Set up a regional external proxy Network Load Balancer with zonal NEG backends

A regional external proxy Network Load Balancer is a proxy-based regional Layer 4 load balancer that lets you run and scale your TCP service traffic in a single region behind an external regional IP address. These load balancers distribute external TCP traffic from the internet to backends in the same region.

This guide contains instructions to set up a regional external proxy Network Load Balancer with a zonal network endpoint group (NEG) backend.

Before you begin, review the following documents:

• External proxy Network Load Balancer overview
• Zonal NEGs overview

In this example, we'll use the load balancer to distribute TCP traffic across backend VMs in two zonal NEGs in Region A. For purposes of the example, the service is a set of Apache servers configured to respond on port 80.

In this example, you configure the deployment shown in the following diagram.

Regional external proxy Network Load Balancer example configuration with zonal NEG backends.

This is a regional load balancer. All load balancer components (backend instance group, backend service, target proxy, and forwarding rule) must be in the same region.

Permissions

To follow this guide, you must be able to create instances and modify a network in a project. You must be either a project Owner or Editor, or you must have all of the following Compute Engine IAM roles.

Task	Required role
Create networks, subnets, and load balancer components	Compute Network Admin (roles/compute.networkAdmin)
Add and remove firewall rules	Compute Security Admin (roles/compute.securityAdmin)
Create instances	Compute Instance Admin (roles/compute.instanceAdmin)

For more information, see the following guides:

• Roles and permissions
• IAM Conditions

Configure the network and subnets

You need a VPC network with two subnets, one for the load balancer's backends and the other for the load balancer's proxies. This is a regional load balancer. Traffic within the VPC network is routed to the load balancer if the traffic's source is in a subnet in the same region as the load balancer.

This example uses the following VPC network, region, and subnets:

• Network: a custom-mode VPC network named lb-network

• Subnet for backends: a subnet named backend-subnet in Region A that uses 10.1.2.0/24 for its primary IP address range

• Subnet for proxies: a subnet named proxy-only-subnet in Region A that uses 10.129.0.0/23 for its primary IP address range

Note: You can change the name of the network, the region, and the parameters for the subnets; however, subsequent steps in this guide use the network, region, and subnet parameters as named here.

Create the network and subnet for backends

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VPC networks page.

   Go to VPC networks

2. Click Create VPC network.

3. For Name, enter lb-network.

4. In the Subnets section, do the following:

   1. Set the Subnet creation mode to Custom.
   2. In the New subnet section, enter the following information:
      • Name: backend-subnet
      • Region: REGION_A
      • IP address range: 10.1.2.0/24
   3. Click Done.

5. Click Create.

gcloud

1. To create the custom VPC network, use the gcloud compute networks create command:

   gcloud compute networks create lb-network --subnet-mode=custom
   

2. To create a subnet in the lb-network network in the REGION_A region, use the gcloud compute networks subnets create command:

   gcloud compute networks subnets create backend-subnet \
      --network=lb-network \
      --range=10.1.2.0/24 \
      --region=REGION_A
   

Create the proxy-only subnet

A proxy-only subnet provides a set of IP addresses that Google uses to run Envoy proxies on your behalf. The proxies terminate connections from the client and create new connections to the backends.

This proxy-only subnet is used by all Envoy-based load balancers in Region A of the lb-network VPC network.

Important: Don't try to assign addresses from the proxy-only subnet to your load balancer's forwarding rule or backends. You assign the forwarding rule's IP address and the backend instance IP addresses from a different subnet range (or ranges), not this one. Google Cloud reserves this subnet range for Google Cloud-managed proxies.

Console

If you're using the Google Cloud console, you can wait and create the proxy-only subnet later on the Load balancing page.

If you want to create the proxy-only subnet now, use the following steps:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VPC networks page.

