub topic named echo:

gcloud pubsub topics publish echo --message="Hello, world!"

Within a few seconds, the message is picked up by the application and printed to the output stream. To inspect the logs from the deployed Pod, run:

kubectl logs -l app=pubsub
Output: 
Pulling messages from Pub/Sub subscription...
[2017-06-19 12:31:42.501123] ID=130941112144812 Data=Hello, world!

You have successfully configured an application on GKE to authenticate to Pub/Sub API using service account credentials!

Cleaning up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used in this tutorial, either delete the project that contains the resources, or keep the project and delete the individual resources.

  1. Clean up the Pub/Sub subscription and topic:

    gcloud pubsub subscriptions delete echo-read
gcloud pubsub topics delete echo

  2. Delete the container cluster:

    gcloud container clusters delete pubsub-test

What's next