Manage Cloud Load Balancing resources using custom constraints

Google Cloud Organization Policy gives you centralized, programmatic control over your organization's resources. As the organization policy administrator, you can define an organization policy, which is a set of restrictions called constraints that apply to Google Cloud resources and descendants of those resources in the Google Cloud resource hierarchy. You can enforce organization policies at the organization, folder, or project level.

Organization Policy provides predefined constraints for various Google Cloud services. However, if you want more granular, customizable control over the specific fields that are restricted in your organization policies, you can also create custom constraints and use those custom constraints in a custom organization policy.

This page assumes that you are familiar with the following concepts:

Health checks overview

Benefits

Cost management: use custom organization policies to restrict the health check probe frequency.
Security, compliance, and governance: you can use custom organization policies to enforce policies as follows:
- To enforce the usage of specific health check protocols or port ranges.

Policy inheritance

By default, organization policies are inherited by the descendants of the resources on which you enforce the policy. For example, if you enforce a policy on a folder, Google Cloud enforces the policy on all projects in the folder. To learn more about this behavior and how to change it, refer to Hierarchy evaluation rules.

Pricing

The Organization Policy Service, including predefined and custom organization policies, is offered at no charge.

Limitations

Legacy health checks (Legacy global (HTTP) and Legacy global (HTTPS)) are not supported.

Before you begin

If you haven't already, then set up authentication. Authentication is the process by which your identity is verified for access to Google Cloud services and APIs. To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:

Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:
Console

When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.
gcloud
1. Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:
  gcloud init
  Note: If you installed the gcloud CLI previously, make sure you have the latest version by running gcloud components update.
2. Set a default region and zone.

Ensure that you know your organization ID.

Required roles

To get the permissions that you need to manage organization policies for Cloud Load Balancing resources, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles:

Organization policy administrator (roles/orgpolicy.policyAdmin) on the organization resource_types
To test the constraints on HealthCheck resources: Compute Load Balancer Admin (v1) (roles/compute.loadBalancerAdmin.v1) on the project

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

These predefined roles contain the permissions required to manage organization policies for Cloud Load Balancing resources. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

Required permissions

The following permissions are required to manage organization policies for Cloud Load Balancing resources:

orgpolicy.constraints.list
orgpolicy.policies.create
orgpolicy.policies.delete
orgpolicy.policies.list
orgpolicy.policies.update
orgpolicy.policy.get
orgpolicy.policy.set

You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

Cloud Load Balancing supported resources

For Cloud Load Balancing, you can set custom constraints on the following resources and fields.

Health Check: compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck
- resource.checkIntervalSec
- resource.timeoutSec
- resource.unhealthyThreshold
- resource.healthyThreshold
- resource.type
- TCP Health Check:
  - resource.tcpHealthCheck.port
  - resource.tcpHealthCheck.request
  - resource.tcpHealthCheck.response
  - resource.tcpHealthCheck.proxyHeader
- SSL Health Check:
  - resource.sslHealthCheck.port
  - resource.sslHealthCheck.request
  - resource.sslHealthCheck.response
  - resource.sslHealthCheck.proxyHeader
- HTTP Health Check:
  - resource.httpHealthCheck.port
  - resource.httpHealthCheck.host
  - resource.httpHealthCheck.requestPath
  - resource.httpHealthCheck.proxyHeader
  - resource.httpHealthCheck.response
- HTTPS Health Check:
  - resource.httpsHealthCheck.port
  - resource.httpsHealthCheck.host
  - resource.httpsHealthCheck.requestPath
  - resource.httpsHealthCheck.proxyHeader
  - resource.httpsHealthCheck.response
- HTTP/2 Health Check:
  - resource.http2HealthCheck.port
  - resource.http2HealthCheck.host
  - resource.http2HealthCheck.requestPath
  - resource.http2HealthCheck.proxyHeader
  - resource.http2HealthCheck.response
- GRPC Health Check:
  - resource.grpcHealthCheck.port
  - resource.grpcHealthCheck.grpcServiceName
For other supported compute resources, see the Compute Engine custom constraints page for details.

Set up a custom constraint

A custom constraint is defined by the resources, methods, conditions, and actions that are supported by the service on which you are enforcing the organization policy. Conditions for your custom constraints are defined using Common Expression Language (CEL). For more information about how to build conditions in custom constraints using CEL, see the CEL section of Creating and managing custom organization policies.

You can create a custom constraint and set it up for use in organization policies using the Google Cloud console or gcloud CLI.

Console

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Organization policies page.