   Go to VPC networks

2. Click the name of the Shared VPC network: lb-network.

3. Click Add subnet.

4. For Name, enter proxy-only-subnet.

5. For Region, select REGION_A.

6. Set Purpose to Regional Managed Proxy.

7. For IP address range, enter 10.129.0.0/23.

8. Click Add.

gcloud

To create the proxy-only subnet, use the gcloud compute networks subnets create command:

gcloud compute networks subnets create proxy-only-subnet \
    --purpose=REGIONAL_MANAGED_PROXY \
    --role=ACTIVE \
    --region=REGION_A \
    --network=lb-network \
    --range=10.129.0.0/23

Create firewall rules

In this example, you create the following firewall rules:

• fw-allow-health-check. An ingress rule, applicable to the Google Cloud instances being load balanced, that allows traffic from the load balancer and Google Cloud health checking systems (130.211.0.0/22 and 35.191.0.0/16). This example uses the target tag allow-health-check to identify the backend VMs to which it should apply.
• fw-allow-ssh. An ingress rule that allows incoming SSH connectivity on TCP port 22 from any address. You can choose a more restrictive source IP range for this rule; for example, you can specify only the IP ranges of the systems from which you initiate SSH sessions. This example uses the target tag allow-ssh to identify the VMs to which it should apply.

• fw-allow-proxy-only-subnet. An ingress allow firewall rule for the proxy-only subnet that allows the load balancer to communicate with backend instances on TCP port 80. This example uses the target tag allow-proxy-only-subnet to identify the backend VMs to which it should apply.

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Firewall policies page.

   Go to Firewall policies

2. Click Create firewall rule, and then complete the following fields:

   • Name: fw-allow-health-check
   • Network: lb-network
   • Targets: Specified target tags
   • Target tags: allow-health-check
   • Source filter: IPv4 ranges
   • Source IPv4 ranges: 130.211.0.0/22 and 35.191.0.0/16
   • Protocols and ports:
     • Choose Specified protocols and ports.
     • Select the TCP checkbox, and then enter 80 for the port number.

3. Click Create.

4. Click Create firewall rule a second time to create the rule to allow incoming SSH connections:

   • Name: fw-allow-ssh
   • Network: lb-network
   • Priority: 1000
   • Direction of traffic: Ingress
   • Action on match: Allow
   • Targets: Specified target tags
   • Target tags: allow-ssh
   • Source filter: IPv4 ranges
   • Source IPv4 ranges: 0.0.0.0/0
   • Protocols and ports:
     • Choose Specified protocols and ports.
     • Select the TCP checkbox, and then enter 22 for the port number.

5. Click Create.

6. Click Create firewall rule a third time to create the rule to allow incoming connections from the proxy-only subnet to the Google Cloud backends:

   • Name: fw-allow-proxy-only-subnet
   • Network: lb-network
   • Priority: 1000
   • Direction of traffic: Ingress
   • Action on match: Allow
   • Targets: Specified target tags
   • Target tags: allow-proxy-only-subnet
   • Source filter: IPv4 ranges
   • Source IPv4 ranges: 10.129.0.0/23
   • Protocols and ports:
     • Choose Specified protocols and ports.
     • Select the TCP checkbox, and then enter 80 for the port number.

7. Click Create.

gcloud

1. Create the fw-allow-health-check rule to allow the Google Cloud health checks to reach the backend instances on TCP port 80:

   gcloud compute firewall-rules create fw-allow-health-check \
       --network=lb-network \
       --action=allow \
       --direction=ingress \
       --target-tags=allow-health-check \
       --source-ranges=130.211.0.0/22,35.191.0.0/16 \
       --rules=tcp:80
   

2. Create the fw-allow-ssh firewall rule to allow SSH connectivity to VMs with the network tag allow-ssh. When you omit source-ranges, Google Cloud interprets the rule to mean any source.

   gcloud compute firewall-rules create fw-allow-ssh \
       --network=lb-network \
       --action=allow \
       --direction=ingress \
       --target-tags=allow-ssh \
       --rules=tcp:22
   

3. Create an ingress allow firewall rule for the proxy-only subnet to allow the load balancer to communicate with backend instances on TCP port 80:

   gcloud compute firewall-rules create fw-allow-proxy-only-subnet \
       --network=lb-network \
       --action=allow \
       --direction=ingress \
       --target-tags=allow-proxy-only-subnet \
       --source-ranges=10.129.0.0/23 \
       --rules=tcp:80
   

Reserve the load balancer's IP address

Note: Regional external proxy Network Load Balancers support both the Premium and Standard Network Service Tiers. This procedure demonstrates the setup with Standard Tier.

