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How to connect to CloudSQL with IAM authentication

19 May, 2021
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Did you even wonder how to connect to CloudSQL with IAM authentication? Since this year, CloudSQL for PostgreSQL allows IAM users and IAM service accounts to login as a database user. In this short blog I will show you how to do this using Terraform.

How does it work?

It is pretty straight forward:

  • You enable IAM authentication on the instance
  • Create a CloudSQL IAM user in the instance
  • start the CloudSQL proxy with --enable_iam_login
  • start psql!

It is that easy!

enable CloudSQL IAM authentication

The following Terraform snippet enables IAM authentication on the database instance:

resource "google_sql_database_instance" "master" {
  name                   = "demo"
  database_version = "POSTGRES_9_6"

  settings {
    tier = "db-f1-micro"

    database_flags {
      name  = "cloudsql.iam_authentication"
      value = "on"
    }
  }
}

As you can see, this is for a PostgreSQL database. I trust MySQL support is following soon.

Create a CloudSQL IAM user

To create a CloudSQL IAM user, use the following Terraform snippet:

resource "google_sql_user" "iam_user" {
  name     = "markvanholsteijn@binx.io"
  instance = google_sql_database_instance.master.name
  type     = "CLOUD_IAM_USER"
}

resource "google_project_iam_member" "iam_user_cloudsql_instance_user" {
  role   = "roles/cloudsql.instanceUser"
  member = format("user:%s", google_sql_user.iam_user.name)
}

resource "google_project_iam_member" "iam_user_cloudsql_client" {
  role   = "roles/cloudsql.client"
  member = format("user:%s", google_sql_user.iam_user.name)
}

As you can see, you specify the email address of the Google Cloud identity and specify the type as CLOUD_IAM_USER. The IAM user requires the roles cloudsql.instanceUser and cloudsql.client to connect. For service accounts, specify the type CLOUD_IAM_SERVICE_ACCOUNT.

start CloudSQL proxy

To start the CloudSQL Proxy, type:

$ CONNECTION=$(gcloud sql instances 
    describe demo --format 'value(connectionName)')

$ cloud_sql_proxy 
  --instances $CONNECTION=tcp:5432 --enable_iam_login  &

In this snippet above, I query the connection name using gcloud. The connection name normally has the format <project>:<region>:<name>. The CloudSQL Proxy will automatically refresh tokens for you behind the scenes.

start psql

To connect to the PostgreSQL database using your gcloud credentials, type:

$ psql "sslmode=disable dbname=postgres host=127.0.0.1 user=markvanholsteijn@binx.io"
psql (13.3, server 9.6.21)
postgres=>

As you can see, you connect with sslmode=disable. The CloudSQL proxy already encrypts the connection for you.

Conclusion

With CloudSQL IAM authentication support it is very easy to grant users access to a CloudSQL database without a password. There is no password to generate and distribute, so it is impossible to leak it. Combined with limiting the lifetime of the gcloud SDK credentials, this is a big security improvement. I recommend using CloudSQL IAM authentication for all your CloudSQL databases.

Image by markvanholsteijn from Pixabay

Mark van Holsteijn
Mark van Holsteijn is a senior software systems architect at Xebia Cloud-native solutions. He is passionate about removing waste in the software delivery process and keeping things clear and simple.
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