e30chris / GCP-Packer-Ansible-ProFTPd

Baked GCE VM with ProFTPd Server

GCP-Packer-Ansible-ProFTPd

Baked GCE VM with ProFTPd Server

Building the Bakery GCE VM

There are two methods to run the GCE Bakery on GCP.

Using GCP Cloud Build

• pros:
  • as-a-service convience
  • most of the wiring is done for you
• cons:
  • runs from a GCP Project owned by GCP requiring access to your GCP Project from a public IP
    • traffic originating within the GCP network, addressed to the GCP network, does not leave Google fiber and thereforenever traverses the public internet
  • pushes the complexity into building the many steps needed to pull Packer and Ansible down into Cloud Build environment,and then feed the files into each

Using a GCE VM running in a GCP "Bakery" Project

• pros:
  • uses the default GCE Compute Service Account so no needed .json files containing secrets to manage
  • traffic never leaves your GCP Project
  • outbound internet traffic can be segmented to this isolated GCP Project containing the GCE Bakery
  • files for Packer and Ansible can be pulled locally from Git
• cons:
  • requires Packer and Ansible to be installed on the GCE VM
  • requires the GCE Bakery VM to be managed
  • chicken and egg requires the GCE Bakery VM to be built manually

This repo assumes method #2.

To build the GCE Bakery VM, run the following API calls to create a GCE VM with API scopes to then build any GCE VM in the bakery. Change any flags to match your infrastructure requirements.

gcloud compute instances create gce-bakery \
--image-family ubuntu-1804-lts \
--image-project gce-uefi-images \
--network projects/simplifymycloud-dev/global/networks/smc-dev-net-worldwide \
--zone us-west1-c \
--scopes "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.full_control"

notes:

• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS defaults to Ansible 2.2 which does not have force_apt_get which then defaults to Aptitude which Ubuntu 18.04 also does not have
• install latest Ansible 2.5 in order to use force_apt_get: yes
• Aptitude is not available on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS GCE image family and therefore the force_apt_get: yes Ansible call must be used for all apt runs
• ProFTPd requires allow_unauthenticated: yes