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Reserve a static address page.

   Go to Reserve a static address

2. Choose a name for the new address.

3. For Network Service Tier, select Standard.

4. For IP version, select IPv4. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

5. For Type, select Regional.

6. For Region, select REGION_A.

7. Leave the Attached to option set to None. After you create the load balancer, this IP address is attached to the load balancer's forwarding rule.

8. Click Reserve to reserve the IP address.

gcloud

1. To reserve a static external IP address, use the gcloud compute addresses create command:

   gcloud compute addresses create ADDRESS_NAME  \
      --region=REGION_A \
      --network-tier=STANDARD
   

   Replace ADDRESS_NAME with the name that you want to call this address.

2. To view the result, use the gcloud compute addresses describe command:

   gcloud compute addresses describe ADDRESS_NAME
   

Set up the zonal NEG

Set up a zonal NEG with GCE_VM_IP_PORT type endpoints in Region A. First create the VMs, and then create a zonal NEG and add the VMs' network endpoints to the NEG.

Create VMs

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.

   Go to VM instances

2. Click Create instance.

3. Set Name to vm-a1.

4. For Region, select REGION_A.

5. For Zone, select ZONE_A.

6. In the Boot disk section, ensure that Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) is selected for the boot disk options. Click Choose to change the image if necessary.

7. Click Advanced options.

8. Click Networking, and then configure the following fields:

   1. For Network tags, enter allow-ssh, allow-health-check, and allow-proxy-only-subnet.
   2. For Network interfaces, select the following:
      • Network: lb-network
      • Subnet: backend-subnet

9. Click Management. Enter the following script into the Startup script field:

   #! /bin/bash
   apt-get update
   apt-get install apache2 -y
   a2ensite default-ssl
   a2enmod ssl
   vm_hostname="$(curl -H "Metadata-Flavor:Google" \
   http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/name)"
   echo "Page served from: $vm_hostname" | \
   tee /var/www/html/index.html
   systemctl restart apache2
   

10. Click Create.

11. Repeat the previous steps to create three more VMs. Use the following name and zone combinations:

    • Name: vm-a2 | Zone: ZONE_A
    • Name: vm-b1 | Zone: ZONE_B
    • Name: vm-b2 | Zone: ZONE_B

gcloud

To create the VMs, use the gcloud compute instances create command two times. Use the following combinations for VM_NAME and ZONE. The script contents are identical for both VMs:

• VM_NAME: vm-a1 and ZONE: ZONE_A
• VM_NAME: vm-a2 and ZONE: ZONE_A
• VM_NAME: vm-b1 and ZONE: ZONE_B
• VM_NAME: vm-b2 and ZONE: ZONE_B

 gcloud compute instances create VM_NAME \
     --zone=ZONE \
     --image-family=debian-12 \
     --image-project=debian-cloud \
     --tags=allow-ssh,allow-health-check,allow-proxy-only-subnet \
     --subnet=backend-subnet \
     --metadata=startup-script='#! /bin/bash
       apt-get update
       apt-get install apache2 -y
       a2ensite default-ssl
       a2enmod ssl
       vm_hostname="$(curl -H "Metadata-Flavor:Google" \
       http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/name)"
       echo "Page served from: $vm_hostname" | \
       tee /var/www/html/index.html
       systemctl restart apache2'

Create the zonal NEGs

Console

Create a zonal network endpoint group

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Network endpoint groups page.

