Google Cloud Project Factory Terraform Module

FAQ | Troubleshooting Guide | Glossary.

This module allows you to create opinionated Google Cloud Platform projects. It creates projects and configures aspects like Shared VPC connectivity, IAM access, Service Accounts, and API enablement to follow best practices.

To include G Suite integration for creating groups and adding Service Accounts into groups, use the gsuite_enabled module.

Upgrading

The current version is 2.X. The following guides are available to assist with upgrades:

• 0.X -> 1.0
• 1.X -> 2.0

Usage

There are multiple examples included in the examples folder but simple usage is as follows:

module "project-factory" {
  source  = "terraform-google-modules/project-factory/google"
  version = "~> 2.0"

  name                = "pf-test-1"
  random_project_id   = "true"
  org_id              = "1234567890"
  usage_bucket_name   = "pf-test-1-usage-report-bucket"
  usage_bucket_prefix = "pf/test/1/integration"
  billing_account     = "ABCDEF-ABCDEF-ABCDEF"
  shared_vpc          = "shared_vpc_host_name"

  shared_vpc_subnets = [
    "projects/base-project-196723/regions/us-east1/subnetworks/default",
    "projects/base-project-196723/regions/us-central1/subnetworks/default",
    "projects/base-project-196723/regions/us-central1/subnetworks/subnet-1",
  ]
}

Features

The Project Factory module will take the following actions:

1. Create a new GCP project using the project_name.

2. If a shared VPC is specified, attach the new project to the shared_vpc.

   It will also give the following users network access on the specified subnets:

   • The project's new default service account (see step 4)
   • The Google API service account for the project
   • The project controlling group specified in group_name

3. Delete the default compute service account.

4. Create a new default service account for the project.

   1. Give it access to the shared VPC (to be able to launch instances).

5. Attach the billing account (billing_account) to the project.

6. Give the controlling group access to the project, with the group_role.

7. Enable the required and specified APIs (activate_apis).

8. Delete the default network.

9. Enable usage report for GCE into central project bucket (target_usage_bucket), if provided.

10. If specified, create the GCS bucket bucket_name and give the following accounts Storage Admin on it:

    1. The controlling group (group_name).
    2. The new default compute service account created for the project.
    3. The Google APIs service account for the project.

The roles granted are specifically:

• New Default Service Account
  • compute.networkUser on host project or specified subnets
  • storage.admin on bucket_name GCS bucket
• group_name is the controlling group
  • compute.networkUser on host project or specific subnets
  • Specified group_role on project
  • iam.serviceAccountUser on the default Service Account
  • storage.admin on bucket_name GCS bucket
• Google APIs Service Account
  • compute.networkUser on host project or specified subnets
  • storage.admin on bucket_name GCS bucket

Shared VPC subnets and IAM permissions

A service project's access to shared VPC networks is controlled via the roles/compute.networkUser role and the location to where that role is assigned. If that role is assigned to the shared VPC host project, then the service project will have access to all shared VPC subnetworks. If that role is assigned to individual subnetworks, then the service project will have access to only the subnetworks on which that role was assigned. The logic for determining that location is as follows:

1. If var.shared_vpc and var.shared_vpc_subnets are not set then the compute.networkUser role is not assigned
2. If var.shared_vpc is set but no subnetworks are provided via var.shared_vpc_subnets then the compute.networkUser role is assigned at the host project and the service project will have access to all shared VPC subnetworks
3. If var.shared_vpc is set and var.shared_vpc_subnets contains an array of subnetworks then the compute.networkUser role is assigned to each subnetwork in the array

