I am not sure if is a strange behavior of Google Compute Engine. I have a VM without External IP.
Now, where I click the ssh button I can still connect to it and I see the log:
External IP address was not found; defaulting to using IAP tunneling.
I have not configured any IAP though. So how can that be possible? Is then IAP tunnelling always on?
Identity Aware Proxy is a managed Google Cloud service. This service is always running. Access is controlled through IAM roles. The CLI is connecting to an IAP endpoint, requesting the creation of a TCP tunnel and then forwarding traffic to your instance via this tunnel.
If you don't set an external IP address to your VM Instance as you can see on this documentation, you will have to set any of this 3 methods to connect to your Instance: 1.- Creating a VPN, 2.- Using a Bastion Host, 3.- Using Identity and Aware Proxy
The must common is to use IAP or VPN, Bastion host method is more complicated and expensive.
Related
I'm wondering if I need port forwarding compatible Vpn given my tasks below:
Ill be connecting to aws services such as documentDB and RDS while travelling.
As a result, I plan on purchasing a dedicated IP VPN, so I can work while travelling, and add my VPN's static IP address to AWS to grant me access.
I'm working with a java spring boot backend. It connects to the documentDB and RDS and performs CRUD operations.
Does my VPN need to be port forwarding compatible?
I'm planning to purchase NordVPN with a dedicated IP, but might have to look into other VPNs port forwarding is required.
Some AWS services are VPC only, i.e. accessible only from the same VPC network. One of those services is DocumentDB, in order to connect directly from your laptop you'll have to create an ssh tunnel and port forward.
Having said that, you could have a bastion host in AWS configured with the right access, ssh (Linux) or RDP (Windows) to it and connect from that host.
The other option is https://aws.amazon.com/vpn/
I am trying to connect to a google cloud VM instance having no external IP address via cloud shell and cloud SDK.
Google document says that we can connect it using IAP
Connecting through IAP: refer using IAP
a) Grant the roles/iap.tunnelResourceAccessor role to the user that wants to connect to the VM.
b) Connect to the VM using below command
gcloud compute ssh instance-name --zone zone
OR
Using IAP for TCP forwarding: refer using TCP forwarding
we can also connect by setting a ingress firewall rule for IP '35.235.240.0/20' with port TCP:22
and select a IAM role Select Cloud IAP > IAP-Secured Tunnel User
what's the difference between these two different approach and what's the difference in these two separate IAM roles
roles/iap.tunnelResourceAccessor
IAP-secured Tunnel User
I am new to cloud so please bear with my basic knowledge.
It's exactly the same thing. Look at this page
IAP-Secured Tunnel User (roles/iap.tunnelResourceAccessor)
You have the display name of the role: IAP-Secured Tunnel User that you see in the GUI, and you have the technical name of the role roles/iap.tunnelResourceAccessor that you have to use in the script and CLI
The link mentioned in the question ("refer using IAP") actually points to the
Connecting to instances that do not have external IP addresses > Connecting through a bastion host.
Connection through a bastion host is another method apart from access via IAP.
As described in the document Connecting to instances that do not have external IP addresses > Connecting through IAP,
IAP's TCP forwarding feature wraps an SSH connection inside HTTPS.
IAP's TCP forwarding feature then sends it to the remote instance.
Therefore both parts of the question (before OR and after OR) belong to the same access method: Connect using Identity-Aware Proxy for TCP forwarding. Hence the answer to the first question is "no difference" because all of that describes how the IAP TCP forwarding works and those are the steps to set it up and use:
1. Create a firewall rule that:
applies to all VM instances that you want to be accessible by using IAP;
allows ingress traffic from the IP range 35.235.240.0/20 (this range contains all IP addresses that IAP uses for TCP forwarding);
allows connections to all ports that you want to be accessible by using IAP TCP forwarding, for example, port 22 for SSH.
2. Grant permissions to use IAP:
Use GCP Console or gcloud to add a role IAP-Secured Tunnel User (roles/iap.tunnelResourceAccessor) to users.
Note: Users with Owner access to a project always have permission to use IAP for TCP forwarding.
3. Connect to the target VM with one of the following tools:
GCP Console: use the SSH button in the Cloud Console;
gcloud compute ssh INSTANCE_NAME
There's an important explanation of how IAP TCP forwarding is invoked for accessing a VM instance without Public IP. See Identity-Aware Proxy > Doc > Using IAP for TCP forwarding:
NOTE. If the instance doesn't have a Public IP address, the connection automatically uses IAP TCP tunneling. If the instance does have a public IP address, the connection uses the public IP address instead of IAP TCP tunneling.
You can use the --tunnel-through-iap flag so that gcloud compute ssh always uses IAP TCP tunneling.
As already noted by guillaume blaquiere, roles/iap.tunnelResourceAccessor and IAP-secured Tunnel User are not the different IAM roles, but the Role Name and the Role Title of the same Role. There is one more resource that represents this in a convenient form:
Cloud IAM > Doc > Understanding roles > Predefined roles > Cloud IAP roles
How can I setup IAP tunnel to GCP windows vm with no external ip in order to rdp from outside gcp when required
Cloud IAP uses TCP forwarding to provide access via SSH or RDP to VM instances without Public IP and bastion host.
Here are quick start guides you may follow:
Protecting your cloud VMs with Cloud IAP context-aware access controls
Cloud IAP enables context-aware access to VMs via SSH and RDP without bastion hosts
I have some compute engine instances with external IPs that have firewall rules blocking SSH. These instances also have internal IPs, that have firewall rules whitelisting SSH for the IAP netblock (although the IAP help in the console incorrectly says I need to add a rule due to not enough resource, but I digress).
A related comment seems to indicate that SSH in browser will not use IAP if there's an external IP, but I wasn't sure if there was a workaround.
I can use the Google Cloud SDK to SSH into the instances with gcloud compute ssh <instance> --tunnel-through-iap, however is there a way to force the same via the browser so I can easily log in on the go?
The related comment is correct.
The document on ‘Using Cloud IAP for TCP forwarding’ describes that you can only use the SSH button in the GCP Console if the VM is configured to only have an internal IP.
There isn’t a workaround for the scenario you described but you can always check out advanced SSH methods should they work better for you.
I have two vnets that are connected using a gateway. VnET1 and VNET2. VNET2 has a VM which hosts a mongodb instance. I have a webjob running within an App service environment which is deployed into a subnet within VNET1. From this subnet i am able to access the VM in VNET2 with its DNS. But i am unable to access the VM's internal IP. Any suggestions are welcome.
An internal IP address is internal to a VNET, and VNETs are isolated from one another by design. See this site for a good overview.. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-networks-overview/. If you want to connect internally you might want to consider having multiple subnets within the same VNET instead.
At present, connecting two vnets using a gateway allows IP communication but doesn't allow DNS name resolution. In this scenario we recommend managing a local DNS server. This page shows the requirements for using your own DNS server in Azure.
Hth, Gareth