   Go to Network endpoint groups
   

2. Click Create network endpoint group.

3. For Name, enter zonal-neg-a.

4. For Network endpoint group type, select Network endpoint group (Zonal).

5. For Network, select lb-network.

6. For Subnet, select backend-subnet.

7. For Zone, select ZONE_A.

8. For Default port, enter 80.

9. Click Create.

10. Repeat all the steps in this section to create a second zonal NEG with the following changes in settings:

    • Name: zonal-neg-b
    • Zone: ZONE_B

Add endpoints to the zonal NEGs

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Network endpoint groups page.

   Go to Network endpoint groups
   

2. Click the name of the network endpoint group that you created in the previous step (for example, zonal-neg-a).

3. On the Network endpoint group details page, in the Network endpoints in this group section, click Add network endpoint.

4. Select a VM instance (for example, vm-a1).

5. In the Network interface section, the VM name, zone, and subnet are displayed.

   1. For IP address, enter the IP address of the new network endpoint. To get the IP address, click Check primary IP addresses and alias IP range in nic0.
   2. For Port type, select Default. The endpoint uses the default port 80 for all endpoints in the network endpoint group. This is sufficient for our example because the Apache server is serving requests at port 80.
   3. Click Create.

6. Click Add network endpoint. Select the second VM instance, vm-a2, and repeat the previous steps to add its endpoints to zonal-neg-a.

7. Repeat all the steps in this section to add endpoints from vm-b1 and vm-b2 to zonal-neg-b.

gcloud

1. Create a zonal NEG in the ZONE_A zone with GCE_VM_IP_PORT endpoints:

   gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups create zonal-neg-a \
       --network-endpoint-type=GCE_VM_IP_PORT \
       --zone=ZONE_A \
       --network=lb-network \
       --subnet=backend-subnet
   

   You can either specify the --default-port while creating the NEG, or specify a port number for each endpoint as shown in the next step.

2. Add endpoints to the zonal NEG:

   gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups update zonal-neg-a \
       --zone=ZONE_A \
       --add-endpoint='instance=vm-a1,port=80' \
       --add-endpoint='instance=vm-a2,port=80'
   

3. Create a zonal NEG in the ZONE_B zone with GCE_VM_IP_PORT endpoints:

   gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups create zonal-neg-b \
       --network-endpoint-type=GCE_VM_IP_PORT \
       --zone=ZONE_B \
       --network=lb-network \
       --subnet=backend-subnet
   

   You can either specify the --default-port while creating the NEG, or specify a port number for each endpoint as shown in the next step.

4. Add endpoints to the zonal NEG:

   gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups update zonal-neg-b \
       --zone=ZONE_B \
       --add-endpoint='instance=vm-b1,port=80' \
       --add-endpoint='instance=vm-b2,port=80'
   

Configure the load balancer

Console

Start your configuration

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Load balancing page.

   Go to Load balancing

2. Click Create load balancer.
3. For Type of load balancer, select Network Load Balancer (TCP/UDP/SSL) and click Next.
4. For Proxy or passthrough, select Proxy load balancer and click Next.
5. For Public facing or internal, select Public facing (external) and click Next.
6. For Global or single region deployment, select Best for regional workloads and click Next.
7. Click Configure.

Basic configuration

1. For Name, enter my-ext-tcp-lb.
2. For Region, select REGION_A.
3. For Network, select lb-network.

Reserve a proxy-only subnet

Note: If you already created the proxy-only subnet, the Reserve subnet button isn't displayed. You can skip this section and continue with the steps in the Configure the backends section.

1. Click Reserve subnet.
2. For Name, enter proxy-only-subnet.
3. For IP address range, enter 10.129.0.0/23.
4. Click Add.