Inputs

Name	Description	Type	Default	Required
activate_apis	The list of apis to activate within the project	list	<list>	no
apis_authority	Toggles authoritative management of project services.	string	"false"	no
auto_create_network	Create the default network	string	"false"	no
billing_account	The ID of the billing account to associate this project with	string	n/a	yes
bucket_location	The location for a GCS bucket to create (optional)	string	"US"	no
bucket_name	A name for a GCS bucket to create (in the bucket_project project), useful for Terraform state (optional)	string	""	no
bucket_project	A project to create a GCS bucket (bucket_name) in, useful for Terraform state (optional)	string	""	no
credentials_path	Path to a service account credentials file with rights to run the Project Factory. If this file is absent Terraform will fall back to Application Default Credentials.	string	""	no
default_service_account	Project default service account setting: (delete	depriviledge	keep)	string
disable_dependent_services	Whether services that are enabled and which depend on this service should also be disabled when this service is destroyed.	string	"true"	no
disable_services_on_destroy	Whether project services will be disabled when the resources are destroyed	string	"true"	no
domain	The domain name (optional).	string	""	no
folder_id	The ID of a folder to host this project	string	""	no
group_name	A group to control the project by being assigned group_role (defaults to project editor)	string	""	no
group_role	The role to give the controlling group (group_name) over the project (defaults to project editor)	string	"roles/editor"	no
labels	Map of labels for project	map	<map>	no
lien	Add a lien on the project to prevent accidental deletion	string	"false"	no
name	The name for the project	string	n/a	yes
org_id	The organization ID.	string	n/a	yes
project_id	If provided, the project uses the given project ID. Mutually exclusive with random_project_id being true.	string	""	no
random_project_id	Enables project random id generation. Mutually exclusive with project_id being non-empty.	string	"false"	no
sa_role	A role to give the default Service Account for the project (defaults to none)	string	""	no
shared_vpc	The ID of the host project which hosts the shared VPC	string	""	no
shared_vpc_subnets	List of subnets fully qualified subnet IDs (ie. projects/$project_id/regions/$region/subnetworks/$subnet_id)	list	<list>	no
usage_bucket_name	Name of a GCS bucket to store GCE usage reports in (optional)	string	""	no
usage_bucket_prefix	Prefix in the GCS bucket to store GCE usage reports in (optional)	string	""	no

Outputs

Name	Description
domain	The organization's domain
group_email	The email of the GSuite group with group_name
project_bucket_self_link	Project's bucket selfLink
project_bucket_url	Project's bucket url
project_id
project_name
project_number
service_account_display_name	The display name of the default service account
service_account_email	The email of the default service account
service_account_id	The id of the default service account
service_account_name	The fully-qualified name of the default service account
service_account_unique_id	The unique id of the default service account

Requirements

Software

• [gcloud sdk](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/install] >= 206.0.0
• jq >= 1.6
• Terraform 0.11.x
• terraform-provider-google plugin 2.1.x
• terraform-provider-google-beta plugin 2.1.x
• terraform-provider-gsuite plugin 0.1.x if GSuite functionality is desired

Permissions

In order to execute this module you must have a Service Account with the following roles:

• roles/resourcemanager.folderViewer on the folder that you want to create the project in
• roles/resourcemanager.organizationViewer on the organization
• roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator on the organization
• roles/billing.user on the organization
• roles/storage.admin on bucket_project
• If you are using shared VPC:
  • roles/billing.user on the organization
  • roles/compute.xpnAdmin on the organization
  • roles/compute.networkAdmin on the organization
  • roles/browser on the Shared VPC host project
  • roles/resourcemanager.projectIamAdmin on the Shared VPC host project

Script Helper

A helper script is included to create the Seed Service Account in the Seed Project, grant the necessary roles to the Seed Service Account, and enable the necessary API's in the Seed Project. Run it as follows:

./helpers/setup-sa.sh <ORGANIZATION_ID> <SEED_PROJECT_NAME>

Specifying credentials

The Project Factory uses external scripts to perform a few tasks that are not implemented by Terraform providers. Because of this the Project Factory needs a copy of service account credentials to pass to these scripts. Credentials can be provided via two mechanisms:

1. Explicitly passed to the Project Factory with the credentials_path variable. This approach typically uses the same credentials for the google provider and the Project Factory:

   provider "google" {
     credentials = "${file(var.credentials_path)}"
     version = "~> 1.20"
   }
   
   module "project-factory" {
     source = "terraform-google-modules/project-factory/google"
   
     name             = "explicit-credentials"
     credentials_path = "${var.credentials_path}"
     # other variables follow ...
   }

2. Implicitly provided by the Application Default Credentials flow, which typically uses the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable:

   # `GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS` must be set in the environment before Terraform is run.
   provider "google" {
     # Terraform will check the `GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS` variable, so no `credentials`
     # value is needed here.
      version = "~> 1.20"
   }
   
   module "project-factory" {
      source = "terraform-google-modules/project-factory/google"
   
      name = "adc-credentials"
      # Project Factory will also check the `GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS` environment variable.
      # other variables follow ...
   }

APIs

In order to operate the Project Factory, you must activate the following APIs on the base project where the Service Account was created:

• Cloud Resource Manager API - cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com troubleshooting
• Cloud Billing API - cloudbilling.googleapis.com troubleshooting
• Identity and Access Management API - iam.googleapis.com troubleshooting
• Admin SDK - admin.googleapis.com troubleshooting

Optional APIs

• Google App Engine Admin API - appengine.googleapis.com troubleshooting
  • This is required if you're using the app_engine input

Verifying setup

A preconditions checker script is included to verify that all preconditions are met before the Project Factory runs. The script will run automatically if the script dependencies (Python, "google-auth", and "google-api-python-client") are available at runtime. If the dependencies are not met, the precondition checking step will be skipped.

