This tutorial describes how to configure a Cloud Storage bucket to host a static website for a domain you own. Static web pages can contain client-side technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They cannot contain dynamic content such as server-side scripts like PHP.
Because Cloud Storage doesn't support custom domains with HTTPS on its own, this tutorial uses Cloud Storage with an external Application Load Balancer to serve content from a custom domain over HTTPS. For more ways to serve content from a custom domain over HTTPS, see troubleshooting for HTTPS serving. You can also use Cloud Storage to serve custom domain content over HTTP, which doesn't require a load balancer.
For examples and tips on static web pages, including how to host static assets for a dynamic website, see the Static Website page.
Objectives
This tutorial shows you how to:- Upload and share your site's files.
- Set up a load balancer and SSL certificate.
- Connect your load balancer to your bucket.
- Point your domain to your load balancer using an
A
record. - Test the website.
Costs
This tutorial uses the following billable components of Google Cloud:
See the Monitoring your charges tip for details on what charges may be incurred when hosting a static website.
Before you begin
- Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.
-
In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.
-
Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.
-
In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.
-
Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.
- Enable the Compute Engine API for your project.
- Have the following Identity and Access Management roles: Storage Admin and Compute Network Admin.
- Have a domain that you own or manage. If you don't have an existing domain,
there are many services through which you can register a new domain, such as
Cloud Domains.
This tutorial uses the domain
example.com
. - Have a few website files you want to serve. This tutorial works best if you
have at least an index page (
index.html
) and a 404 page (404.html
). - Have a Cloud Storage bucket for storing the files you want to serve. If you don't currently have a bucket, create a bucket.
- (Optional) If you want your Cloud Storage bucket to have the same
name as your domain, you must
verify that
you own or manage the domain that you will be using. Make sure you are
verifying the top-level domain, such as
example.com
, and not a subdomain, such aswww.example.com
. If you purchased your domain through Cloud Domains, verification is automatic.
Upload your site's files
Add the files you want your website to serve to the bucket:
Console
- In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud Storage Buckets page.
In the list of buckets, click the name of the bucket that you created.
The Bucket details page opens with the Objects tab selected.
Click the Upload files button.
In the file dialog, browse to the desired file and select it.
After the upload completes, you should see the filename along with file information displayed in the bucket.
To learn how to get detailed error information about failed Cloud Storage operations in the Google Cloud console, see Troubleshooting.
Command line
Use the gcloud storage cp
command to copy files to your bucket.
For example, to copy the file index.html
from its current location
Desktop
to the bucket my-static-assets
:
gcloud storage cp Desktop/index.html gs://my-static-assets
If successful, the response looks like the following example:
Completed files 1/1 | 164.3kiB/164.3kiB
Client libraries
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage C++ API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage C# API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Go API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Java API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
The following sample uploads an individual object: The following sample uploads multiple objects concurrently: The following sample uploads all objects with a common prefix concurrently:
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Node.js API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
The following sample uploads an individual object: The following sample uploads multiple objects concurrently: The following sample uploads all objects with a common prefix concurrently:
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage PHP API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Python API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
The following sample uploads an individual object: The following sample uploads multiple objects concurrently: The following sample uploads all objects with a common prefix concurrently:
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Ruby API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
C++
C#
Go
Java
Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Terraform
REST APIs
JSON API
Have gcloud CLI installed and initialized, which lets you generate an access token for the
Authorization
header.Use
cURL
to call the JSON API with aPOST
Object request. For the fileindex.html
uploaded to a bucket namedmy-static-assets
:curl -X POST --data-binary @index.html \ -H "Content-Type: text/html" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \ "https://storage.googleapis.com/upload/storage/v1/b/my-static-assets/o?uploadType=media&name=index.html"
XML API
Have gcloud CLI installed and initialized, which lets you generate an access token for the
Authorization
header.Use
cURL
to call the XML API with aPUT
Object request. For the fileindex.html
uploaded to a bucket namedmy-static-assets
:curl -X PUT --data-binary @index.html \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \ -H "Content-Type: text/html" \ "https://storage.googleapis.com/my-static-assets/index.html"
Share your files
To make all objects in your bucket readable to anyone on the public internet:
Console
- In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud Storage Buckets page.
In the list of buckets, click the name of the bucket that you want to make public.
Select the Permissions tab near the top of the page.
If the Public access pane reads Not public, click the button labeled Remove public access prevention and click Confirm in the dialog that appears.
Click the add_box Grant access button.
The Add principals dialog box appears.
In the New principals field, enter
allUsers
.In the Select a role drop down, select the Cloud Storage sub-menu, and click the Storage Object Viewer option.
Click Save.
Click Allow public access.
Once shared publicly, a link icon appears for each object in the public access column. You can click this icon to get the URL for the object.
To learn how to get detailed error information about failed Cloud Storage operations in the Google Cloud console, see Troubleshooting.
