AlloyDB Auth Proxy

The AlloyDB Auth Proxy is a binary that provides IAM-based authorization and encryption when connecting to an AlloyDB instance.

See the Connecting Overview page for more information on connecting to an AlloyDB instance, or the About the proxy page for details on how the AlloyDB Auth Proxy works.

If you're using Go, Python, or Java, consider using the corresponding AlloyDB Connector which does everything the Proxy does, but in a native process:

• AlloyDB Go Connector
• AlloyDB Python Connector
• AlloyDB Java Connector

Note: The Proxy cannot provide a network path to an AlloyDB instance if one is not already present (e.g., the proxy cannot access a VPC if it does not already have access to it).

Installation

Check for the latest version on the releases page and use the following instructions for your OS and CPU architecture.

Linux amd64

# see Releases for other versions
URL="https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3"

wget "$URL/alloydb-auth-proxy.linux.amd64" -O alloydb-auth-proxy

chmod +x alloydb-auth-proxy

Linux 386

# see Releases for other versions
URL="https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3"

wget "$URL/alloydb-auth-proxy.linux.386" -O alloydb-auth-proxy

chmod +x alloydb-auth-proxy

Linux arm64

# see Releases for other versions
URL="https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3"

wget "$URL/alloydb-auth-proxy.linux.arm64" -O alloydb-auth-proxy

chmod +x alloydb-auth-proxy

Linux arm

# see Releases for other versions
URL="https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3"

wget "$URL/alloydb-auth-proxy.linux.arm" -O alloydb-auth-proxy

chmod +x alloydb-auth-proxy

Mac (Intel)

# see Releases for other versions
URL="https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3"

wget "$URL/alloydb-auth-proxy.darwin.amd64" -O alloydb-auth-proxy

chmod +x alloydb-auth-proxy

Mac (Apple Silicon)

# see Releases for other versions
URL="https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3"

wget "$URL/alloydb-auth-proxy.darwin.arm64" -O alloydb-auth-proxy

chmod +x alloydb-auth-proxy

Windows x64

# see Releases for other versions
wget https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3/alloydb-auth-proxy-x64.exe -O alloydb-auth-proxy.exe

Windows x86

# see Releases for other versions
wget https://storage.googleapis.com/alloydb-auth-proxy/v1.11.3/alloydb-auth-proxy-x86.exe -O alloydb-auth-proxy.exe

Container Images

There are containerized versions of the proxy available from the following Artifact Registry repositories:

• gcr.io/alloydb-connectors/alloydb-auth-proxy
• us.gcr.io/alloydb-connectors/alloydb-auth-proxy
• eu.gcr.io/alloydb-connectors/alloydb-auth-proxy
• asia.gcr.io/alloydb-connectors/alloydb-auth-proxy

Note

The above container images were migrated from Google Container Registry (deprecated) to Artifact Registry which is why they begin with the old naming pattern (gcr.io)

Each image is tagged with the associated proxy version. The following tags are currently supported:

• $VERSION (default)
• $VERSION-alpine
• $VERSION-bullseye
• $VERSION-bookworm

The $VERSION is the Proxy version without the leading "v" (e.g., 1.11.3).

For example, to pull a particular version, use a command like:

# $VERSION is 1.11.3
docker pull gcr.io/alloydb-connectors/alloydb-auth-proxy:1.11.3

We recommend pinning to a specific version tag and using automation with a CI pipeline to update regularly.

The default container image uses distroless with a non-root user. If you need a shell or related tools, use the Alpine or Debian-based containers (bullseye or bookworm) images listed above.

Install from Source

To install from source, ensure you have the latest version of Go installed.

Then, simply run:

go install github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/alloydb-auth-proxy@latest

The alloydb-auth-proxy will be placed in $GOPATH/bin or $HOME/go/bin.

Credentials

The AlloyDB Auth Proxy uses a Cloud IAM account to authorize connections against an AlloyDB instance. The proxy supports the following options:

1. A -credential-file flag for a service account key file.
2. A -token flag for a OAuth2 Bearer token
3. Application Default Credentials (ADC) if neither of the above have been set.

Any principal connecting to an AlloyDB instance will need the following IAM roles or equivalent permissions:

• Cloud AlloyDB Client (roles/alloydb.client)
• Service Usage Consumer (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageConsumer)

See Roles and Permissions in AlloyDB for details.

When the proxy authenticates under the Compute Engine VM's default service account, the VM must have the cloud-platform API scope (i.e., "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform") and the associated project must have the AlloyDB API enabled. The default service account must also have at least writer or editor privileges to any projects of target AlloyDB instances.

Usage

All the following invocations assume valid credentials are present in the environment. The following examples all reference an INSTANCE_URI, which takes the form:

projects/<PROJECT>/locations/<REGION>/clusters/<CLUSTER>/instances/<INSTANCE>

To find the INSTANCE_URI, take the name from:

# To find your instance in among all instances
gcloud alpha alloydb instances list

# or to describe your particular instance
gcloud alpha alloydb instances describe \
    --cluster <CLUSTER_NAME> \
    --region <REGION> \
    <INSTANCE_NAME>

Example invocations

Note: the following invocations assume you have downloaded the alloydb-auth-proxy into the same directory. Consider moving the proxy into a well-known location to have it available on your PATH.