Go to Organization policies
Select the Project picker at the top of the page.
From the Project picker, select the resource for which you want to set the organization policy.
Click Custom constraint.
In the Display name box, enter a human-friendly name for the constraint. This field has a maximum length of 200 characters. Don't use PII or sensitive data in constraint names, because they could be exposed in error messages.
In the Constraint ID box, enter the name you want for your new custom constraint. A custom constraint must start with custom., and can only include uppercase letters, lowercase letters, or numbers, for example, custom.enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024. The maximum length of this field is 70 characters, not counting the prefix, for example, organizations/123456789/customConstraints/custom..
In the Description box, enter a human-friendly description of the constraint to display as an error message when the policy is violated. This field has a maximum length of 2000 characters.
In the Resource type box, select the name of the Google Cloud REST resource containing the object and field you want to restrict. For example, compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck.
Under Enforcement method, select whether to enforce the constraint on the REST CREATE method.
To define a condition, click Edit condition.
1. In the Add condition panel, create a CEL condition that refers to a supported service resource, for example resource.tcpHealthCheck.port >= 1024. This field has a maximum length of 1000 characters.
2. Click Save.
Under Action, select whether to allow or deny the evaluated method if the previous condition is met.
Click Create constraint.

When you have entered a value into each field, the equivalent YAML configuration for this custom constraint appears on the right.

gcloud

To create a custom constraint using the gcloud CLI, create a YAML file for the custom constraint:

name: organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/customConstraints/CONSTRAINT_NAME
resource_types:
- compute.googleapis.com/RESOURCE_NAME
method_types:
- CREATE
- UPDATE
condition: CONDITION
action_type: ACTION
display_name: DISPLAY_NAME
description: DESCRIPTION

Replace the following:

ORGANIZATION_ID: your organization ID, such as 123456789.
CONSTRAINT_NAME: the name you want for your new custom constraint. A custom constraint must start with custom., and can only include uppercase letters, lowercase letters, or numbers. For example, custom.enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024. The maximum length of this field is 70 characters, not counting the prefix (for example, organizations/123456789/customConstraints/custom.).
RESOURCE_NAME: the name (not the URI) of the Compute Engine API REST resource containing the object and field you want to restrict. For example, HealthCheck.
CONDITION: a CEL condition that is written against a representation of a supported service resource. This field has a maximum length of 1000 characters. See Supported resources for more information about the resources available to write conditions against. For example, "resource.tcpHealthCheck.port >= 1024".
ACTION: the action to take if the condition is met. This can be either ALLOW or DENY.
DISPLAY_NAME: a human-friendly name for the constraint. This field has a maximum length of 200 characters.
DESCRIPTION: a human-friendly description of the constraint to display as an error message when the policy is violated. This field has a maximum length of 2000 characters.

For more information about how to create a custom constraint, see Creating and managing custom organization policies.

After you have created the YAML file for a new custom constraint, you must set it up to make it available for organization policies in your organization. To set up a custom constraint, use the gcloud org-policies set-custom-constraint command:

gcloud org-policies set-custom-constraint CONSTRAINT_PATH

Replace CONSTRAINT_PATH with the full path to your custom constraint file. For example, /home/user/customconstraint.yaml. Once completed, your custom constraints are available as organization policies in your list of Google Cloud organization policies. To verify that the custom constraint exists, use the gcloud org-policies list-custom-constraints command:

gcloud org-policies list-custom-constraints --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID

Replace ORGANIZATION_ID with the ID of your organization resource. For more information, see Viewing organization policies.

Enforce a custom constraint

You can enforce a boolean constraint by creating an organization policy that references it, and then applying that organization policy to a Google Cloud resource.

Console

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Organization policies page.
Go to Organization policies
From the project picker, select the project for which you want to set the organization policy.
From the list on the Organization policies page, select your constraint to view the Policy details page for that constraint.
To configure the organization policy for this resource, click Manage policy.
On the Edit policy page, select Override parent's policy.
Click Add a rule.
In the Enforcement section, select whether enforcement of this organization policy is on or off.
Optional: To make the organization policy conditional on a tag, click Add condition. Note that if you add a conditional rule to an organization policy, you must add at least one unconditional rule or the policy cannot be saved. For more information, see Setting an organization policy with tags.
If this is a custom constraint, you can click Test changes to simulate the effect of this organization policy. For more information, see Test organization policy changes with Policy Simulator.
To finish and apply the organization policy, click Set policy. The policy requires up to 15 minutes to take effect.

gcloud

To create an organization policy that enforces a boolean constraint, create a policy YAML file that references the constraint:

      name: projects/PROJECT_ID/policies/CONSTRAINT_NAME
      spec:
        rules:
        - enforce: true

Replace the following:

PROJECT_ID: the project on which you want to enforce your constraint.
CONSTRAINT_NAME: the name you defined for your custom constraint. For example, custom.enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024.