Command line
Use the buckets add-iam-policy-binding
command:
gcloud storage buckets add-iam-policy-binding gs://my-static-assets --member=allUsers --role=roles/storage.objectViewer
Client libraries
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage C++ API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage C# API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Go API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Java API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Node.js API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage PHP API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Python API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Ruby API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
C++
C#
Go
Java
Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Terraform
REST APIs
JSON API
Have gcloud CLI installed and initialized, which lets you generate an access token for the
Authorization
header.Create a JSON file that contains the following information:
{ "bindings":[ { "role": "roles/storage.objectViewer", "members":["allUsers"] } ] }
Use
cURL
to call the JSON API with aPUT
Bucket request:curl -X PUT --data-binary @JSON_FILE_NAME \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ "https://storage.googleapis.com/storage/v1/b/BUCKET_NAME/iam"
Where:
JSON_FILE_NAME
is the path for the JSON file that you created in Step 2.BUCKET_NAME
is the name of the bucket whose objects you want to make public. For example,my-static-assets
.
XML API
Making all objects in a bucket publicly readable is not supported by
the XML API. Use the Google Cloud console or gcloud storage
instead,
or set ACLs for each individual object. Note that in order to set
ACLs for each individual object, you must switch your bucket's
Access control mode to Fine-grained.
If wanted, you can alternatively make portions of your bucket publicly accessible.
Visitors receive a http 403
response code when requesting the URL for a
non-public or non-existent file. See the next section for information on how to
add an error page that uses a http 404
response code.
Recommended: assign specialty pages
You can assign an index page suffix and a custom error page, which are known as specialty pages. Assigning either is optional, but if you don't assign an index page suffix and upload the corresponding index page, users who access your top-level site are served an XML document tree containing a list of the public objects in your bucket.
For more information on the behavior of specialty pages, see Specialty pages.
Console
- In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud Storage Buckets page.
In the list of buckets, find the bucket you created.
Click the Bucket overflow menu (more_vert) associated with the bucket and select Edit website configuration.
In the website configuration dialog, specify the main page and error page.
Click Save.
To learn how to get detailed error information about failed Cloud Storage operations in the Google Cloud console, see Troubleshooting.
Command line
Use the buckets update
command with the --web-main-page-suffix
and --web-error-page
flags.
In the following sample, the MainPageSuffix
is set to
index.html
and NotFoundPage
is set to 404.html
:
gcloud storage buckets update gs://my-static-assets --web-main-page-suffix=index.html --web-error-page=404.html
If successful, the command returns:
Updating gs://www.example.com/... Completed 1
Client libraries
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage C++ API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage C# API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Go API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Java API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Node.js API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage PHP API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Python API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Ruby API
reference documentation.
To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials.
For more information, see
Set up authentication for a local development environment.
C++
C#
Go
Java
Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
REST APIs
JSON API
Have gcloud CLI installed and initialized, which lets you generate an access token for the
Authorization
header.Create a JSON file that sets the
mainPageSuffix
andnotFoundPage
properties in awebsite
object to the desired pages.In the following sample, the
mainPageSuffix
is set toindex.html
andnotFoundPage
is set to404.html
:{ "website":{ "mainPageSuffix": "index.html", "notFoundPage": "404.html" } }
Use
cURL
to call the JSON API with aPATCH
Bucket request. For the bucketmy-static-assets
:curl -X PATCH --data-binary @web-config.json \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ "https://storage.googleapis.com/storage/v1/b/my-static-assets"
XML API
Have gcloud CLI installed and initialized, which lets you generate an access token for the
Authorization
header.Create an XML file that sets the
MainPageSuffix
andNotFoundPage
elements in aWebsiteConfiguration
element to the desired pages.In the following sample, the
MainPageSuffix
is set toindex.html
andNotFoundPage
is set to404.html
:<WebsiteConfiguration> <MainPageSuffix>index.html</MainPageSuffix> <NotFoundPage>404.html</NotFoundPage> </WebsiteConfiguration>
Use
cURL
to call the XML API with aPUT
Bucket request andwebsiteConfig
query string parameter. Formy-static-assets
:curl -X PUT --data-binary @web-config.xml \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \ https://storage.googleapis.com/my-static-assets?websiteConfig
Set up your load balancer and SSL certificate
Cloud Storage doesn't support custom domains with HTTPS on its own, so you also need to set up an SSL certificate attached to an HTTPS load balancer to serve your website through HTTPS. This section shows you how to add your bucket to a load balancer's backend and how to add a new Google-managed SSL certificate to the load balancer's frontend.
Start your configuration
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Load balancing page.
- Click Create load balancer.
- For Type of load balancer, select Application Load Balancer (HTTP/HTTPS) and click Next.
- For Public facing or internal, select Public facing (external) and click Next.
- For Global or single region deployment, select Best for global workloads and click Next.
- For Load balancer generation, select Classic Application Load Balancer and click Next.
- Click Configure.
The configuration window for your load balancer appears.
Basic configuration
Before continuing with the configuration, enter a
Load balancer name, such as example-lb
.
Configure the frontend
This section shows you how to configure the HTTPS protocol and create an SSL certificate. You can also select an existing certificate or upload a self-managed SSL certificate.