The precondition checker script can be directly invoked before running the project factory:

./modules/core_project_factory/scripts/preconditions/preconditions.py \
  --credentials_path "./credentials.json" \
  --billing_account 000000-000000-000000 \
  --org_id 000000000000 \
  --folder_id 000000000000 \
  --shared_vpc 'shared-vpc-host-ed64'

Caveats

Moving projects from org into a folder

There is currently a bug with moving a project which was originally created at the root of the organization into a folder. The bug and workaround is described here, but as a general best practice it is easier to create all projects within folders to start. Moving projects between different folders is supported.

G Suite

The core Project Factory solely deals with GCP APIs and does not integrate G Suite functionality. If you would like certain group-management functionality which was previously included in the Project Factory, see the G Suite module.

Install

Terraform

Be sure you have the correct Terraform version (0.11.x), you can choose the binary here:

• https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/

Development

Requirements

• terraform-docs 0.3.0
• Ruby 2.3 or greater
• Bundler 1.10 or greater

File structure

The project has the following folders and files:

• /: root folder
• /examples: examples for using this module
• /scripts: Scripts for specific tasks on module (see Infrastructure section on this file)
• /test: Folders with files for testing the module (see Testing section on this file)
• /helpers: Optional helper scripts for ease of use
• /main.tf: main file for this module, contains all the resources to create
• /variables.tf: all the variables for the module
• /output.tf: the outputs of the module
• /readme.md: this file

Integration testing

Integration tests are run though test-kitchen, kitchen-terraform, and InSpec.

Two test-kitchen instances are defined:

• full-local - Test coverage for all project-factory features.
• full-minimal - Test coverage for a minimal set of project-factory features.

Setup

1. Configure the test fixtures.

2. Download a Service Account key with the necessary permissions and put it in the module's root directory with the name credentials.json.

3. Add appropriate variables to your environment

   export BILLING_ACCOUNT_ID="YOUR_BILLUNG_ACCOUNT"
   export DOMAIN="YOUR_DOMAIN"
   export FOLDER_ID="YOUR_FOLDER_ID"
   export GROUP_NAME="YOUR_GROUP_NAME"
   export ADMIN_ACCOUNT_EMAIL="YOUR_ADMIN_ACCOUNT_EMAIL"
   export ORG_ID="YOUR_ORG_ID"
   export PROJECT_ID="YOUR_PROJECT_ID"
   CREDENTIALS_FILE="credentials.json"
   export SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON=`cat ${CREDENTIALS_FILE}`
   

4. Run the testing container in interactive mode.

   make docker_run
   

   The module root directory will be loaded into the Docker container at /cft/workdir/.

5. Run kitchen-terraform to test the infrastructure.

   1. kitchen create creates Terraform state.
   2. kitchen converge creates the underlying resources. You can run kitchen converge minimal to only create the minimal fixture.
   3. kitchen verify tests the created infrastructure. Run kitchen verify minimal to run the smaller test suite.
   4. kitchen destroy removes the created infrastructure. Run kitchen destroy minimal to remove the smaller test suite.

Alternatively, you can simply run make test_integration_docker to run all the test steps non-interactively.

Test configuration

Each test-kitchen instance is configured with a terraform.tfvars file in the test fixture directory. For convenience, these are symlinked to a single shared file:

cp "test/fixtures/shared/terraform.tfvars.example" \
  "test/fixtures/shared/terraform.tfvars"
$EDITOR "test/fixtures/shared/terraform.tfvars"
done

Integration tests can be run within a pre-configured docker container. Tests can be run without user interaction for quick validation, or with user interaction during development.

Autogeneration of documentation from .tf files

Run

make generate_docs

Linting

The makefile in this project will lint or sometimes just format any shell, Python, golang, Terraform, or Dockerfiles. The linters will only be run if the makefile finds files with the appropriate file extension.

All of the linter checks are in the default make target, so you just have to run

make -s

The -s is for 'silent'. Successful output looks like this

Running shellcheck
Running flake8
Running gofmt
Running terraform validate
Running hadolint on Dockerfiles
Test passed - Verified all file Apache 2 headers

The linters are as follows:

• Shell - shellcheck. Can be found in homebrew
• Python - flake8. Can be installed with 'pip install flake8'
• Golang - gofmt. gofmt comes with the standard golang installation. golang is a compiled language so there is no standard linter.
• Terraform - terraform has a built-in linter in the 'terraform validate' command.
• Dockerfiles - hadolint. Can be found in homebrew

Releasing New Versions

New versions can be released by pushing tags to this repository's origin on GitHub. There is a Make target to facilitate the process:

make release-new-version

The new version must be documented in CHANGELOG.md for the target to work.

See the Terraform documentation for more info on releasing new versions.