Access Google APIs through endpoints

This document explains how to use Private Service Connect endpoints to connect to Google APIs. Instead of sending API requests to the publicly available IP addresses for service endpoints such as storage.googleapis.com, you can send the requests to the internal IP address of an endpoint.

You can also use Private Service Connect to access services in another VPC network and to publish services.

Roles

The following IAM roles provide the permissions needed to perform the tasks in this guide.

Task Roles
Create an endpoint All of the following roles:
Compute Network Admin (roles/compute.networkAdmin),
Service Directory Editor (roles/servicedirectory.editor), and
DNS Administrator (roles/dns.admin)
Configure Private Google Access (optional) Compute Network Admin (roles/compute.networkAdmin)

Before you begin

  • Read About connecting to Google APIs by using endpoints for more information, including DNS configuration and limitations.

  • Private Service Connect does not automatically enable any API. You must separately enable the Google APIs you need to use from the APIs & services page in the Google Cloud console.

  • You must enable the Compute Engine API in your project.

  • You must enable the Service Directory API in your project.

  • You must enable the Cloud DNS API in your project.

  • You must choose an IP address to use for the endpoint. For information about what IP addresses you can use, see IP address requirements.

  • Egress firewall rules must permit traffic to the endpoint. The default firewall configuration for a VPC network permits this traffic, because it contains an implied allow egress rule. Verify that you have not created a higher priority egress rule that blocks the traffic.

  • Virtual machine (VM) instances without an external IP address assigned must use a subnet with Private Google Access enabled to access Google APIs and services using an endpoint.

    A VM with an external IP address can access Google APIs and services using endpoints even if Private Google Access is disabled for its subnet. Connectivity to the endpoint stays within Google's network.

  • If your VPC network does not contain any endpoints, check if a Cloud DNS private zone exists for p.googleapis.com. If the zone exists, delete it before you create the endpoint. If you don't delete it, creation of the Service Directory DNS zone used for Private Service Connect fails. For more information, see troubleshooting.

  • Endpoints are not accessible from peered VPC networks.

Enable Private Google Access for a subnet

VMs without an external IP address assigned must be connected to a subnet with Private Google Access enabled to access Google APIs and services using an endpoint.

If the VM has more than one interface, connect the interface that is configured with a default route (usually nic0).

The source IP address of packets sent from the VM must match the VM interface's primary internal IPv4 address or an internal IPv4 address from an alias IP range.

To enable Private Google Access on a subnet, follow these steps.

Console

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

    Go to VPC networks

  2. Click the name of the network that contains the subnet for which you need to enable Private Google Access.

  3. Click the name of the subnet. The Subnet details page is displayed.

  4. Click Edit.

  5. In the Private Google Access section, select On.

  6. Click Save.

gcloud

  1. Determine the name and region of the subnet. To list the subnets for a particular network, use the following command:

    gcloud compute networks subnets list --filter=NETWORK_NAME

  2. Run the following command to enable Private Google Access:

    gcloud compute networks subnets update SUBNET_NAME \
--region=REGION \
--enable-private-ip-google-access

  3. Verify that Private Google Access is enabled by running this command:

    gcloud compute networks subnets describe SUBNET_NAME \
--region=REGION \
--format="get(privateIpGoogleAccess)"

Replace the following:

  • SUBNET_NAME: the name of the subnet
  • REGION: the region for the subnet
  • NETWORK_NAME: the name of the VPC network that contains the subnet

Terraform

You can use the Terraform resource to enable Private Google Access on a subnet.

examples/private_service_connect_google_apis/main.tf 
resource "google_compute_network" "network" {
  provider                = google-beta
  project                 = var.project # Replace this with your project ID in quotes
  name                    = "tf-test"
  auto_create_subnetworks = false
}

resource "google_compute_subnetwork" "vpc_subnetwork" {
  provider                 = google-beta
  project                  = google_compute_network.network.project
  name                     = "test-subnetwork"
  ip_cidr_range            = "10.2.0.0/16"
  region                   = "us-central1"
  network                  = google_compute_network.network.id
  private_ip_google_access = true
}

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.

Create an endpoint

After you have chosen an IP address that meets the requirements, you can create an endpoint.

An endpoint connects to Google APIs and services using a global forwarding rule. Each forwarding rule counts toward the per VPC network quota for Private Service Connect.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Private Service Connect page.