# Starts the proxy listening on 127.0.0.1:5432
./alloydb-auth-proxy <INSTANCE_URI>

To connect to multiple instances, use:

# For instance 1, the proxy listens on 127.0.0.1:5432
# For instance 2, the proxy listens on 127.0.0.1:5433
./alloydb-auth-proxy <INSTANCE_URI_1> <INSTANCE_URI_2>

To override the default address the proxy listens on, use the --address flag:

# Starts the proxy listening on 0.0.0.0:5432
./alloydb-auth-proxy --address 0.0.0.0 <INSTANCE_URI>

To override the default port, use the --port flag:

# Starts the proxy listening on 127.0.0.1:6000
./alloydb-auth-proxy --port 6000 <INSTANCE_URI>

In addition, both address and port may be overrided on a per-instance level with a query-string style syntax:

./alloydb-auth-proxy \
    '<INSTANCE_URI_1>?address=0.0.0.0&port=6000' \
    '<INSTANCE_URI_2>?address=127.0.0.1&port=7000'

For Auto IAM Authentication, make sure to run the Proxy as the same IAM principal as the user you want to log in as, and start the Proxy like so:

./alloydb-auth-proxy \
    --auto-iam-authn \
    <INSTANCe_URI>

Note: when using the query-string syntax, the instance URI and query parameters must be wrapped in quotes.

Config file

The Proxy supports a configuration file. Supported file types are TOML, JSON, and YAML. Load the file with the --config-file flag:

./alloydb-auth-proxy --config-file /path/to/config.[toml|json|yaml]

The configuration file format supports all flags. The key names should match the flag names. For example:

# use instance-uri-0, instance-uri-1, etc.
# for multiple instances
instance-uri = "<INSTANCE_URI>"
auto-iam-authn = true
debug = true
debug-logs = true

Run ./alloydb-auth-proxy --help for more details.

Running behind a Socks5 proxy

The AlloyDB Auth Proxy includes support for sending requests through a SOCKS5 proxy. If a SOCKS5 proxy is running on localhost:8000, the command to start the AlloyDB Auth Proxy would look like:

ALL_PROXY=socks5://localhost:8000 \
HTTPS_PROXY=socks5://localhost:8000 \
    ./alloydb-auth-proxy <INSTANCE_URI>

The ALL_PROXY environment variable specifies the proxy for all TCP traffic to and from a AlloyDB instance. The ALL_PROXY environment variable supports socks5 and socks5h protocols. To route DNS lookups through a proxy, use the socks5h protocol.

The HTTPS_PROXY (or HTTP_PROXY) specifies the proxy for all HTTP(S) traffic to the AlloyDB Admin API. Specifying HTTPS_PROXY or HTTP_PROXY is only necessary when you want to proxy this traffic. Otherwise, it is optional. See http.ProxyFromEnvironment for possible values.

Support for Metrics and Tracing

The Proxy supports Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace, and Prometheus.

Supported metrics include:

• alloydbconn/dial_latency: The distribution of dialer latencies (ms)
• alloydbconn/open_connections: The current number of open AlloyDB connections
• alloydbconn/dial_failure_count: The number of failed dial attempts
• alloydbconn/refresh_success_count: The number of successful certificate refresh operations
• alloydbconn/refresh_failure_count: The number of failed refresh operations.

Supported traces include:

• cloud.google.com/go/alloydbconn.Dial: The dial operation including refreshing an ephemeral certificate and connecting to the instance
• cloud.google.com/go/alloydbconn/internal.InstanceInfo: The call to retrieve instance metadata (e.g., IP address, etc)
• cloud.google.com/go/alloydbconn/internal.Connect: The connection attempt using the ephemeral certificate
• AlloyDB API client operations

To enable Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Trace, use the --telemetry-project flag with the project where you want to view metrics and traces. To configure the metrics prefix used by Cloud Monitoring, use the --telemetry-prefix flag. When enabling telementry, both Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Trace are enabled. To disable Cloud Monitoring, use --disable-metrics. To disable Cloud Trace, use --disable-traces.

To enable Prometheus, use the --prometheus flag. This will start an HTTP server on localhost with a /metrics endpoint. The Prometheus namespace may optionally be set with --prometheus-namespace.

Debug logging

To enable debug logging to report on internal certificate refresh operations, use the --debug-logs flag. Typical use of the Proxy should not require debug logs, but if you are surprised by the Proxy's behavior, debug logging should provide insight into internal operations and can help when reporting issues.

Localhost Admin Server

The Proxy includes support for an admin server on localhost. By default, the admin server is not enabled. To enable the server, pass the --debug or --quitquitquit flag. This will start the server on localhost at port 9091. To change the port, use the --admin-port flag.

When --debug is set, the admin server enables Go's profiler available at /debug/pprof/.

See the documentation on pprof for details on how to use the profiler.

When --quitquitquit is set, the admin server adds an endpoint at /quitquitquit. The admin server exits gracefully when it receives a POST request at /quitquitquit.

Support policy

Major version lifecycle

This project uses semantic versioning, and uses the following lifecycle regarding support for a major version:

Active - Active versions get all new features and security fixes (that wouldn’t otherwise introduce a breaking change). New major versions are guaranteed to be "active" for a minimum of 1 year.

Deprecated - Deprecated versions continue to receive security and critical bug fixes, but do not receive new features. Deprecated versions will be publicly supported for 1 year.

Unsupported - Any major version that has been deprecated for >=1 year is considered publicly unsupported.

Supported Go Versions

We test and support at least the latest 3 Go versions. Changes in supported Go versions will be considered a minor change, and will be noted in the release notes.

Release cadence

The AlloyDB Auth Proxy aims for a minimum monthly release cadence. If no new features or fixes have been added, a new PATCH version with the latest dependencies is released.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please, see the CONTRIBUTING document for details.

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms. See Contributor Code of Conduct for more information.