Configure the backends

1. Click Backend configuration.
2. For Backend type, select Zonal network endpoint group.
3. For Protocol, select TCP.
4. Configure the first backend:
   1. For New backend, select zonal NEG zonal-neg-a.
   2. Retain the remaining default values, and then click Done.
5. Configure the second backend:
   1. Click Add backend.
   2. For New backend, select instance group zonal-neg-b.
   3. Retain the remaining default values, and then click Done.
6. Configure the health check:
   1. For Health check, select Create a health check.
   2. Set the health check name to tcp-health-check.
   3. For Protocol, select TCP.
   4. For Port, enter 80.
7. Retain the remaining default values, and then click Save.
8. In the Google Cloud console, verify that there is a check mark next to Backend configuration. If not, double-check that you have completed all of the steps.

Configure the frontend

1. Click Frontend configuration.
2. For Name, enter ext-tcp-forwarding-rule.
3. For Network Service Tier, select Standard.
4. For IP address, select ext-tcp-ip-address.
5. For Port number, enter 9090. The forwarding rule only forwards packets with a matching destination port.
6. For Proxy protocol, select Off because the PROXY protocol doesn't work with the Apache HTTP Server software. For more information, see PROXY protocol.
7. Click Done.
8. In the Google Cloud console, verify that there is a check mark next to Frontend configuration. If not, double-check that you have completed all the previous steps.

Review and finalize

1. Click Review and finalize.
2. Double-check your settings.
3. Click Create.

gcloud

1. Create a regional health check for the backends:

   gcloud compute health-checks create tcp tcp-health-check \
       --region=REGION_A \
       --use-serving-port
   

2. Create a backend service:

   gcloud compute backend-services create external-tcp-proxy-bs \
      --load-balancing-scheme=EXTERNAL_MANAGED \
      --protocol=TCP \
      --region=REGION_A \
      --health-checks=tcp-health-check \
      --health-checks-region=REGION_A
   

3. Add the zonal NEG in the ZONE_A zone to the backend service:

   gcloud compute backend-services add-backend external-tcp-proxy-bs \
      --network-endpoint-group=zonal-neg-a \
      --network-endpoint-group-zone=ZONE_A \
      --balancing-mode=CONNECTION \
      --max-connections-per-endpoint=50 \
      --region=REGION_A
   

4. Add the zonal NEG in the ZONE_B zone to the backend service:

   gcloud compute backend-services add-backend external-tcp-proxy-bs \
      --network-endpoint-group=zonal-neg-b \
      --network-endpoint-group-zone=ZONE_B \
      --balancing-mode=CONNECTION \
      --max-connections-per-endpoint=50 \
      --region=REGION_A
   

5. Create the target TCP proxy:

   gcloud compute target-tcp-proxies create ext-tcp-target-proxy \
      --backend-service=external-tcp-proxy-bs \
      --region=REGION_A
   

6. Create the forwarding rule. For --ports, specify a single port number from 1-65535. This example uses port 9090. The forwarding rule only forwards packets with a matching destination port.

   gcloud compute forwarding-rules create ext-tcp-forwarding-rule \
     --load-balancing-scheme=EXTERNAL_MANAGED \
     --network=lb-network \
     --network-tier=STANDARD \
     --address=ext-tcp-ip-address \
     --ports=9090 \
     --region=REGION_A \
     --target-tcp-proxy=ext-tcp-target-proxy \
     --target-tcp-proxy-region=REGION_A
   

Test your load balancer

Note: It might take a few minutes for the load balancer configuration to propagate after you first deploy it.

Now that you have configured your load balancer, you can test sending traffic to the load balancer's IP address.

1. Get the load balancer's IP address.

   To get the IPv4 address, run the following command:

   gcloud compute addresses describe ADDRESS_NAME
   

2. Send traffic to your load balancer by running the following command. Replace LB_IP_ADDRESS with your load balancer's IPv4 address.

   curl -m1 LB_IP_ADDRESS:9090
   

What's next

• Convert proxy Network Load Balancer to IPv6
• External proxy Network Load Balancer overview.
• Proxy Network Load Balancer logging and monitoring.
• Add a Private Service Connect.
• Clean up the load balancer setup.