App in a Box is a series of applications that are prebuilt and architected to demonstrate common application architectures and share projects that can repurposed to support your needs. Each one just requires one command to run and when the process is done, a fully function version of the app is available and running, ready to use or modify.
YesOrNoSite is a simple static website creator, that makes a simple site using a Storage Bucket to serve the website:
Click on the link below to a copy of the source code in Cloud Shell. Once there, a single command will spin up a workng copy of the application in your project.
Also feel free to review the source code directly in github.
View source code
Use the links below to get more information on the piece we used in this Application. Choose how you learn best: video, product documentation, or interactive walkthrough.
Cloud Storage provides file storage and webserving with an industry standard interface.
Cloud DNS provides DNS management - allowing you to run your own DNS infrastructure using Google's existing DNS infrastructure.
Google Cloud Load Balancer allows you to place a load balancer in front of the Storage Bucket - allowing you to use SSL certificates, Logging and Monitoring.
Cloud Domains allows you to buy domains, acting like a Domain Registrar - but once you do, you can manage them and handle billing through your Google Cloud Account.
The install script uses the gcloud and gsutil CLI tools to take an empty project and
install the application in it. The output should be a working application and a url to the
Cloud Run service for the front end.
./installGoogle Cloud Services are disabled in a project by default. In order to use any of the solutions here we have to activate the following:
gcloud services enable domains.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable storage.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable dns.googleapis.com
Gets information about the availability of the domain being requested
gcloud beta domains registrations search-domains $DOMAIN \
--format="csv(DOMAIN,AVAILABILITY,YEARLY_PRICE
Gets information whether or not the current user owns the requested domain.
gcloud domains list-user-verified
Creates a DNS Zone for managing records, pointing them at load balancers and what not.
gcloud dns managed-zones create $CLOUDDNSZONE \
--description="A DNS Zone for managing $DOMAIN" \
--dns-name=$DOMAIN -q
Actually performs the operation to purchase the domain from the registar.
gcloud beta domains registrations register $DOMAIN \
--contact-privacy=private-contact-data --cloud-dns-zone=$CLOUDDNSZONE \
--yearly-price=$COST --contact-data-from-file=contact.yaml
SSL certificates are required for https protocal requests, and they take a little bit of time.
gcloud compute ssl-certificates create $BASENAME-cert \
--description="Cert for $BASENAME-microsite" \
--domains=$DOMAIN --global
Needed to bind a host to the domain name, and communicate in general on the Internet.
gcloud compute addresses create $BASENAME-ip \
--network-tier=PREMIUM --ip-version=IPV4 --global
This creates a bucket nameed after the domain, and also sets the bucket up with proper configuration to act as a webserver. It also copies the simple template for the site.
gsutil mb gs://$BUCKET
gsutil iam ch allUsers:objectViewer gs://$BUCKET
gsutil web set -m index.html -e 404.html gs://$BUCKET
gsutil cp -r www/$YESORNO/* gs://$BUCKET/
This creates the load balancer and sets up the Storage Bucket as the source of the webserver content to which the load balancer will provide access.
gcloud compute backend-buckets create $BASENAME-be \
--gcs-bucket-name=$DOMAIN
gcloud compute url-maps create $BASENAME-lb \
--default-backend-bucket=$BASENAME-be
Creates the neccessary networking rules to point port 80 on the load balancer to the service we are running.
gcloud compute target-http-proxies create $BASENAME-lb-proxy \
--url-map=$BASENAME-lb
gcloud compute forwarding-rules create $BASENAME-http-lb-forwarding-rule \
--address=$BASENAME-ip --global --target-http-proxy=$BASENAME-lb-proxy \
--ports=80
Creates the neccessary networking rules to point port 443 on the load balancer to the service we are running. Also associates the certificate properly.
gcloud compute target-https-proxies create $BASENAME-ssl-lb-proxy \
--url-map=$BASENAME-lb --ssl-certificates $BASENAME-cert \
--global-ssl-certificates --global
gcloud compute forwarding-rules create $BASENAME-https-lb-forwarding-rule \
--address=$BASENAME-ip --global --target-https-proxy=$BASENAME-ssl-lb-proxy \
--ports=443
Creates the proper rule in Cloud DNS that will make the domain name resolve to the IP address we created.
gcloud dns record-sets transaction start --zone=$CLOUDDNSZONE
gcloud dns record-sets transaction add $IP --name=$DOMAIN \
--ttl=60 --type=A --zone=$CLOUDDNSZONE
gcloud dns record-sets transaction execute --zone=$CLOUDDNSZONE