To enforce the organization policy containing the constraint, run the following command:

    gcloud org-policies set-policy POLICY_PATH

Replace POLICY_PATH with the full path to your organization policy YAML file. The policy requires up to 15 minutes to take effect.

Example: Create a constraint that restricts TCP health check port to minimum 1024

gcloud

Create a enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024.yaml constraint file with the following information:

name: organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/customConstraints/custom.enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024
resource_types:
– compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck
condition: "resource.tcpHealthCheck.port >= 1024"
method_types:
– CREATE
– UPDATE
action_type: ALLOW
display_name: Only TCP HealthCheck Port >= 1024 Allowed.
description: Prevent TCP health checks on well-known ports.

Set the custom constraint.

gcloud org-policies set-custom-constraint enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024.yaml

Create a enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024-policy.yaml policy file with the following information. In this example we enforce this constraint at the project level but you might also set this at the organization or folder level. Replace PROJECT_ID with your project ID.
```
name: projects/PROJECT_ID/policies/custom.enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024
spec:
  rules:
  – enforce: true
```

Enforce the policy.

gcloud org-policies set-policy enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024-policy.yaml

Test the constraint by trying to create TCP health check on port 80, which is disallowed.

gcloud compute health-checks create tcp my-tcp-health-check \
    --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --region=us-central1 \
    --port=80 \
    --check-interval=5s \
    --timeout=5s \
    --healthy-threshold=4 \
    --unhealthy-threshold=5 \

The output is similar to the following:

ERROR: (gcloud.compute.healthChecks.create) Could not fetch resource:
– Operation denied by custom org policies: [customConstraints/custom.enforceTCPHealthCheckPort1024]: Only TCP HealthCheck Port >= 1024 Allowed.

Example custom constraints for common use cases

The following sections provide the syntax of some custom constraints that you might find useful:

Health Check

Use case	Syntax
Require all health check protocols to occur on port 1024 or higher.	name: organizations/`ORGANIZATION_ID`/customConstraints/custom.healthCheckPortMin1024 resourceTypes: - compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck methodTypes: - CREATE - UPDATE condition: "resource.tcpHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.httpHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.httpsHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.sslHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.sslHealthCheck.port >= 1024 &&resource.http2HealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.grpcHealthCheck.port >= 1024" actionType: ALLOW displayName: Require Port 1024 or greater for all health checks. description: All Health Checks protocols must use a port of 1024 or higher, to avoid well-known ports.
Disallow GRPC health checks.	name: organizations/`ORGANIZATION_ID`/customConstraints/custom.disallowGRPCHealthChecks resourceTypes: - compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck methodTypes: - CREATE - UPDATE condition: "resource.type == 'GRPC'" actionType: DENY displayName: Disallow GRPC Health Checks description: Health Checks are not allowed to use GRPC.
Prevent high frequency health check probes.	name: organizations/`ORGANIZATION_ID`/customConstraints/custom.minHealthCheckFrequency resourceTypes: - compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck methodTypes: - CREATE - UPDATE condition: "resource.checkIntervalSec >= 30" actionType: ALLOW displayName: Disallow fast health check probes description: Prevent health checks from having a probe frequency under 30 seconds.

Use case

Syntax

Require all health check protocols to occur on port 1024 or higher.

  name: organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/customConstraints/custom.healthCheckPortMin1024
  resourceTypes:
  - compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck
  methodTypes:
  - CREATE
  - UPDATE
  condition: "resource.tcpHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.httpHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.httpsHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.sslHealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.sslHealthCheck.port >= 1024 &&resource.http2HealthCheck.port >= 1024 && resource.grpcHealthCheck.port >= 1024"
  actionType: ALLOW
  displayName: Require Port 1024 or greater for all health checks.
  description: All Health Checks protocols must use a port of 1024 or higher, to avoid well-known ports.

Disallow GRPC health checks.

  name: organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/customConstraints/custom.disallowGRPCHealthChecks
  resourceTypes:
  - compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck
  methodTypes:
  - CREATE
  - UPDATE
  condition: "resource.type == 'GRPC'"
  actionType: DENY
  displayName: Disallow GRPC Health Checks
  description: Health Checks are not allowed to use GRPC.

Prevent high frequency health check probes.

  name: organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/customConstraints/custom.minHealthCheckFrequency
  resourceTypes:
  - compute.googleapis.com/HealthCheck
  methodTypes:
  - CREATE
  - UPDATE
  condition: "resource.checkIntervalSec >= 30"
  actionType: ALLOW
  displayName: Disallow fast health check probes
  description: Prevent health checks from having a probe frequency under 30 seconds.

What's next

See Introduction to the Organization Policy Service to learn more about organization policies.
Learn more about how to create and manage organization policies.
See the full list of predefined Organization policy constraints.