GCP provider

Install the GCP provider

Install the provider into the Kubernetes cluster with a Kubernetes configuration file.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1
kind: Provider
metadata:
  name: upbound-provider-gcp
spec:
  package: xpkg.upbound.io/upbound/provider-gcp:v0.28.0
EOF

The kind: Provider uses the Crossplane Provider Custom Resource Definition to connect your Kubernetes cluster to your cloud provider.

Verify the provider installed with kubectl get providers.

kubectl get providers
NAME                   INSTALLED   HEALTHY   PACKAGE                                        AGE
upbound-provider-gcp   True        True      xpkg.upbound.io/upbound/provider-gcp:v0.28.0   107s

A provider installs their own Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). These CRDs allow you to create GCP resources directly inside Kubernetes.

You can view the new CRDs with kubectl get crds. Every CRD maps to a unique GCP service Crossplane can provision and manage.

Create a Kubernetes secret for GCP

The provider requires credentials to create and manage GCP resources. Providers use a Kubernetes Secret to connect the credentials to the provider.

First generate a Kubernetes Secret from a Google Cloud service account JSON file and then configure the Provider to use it.

Generate a GCP service account JSON file

For basic user authentication, use a Google Cloud service account JSON file.

Save this JSON file as gcp-credentials.json

Create a Kubernetes secret with the GCP credentials

A Kubernetes generic secret has a name and contents. Use kubectl create secret to generate the secret object named gcp-secret in the crossplane-system namespace. Use the --from-file= argument to set the value to the contents of the gcp-credentials.json file.

kubectl create secret \
generic gcp-secret \
-n crossplane-system \
--from-file=creds=./gcp-credentials.json

View the secret with kubectl describe secret

kubectl describe secret gcp-secret -n crossplane-system
Name:         gcp-secret
Namespace:    crossplane-system
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>

Type:  Opaque

Data
====
creds:  2330 bytes

Create a ProviderConfig

A ProviderConfig customizes the settings of the GCP Provider.

Apply the ProviderConfig . Include your GCP project ID in the ProviderConfig settings.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: gcp.upbound.io/v1beta1
kind: ProviderConfig
metadata:
  name: default
spec:
  projectID: 
  credentials:
    source: Secret
    secretRef:
      namespace: crossplane-system
      name: gcp-secret
      key: creds
EOF

This attaches the GCP credentials, saved as a Kubernetes secret, as a secretRef .

The spec.credentials.secretRef.name value is the name of the Kubernetes secret containing the GCP credentials in the spec.credentials.secretRef.namespace .