What is Cloud Run

Google Cloud Run is a fully managed serverless platform that enables you to deploy and scale containerized applications quickly and cost-effectively. Built on the open-source Knative framework, Cloud Run automatically handles infrastructure management, scaling, and load balancing, allowing developers to focus on writing code rather than managing servers.

Key benefits of Google Cloud Run include:

• Serverless scaling: Automatically scales from zero to thousands of instances based on traffic
• Pay-per-use: You only pay for the compute time you actually use
• Container support: Deploy any containerized application that listens for requests
• Fast deployments: Deploy new versions in seconds with zero downtime
• Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Google Cloud services
• Portability: Uses standard containers, so your apps can run anywhere

Cloud Run is perfect for web applications, APIs, microservices, and batch jobs. Whether you're building a simple web service or a complex distributed system, Cloud Run provides the flexibility and reliability you need.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk through the complete process of taking a Docker image you built locally and deploying it to Google Cloud Run. You'll learn how to use gcloud CLI, Cloud Build, and Artifact Registry to create a production-ready containerized service.

Prerequisites

Before you start:

• You have installed and initialized the gcloud CLI. See How to Install gcloud CLI.
• Docker is installed and working on your local machine.

1. Log In and Set Your Project

Authenticate with Google Cloud and pick your project:

gcloud auth login

Choose your project

gcloud config set project YOUR_PROJECT_ID
PROJECT_ID=$(gcloud config get-value project)

2. Choose a Region

Set a default region for your Cloud Run service. For example:

REGION=us-central1

3. Enable Required APIs

Enable the APIs you need for Cloud Run and Artifact Registry:

gcloud services enable \
  artifactregistry.googleapis.com \
  cloudbuild.googleapis.com \
  run.googleapis.com

4. Build and Test Your Docker Image Locally

1. Build the image:

   docker build -t my-app:latest .
   

2. Run it locally to make sure it works:

   docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 my-app:latest
   

If your app runs on port 8080 locally, you’re good to go.

5. Push to Artifact Registry via Cloud Build

Google recommends using Cloud Build to build your image and store it in Artifact Registry:

1. Configure Docker authentication:

   gcloud auth configure-docker ${REGION}-docker.pkg.dev
   

2. Set a repository path:

   REPO=${REGION}-docker.pkg.dev/${PROJECT_ID}/my-repo
   

3. Create a cloudbuild.yaml file:

   steps:
   - name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
     args: ['build', '-t', '${REPO}/my-app:latest', '.']
   images:
   - '${REPO}/my-app:latest'
   

4. Submit the build:

   gcloud builds submit --region=$REGION --config=cloudbuild.yaml
   

This command builds your container and pushes it to Artifact Registry.

6. Deploy to Cloud Run

Deploy the image to Cloud Run and allow public access:

gcloud run deploy my-app \
  --image ${REPO}/my-app:latest \
  --region $REGION \
  --platform managed \
  --allow-unauthenticated

After a moment, you will see a URL for your live service.

7. Test Your Cloud Run Service

List your services and find the URL:

gcloud run services list --region $REGION

Open the URL in your browser or use curl to test your API.

Tips and Best Practices

• Keep your .env file out of Git, but ensure needed variables are set during build.
• Use Cloud Build secrets or KMS to manage sensitive data.
• Monitor logs with gcloud logs read
• Clean up unused services and images to avoid extra costs.
• Configuration files: If your application uses YAML configuration files that are excluded in .gitignore, Cloud Build will also ignore them. Temporarily comment out those lines in .gitignore to ensure your configuration files are included in the container build.
• Debugging containers: For troubleshooting, pull the deployed container image to your local system, run it locally, and use docker exec -it <container_id> /bin/bash to inspect the container's internal state and file system.

You’ve successfully built, pushed, and deployed a Docker image to Google Cloud Run! Explore custom domains, scaling options, and traffic splitting next.

Useful Resources

• Cloud Run Documentation
• Artifact Registry
• Cloud Build