    Go to Private Service Connect

  2. Click the Connected endpoints tab.

  3. Click Connect endpoint.

  4. For Target, select the target API bundle that you want to use:

    • All Google APIs
    • VPC-SC

  5. For Endpoint name, enter a name for the endpoint.

  6. Select a Network for the endpoint.

  7. Select an IP Address for the endpoint.

    The IP address must meet these requirements.

    If you need a new IP address, you can create one:

    1. Click Create IP address.
    2. Enter a Name and Description for the IP address.
    3. Enter the IP address you want to use and click Save .

  8. If a Service Directory region is not already configured for this VPC network, select the region you want to use.

    All endpoints that are used to access Google APIs and services in a given VPC network use the same Service Directory region.

  9. If a Service Directory namespace is not already configured for this VPC network, configure the namespace you want to use:

    • To use an automatically-assigned namespace, click the Namespace drop-down menu and select the automatically-assigned namespace.

    • To select an existing namespace that is used in another network, click the Namespace drop-down menu and select a namespace from the list. The list displays all namespaces in the project. You must select a namespace that is used only for endpoints that are used to access Google APIs.

    • To create a new namespace, click the Namespace drop-down menu and click Create namespace. Enter the namespace and click Create.

    All endpoints that you use to access Google APIs and services in a given VPC network use the same Service Directory namespace.

  10. Click Add endpoint.

gcloud

  1. Reserve a global internal IP address to assign to the endpoint.

    gcloud compute addresses create ADDRESS_NAME \
  --global \
  --purpose=PRIVATE_SERVICE_CONNECT \
  --addresses=ENDPOINT_IP \
  --network=NETWORK_NAME

    Replace the following:

    • ADDRESS_NAME: the name to assign to the reserved IP address.

    • ENDPOINT_IP: the IP address to reserve for the endpoint.

      The IP address must meet these requirements.

    • NETWORK_NAME: the name of the VPC network for the endpoint.

  2. Create a forwarding rule to connect the endpoint to Google APIs and services.

    gcloud compute forwarding-rules create ENDPOINT_NAME \
  --global \
  --network=NETWORK_NAME \
  --address=ADDRESS_NAME \
  --target-google-apis-bundle=API_BUNDLE \
  [ --service-directory-registration=REGION_NAMESPACE_URI ]

    Replace the following:

    • ENDPOINT_NAME: the name to assign to the endpoint. The name must be a string of 1-20 characters, containing only lower-case letters and numbers. The name must start with a letter.

    • NETWORK_NAME: the name of the VPC network for the endpoint.

    • ADDRESS_NAME: the name of the reserved address on the associated network.

    • API_BUNDLE: the bundle of APIs to make available using the endpoint. See the list of supported APIs.

      • Use all-apis to give access to all supported APIs.

      • Use vpc-sc to restrict access to Google APIs that support VPC Service Controls.

    • REGION_NAMESPACE_URI: the URI of the Service Directory region or namespace that you want to use. This URI must reference the same project that you are creating the endpoint in.

      • You can define a region only with projects/PROJECT_NAME/locations/REGION.

      • You can define a region and namespace with projects/PROJECT_NAME/locations/REGION/namespaces/NAMESPACE.

      If you you omit --service-directory-registration completely, or set a region without a namespace, the following occurs:

      • If a region or namespace is already configured for this VPC network, those defaults are used.

      • If a region is not configured, the region is set to us-central1. If a namespace is not configured, a system-generated namespace is assigned.

API

  1. Reserve a global internal IP address to assign to the endpoint.

    POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/addresses

{
"name": ADDRESS_NAME,
"address": ENDPOINT_IP,
"addressType": "INTERNAL",
"purpose": PRIVATE_SERVICE_CONNECT,
"network": NETWORK_URL
}

    Replace the following:

    • PROJECT_ID: your project ID.

    • ADDRESS_NAME: the name to assign to the reserved IP address.

    • ENDPOINT_IP: the IP address to reserve for the endpoint.

      The IP address must meet these requirements.

    • NETWORK_URL: the VPC network for the endpoint. Use the network.list method or gcloud compute networks list --uri to find the URLs of your networks.

  2. Create a forwarding rule to connect the endpoint to Google APIs and services.

    POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/forwardingRules
{
 "IPAddress": ADDRESS_URL,
 "network": NETWORK_URL,
 "name": ENDPOINT_NAME,
 "target": API_BUNDLE,
 "serviceDirectoryRegistrations : [
   {
     "service_directory_region": REGION,
     "namespace": "NAMESPACE"

   }
 ],
}

    Replace the following:

    • PROJECT_ID: your project ID.

