Connect using the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator

This page describes how to connect to your Cloud SQL instance using the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator. For more information about how the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator works, see About the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator.

Overview

The Cloud SQL Proxy Operator configures applications deployed on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to connect to Cloud SQL database instances using the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy. Using the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy is the recommended method for connecting to a Cloud SQL instance. To learn more about the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy, see About the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy.

Applications running in GKE can connect using the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy.

Before you begin

Before you can connect to a Cloud SQL instance, do the following:

  1. For a user or service account, make sure the account has the Cloud SQL Client role. This role contains the cloudsql.instances.connect permission, which authorizes a principal to connect to all Cloud SQL instances in a project.

    Go to the IAM page

    You can optionally include an IAM condition in the IAM policy binding that grants the account permission to connect only to one specific Cloud SQL instance.

  2. Enable the Cloud SQL Admin API.

    Enable the API

  3. Install and initialize the gcloud CLI.

Install the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator

Use the following steps to install the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator.

  1. Confirm that kubectl can connect to your GKE cluster. 
    kubectl cluster-info
    For more information about connecting Google Kubernetes Engine to Cloud SQL, see Connect from Google Kubernetes Engine.
  2. Install cert-manager using helm. You will need to use the version and cli arguments specified here to use cert-manager on your GKE cluster. 
          helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
      helm repo update
      helm install \
        cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
        --namespace cert-manager \
        --version "v1.9.1" \
        --create-namespace \
        --set global.leaderElection.namespace=cert-manager \
        --set installCRDs=true
  3. Install the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator to your kubernetes cluster: 
    kubectl apply -f https://storage.googleapis.com/cloud-sql-connectors/cloud-sql-proxy-operator/v1.4.5/cloud-sql-proxy-operator.yaml
  4. Wait for the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator to start. 
    kubectl rollout status deployment -n cloud-sql-proxy-operator-system cloud-sql-proxy-operator-controller-manager --timeout=90s
  5. Confirm that the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator is installed and running: 
    kubectl get pods -n cloud-sql-proxy-operator-system

What's next