- Click Frontend configuration.
- (Optional) Give your frontend configuration a Name.
- For Protocol, select HTTPS (includes HTTP/2).
- For IP version, select IPv4. If you prefer IPv6, see IPv6 termination for additional information.
For the IP address field:
- In the dropdown, click Create IP address.
- In the Reserve a new static IP address pop-up, enter a name, such
as
example-ip
for the Name of the IP address. - Click Reserve.
For Port, select 443.
In the Certificate field dropdown, select Create a new certificate. The certificate creation form appears in a panel. Configure the following:
- Give your certificate a Name, such as
example-ssl
. - For Create mode, select Create Google-managed certificate.
- For Domains, enter your website name, such as
www.example.com
. If you want to serve your content through additional domains such as the root domainexample.com
, press Enter to add them on additional lines. Each certificate has a limit of 100 domains.
- Give your certificate a Name, such as
Click Create.
(Optional) If you want Google Cloud to automatically set up a partial HTTP load balancer for redirecting HTTP traffic, select the checkbox next to Enable HTTP to HTTPS redirect.
Click Done.
Configure the backend
- Click Backend configuration.
- In the Backend services & backend buckets dropdown, click Create a backend bucket.
- Choose a Backend bucket name, such as
example-bucket
. The name you choose can be different from the name of the bucket you created earlier. - Click Browse, found in the Cloud Storage bucket field.
- Select the
my-static-assets
bucket you created earlier, and click Select. - (Optional) If you want to use Cloud CDN, select the checkbox for Enable Cloud CDN and configure Cloud CDN as desired. Note that Cloud CDN may incur additional costs.
- Click Create.
Configure routing rules
Routing rules are the components of an external Application Load Balancer's URL map. For this tutorial, you should skip this portion of the load balancer configuration, because it is automatically set to use the backend you just configured.
Review the configuration
- Click Review and finalize.
- Review the Frontend, Routing rules, and Backend.
- Click Create.
You may need to wait a few minutes for the load balancer to be created.
Connect your domain to your load balancer
After the load balancer is created, click the name of your load balancer:
example-lb
. Note the IP address associated with the load balancer: for
example, 30.90.80.100
. To point your domain to your load balancer, create an
A
record using your domain registration service. If you added multiple domains
to your SSL certificate, you must add an A
record for each one, all pointing
to the load balancer's IP address. For example, to create A
records for
www.example.com
and example.com
:
NAME TYPE DATA www A 30.90.80.100 @ A 30.90.80.100
See Troubleshooting domain status for more information about connecting your domain to your load balancer.
Recommended: Monitor the SSL certificate status
It might take up to 60-90 minutes for Google Cloud to provision the certificate and make the site available through the load balancer. To monitor the status of your certificate:
Console
- Go to the Load balancing page in the Google Cloud console.
Go to Load balancing - Click the name of your load balancer:
example-lb
. - Click the name of the SSL certificate associated with the load balancer:
example-ssl
. - The Status and Domain status rows show the certificate status. Both must be active in order for the certificate to be valid for your website.
Command line
To check the certificate status, run the following command:
gcloud compute ssl-certificates describe CERTIFICATE_NAME \ --global \ --format="get(name,managed.status)"
To check the domain status, run the following command:
gcloud compute ssl-certificates describe CERTIFICATE_NAME \ --global \ --format="get(managed.domainStatus)"
See Troubleshooting SSL certificates for more information about certificate status.
Test the website
Once the SSL certificate is active, verify that content is served from the
bucket by going to https://www.example.com/test.html
, where test.html
is an
object stored in the bucket that you're using as the backend. If you set the
MainPageSuffix
property, https://www.example.com
goes to index.html
.
Clean up
After you finish the tutorial, you can clean up the resources that you created so that they stop using quota and incurring charges. The following sections describe how to delete or turn off these resources.
Delete the project
The easiest way to eliminate billing is to delete the project that you created for the tutorial.
To delete the project:
- In the Google Cloud console, go to the Manage resources page.
- In the project list, select the project that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
- In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.
Delete the load balancer and bucket
If you don't want to delete the entire project, delete the load balancer and bucket that you created for the tutorial:
- Go to the Load balancing page in the Google Cloud console.
Go to Load balancing - Select the checkbox next to
example-lb
. - Click Delete.
- (Optional) Select the checkbox next to the resources you want to delete along
with the load balancer, such as the
my-static-assets
bucket or theexample-ssl
SSL certificate. - Click Delete load balancer or Delete load balancer and the selected resources.
Release a reserved IP address
To delete the reserved IP address you used for the tutorial:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the External IP addresses page.
Select the checkboxes next to
example-ip
.Click Release static address.
In the confirmation window, click Delete.
What's next
- See examples and tips for using buckets to host a static website.
- Read about troubleshooting for hosting a static website.
- Learn about hosting static assets for a dynamic website.
- Learn about other Google Cloud web serving solutions.
Try it for yourself
If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how Cloud Storage performs in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.
Try Cloud Storage free