    • ENDPOINT_NAME: the name to assign to the endpoint. The name must be a string of 1-20 characters, containing only lower-case letters and numbers. The name must start with a letter.

    • NETWORK_URL: the VPC network for the endpoint. Use the network.list method or gcloud compute networks list --uri to find the URLs of your networks.

    • ADDRESS_URL: the URL of the reserved address on the associated network. Use the globalAddresses.list method or gcloud compute addresses list --uri to find the URLs of your reserved addresses.

    • API_BUNDLE: the bundle of APIs to make available using the endpoint. See the list of supported APIs.

      • Use all-apis to give access to all supported APIs.

      • Use vpc-sc to restrict access to Google APIs that support VPC Service Controls.

    • REGION: the Service Directory region you want to use. For example, us-central1. If you omit REGION, and a region is already configured for this VPC network, that region is used. If a region is not configured, the region is set to us-central1.

    • NAMESPACE: the name of the Service Directory namespace that you want to use. If you omit NAMESPACE, and a namespace is already configured for this VPC network, that namespace is used. If a namespace is not configured, a system-generated namespace is assigned.

Terraform

You can use the following Terraform resources to create an endpoint:

examples/private_service_connect_google_apis/main.tf 
resource "google_compute_global_address" "default" {
  provider     = google-beta
  project      = google_compute_network.network.project
  name         = "global-psconnect-ip"
  address_type = "INTERNAL"
  purpose      = "PRIVATE_SERVICE_CONNECT"
  network      = google_compute_network.network.id
  address      = "10.3.0.5"
}
examples/private_service_connect_google_apis/main.tf 
resource "google_compute_global_forwarding_rule" "default" {
  provider              = google-beta
  project               = google_compute_network.network.project
  name                  = "globalrule"
  target                = "all-apis"
  network               = google_compute_network.network.id
  ip_address            = google_compute_global_address.default.id
  load_balancing_scheme = ""
}

Verify that the endpoint is working

Create a VM instance in the VPC network where Private Service Connect is configured. Run the following command on the VM to verify that the Private Service Connect endpoint is working. Endpoints do not respond to ping (ICMP) requests.

curl -v ENDPOINT_IP/generate_204

Replace ENDPOINT_IP with the IP address of the endpoint.

If the endpoint is working, you see an HTTP 204 response code.

List endpoints

You can list all configured endpoints.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Private Service Connect page.

    Go to Private Service Connect

  2. Click the Connected endpoints tab.

    The endpoints are displayed.

gcloud

gcloud compute forwarding-rules list  \
--filter target="(all-apis OR vpc-sc)" --global

The output is similar to the following:

NAME  REGION  IP_ADDRESS  IP_PROTOCOL  TARGET
RULE          IP          TCP          all-apis

Get information about an endpoint

You can view all the configuration details of an endpoint.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Private Service Connect page.

    Go to Private Service Connect

  2. Click the Connected endpoints tab.

    The endpoints are displayed.

  3. Click the endpoint that you want to view details for.

gcloud 

gcloud compute forwarding-rules describe \
    ENDPOINT_NAME --global

Label an endpoint

You can manage labels for endpoints. See labeling resources for more information.

Delete an endpoint

You can delete an endpoint.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Private Service Connect page.

    Go to Private Service Connect

  2. Click the Connected endpoints tab.

  3. Select the endpoint that you want to delete, and click Delete.

gcloud 

    gcloud compute forwarding-rules delete \
        ENDPOINT_NAME --global

Replace ENDPOINT_NAME with the name of the endpoint that you want to delete.

Use an endpoint

To use an endpoint, you send requests to a DNS hostname that resolves to the IP address of the endpoint.

  • You can use the automatically-created p.googleapis.com DNS names if you can configure your clients to use a custom endpoint and if p.googleapis.com DNS records are created for the APIs and services that you want to use. For more information, see Use p.googleapis.com DNS names.

    For example, if your endpoint name is xyz, DNS records are created for storage-xyz.p.googleapis.com, compute-xyz.p.googleapis.com, and other commonly used APIs in the API bundle.

  • You can create DNS records by using the default DNS names if you are using a client that hasn't been configured to use a custom endpoint, or if a p.googleapis.com DNS record does not exist for the service that you want to use. For more information, see Create DNS records by using default DNS names.

    For example, create DNS records for storage.googleapis.com and compute.googleapis.com.

Use p.googleapis.com DNS names

When you create an endpoint, Service Directory creates DNS records for commonly used APIs and services that are available using the endpoint. DNS records are created only for APIs and services that have default DNS names that end with googleapis.com, and only for a subset of those APIs and services.

The DNS records are created in a p.googleapis.com private zone. The records point to the endpoint IP address, and use this format: SERVICE-ENDPOINT.p.googleapis.com

For example, if your endpoint name is xyz, DNS records are created for storage-xyz.p.googleapis.com, compute-xyz.p.googleapis.com, and other supported APIs.

Clients that can be configured to use a custom endpoint can use the p.googleapis.com DNS names to send requests to an endpoint.

See the documentation for your client or client library for information about configuring it to use custom endpoints. For example:

Create DNS records by using default DNS names

You need to create DNS records to direct the default DNS names for APIs and services to your endpoint in these circumstances:

  • Your client or application cannot be configured to use a p.googleapis.com DNS name.

  • You need to access a supported service, but there is no automatically-created p.googleapis.com DNS name for that service.

To create DNS records that point to your Private Service Connect endpoint, follow these instructions:

  1. Create a DNS zone for the domain you need to use (for example, googleapis.com or gcr.io). Consider creating a Cloud DNS private zone for this purpose.

  2. In this DNS zone:

    1. Create an A record for the domain (zone) name itself; for example, googleapis.com or gcr.io. Point this A record to the IP address of the endpoint. If you're using Cloud DNS, see adding a record.

    2. Create a CNAME record for all of the additional domain's possible host names by using an asterisk and a dot followed by the domain (zone) name; for example, *.googleapis.com or *.gcr.io. Point this CNAME record to the A record in the same zone. For example, point *.googleapis.com to googleapis.com or point *.gcr.io to gcr.io.

Access the endpoint from on-premises hosts

If your on-premises network is connected to a VPC network, you can use Private Service Connect to access Google APIs and services from on-premises hosts using the internal IP address of the endpoint.

  • Your on-premises network must be connected to a VPC network using either Cloud VPN tunnels or VLAN attachments.

  • The endpoint is in the VPC network that is connected to your on-premises network.

  • The on-premises network must have appropriate routes for the endpoint. Configure a Cloud Router custom route advertisement to announce routes for the endpoint on the BGP session that manages routes for the Cloud VPN tunnel or VLAN attachment.

  • You must configure on-premises systems so that they can make queries to your private DNS zones.

    If you've implemented the private DNS zones using Cloud DNS, complete the following steps:

    • Create an inbound server policy in the VPC network to which your on-premises network connects.

    • Identify the inbound forwarder entry points, in the regions where your Cloud VPN tunnels and VLAN attachments are located, in the VPC network to which your on-premises network connects.

    • Configure on-premises systems and on-premises DNS name servers to forward the DNS names for the Private Service Connect endpoints to an inbound forwarder entry point in the same region as the Cloud VPN tunnel or VLAN attachment that connects to the VPC network.

Troubleshooting

Private DNS zone creation fails

When you create an endpoint, a Service Directory DNS zone is created. Zone creation can fail for these reasons:

  • You haven't enabled the Cloud DNS API in your project.

  • You don't have the required permissions to create a Service Directory DNS zone.

  • A DNS zone with the same zone name exists in this VPC network.

  • A DNS zone for p.googleapis.com already exists in this VPC network.

Conflicting zones might exist because a previous deletion failed.

To create the Service Directory DNS zone, do the following:

  1. Verify that the Cloud DNS API is enabled in your project.

  2. Verify that you have the required permissions to create the Service Directory DNS zone:

    • dns.managedZones.create
    • servicedirectory.namespaces.associatePrivateZone

  3. Delete the DNS zone.

  4. Create a Service Directory DNS zone backed by the Service Directory namespace associated with your endpoint.

    Use the following values when you create the zone:

    • Zone name: Use the same zone name that the system used during the failed creation attempt. The error message displays what zone name was used.

    • DNS name: p.googleapis.com. (include the trailing dot).

    • Service Directory namespace: Find the Service Directory namespace for the Private Service Connect endpoint you created, and use this namespace when you create the Service Directory DNS zone.

    The Service Directory namespace has the following format: goog-psc-NETWORK_NAME-NETWORK_ID.

Private DNS zone deletion fails

When you delete the last endpoint in a VPC network, the associated Service Directory configuration including the DNS zone is deleted.

This deletion can fail for these reasons:

  • You don't have the required permissions to delete the DNS zone.

  • The zone contains user-defined DNS entries that were not created by Service Directory.

To resolve this issue, do the following:

  1. Verify that you have the dns.managedZones.delete permission. For more information, see Access Control in the Cloud DNS documentation.

  2. Delete the DNS zone.