Example Systemd file for starting cloud sql proxy at system start

readme.md

1. We assume you already read this: https://cloud.google.com/sql/docs/mysql/connect-external-app#proxy and created a service account for Cloud SQL Client
2. Download cloud_sql_proxy to /usr/local/bin
3. Make the following folders, all chown to root:root :
4. /var/run/cloud-sql-proxy
5. /var/local/cloud-sql-proxy
6. Copy downloaded credential json file inside /var/local/cloud-sql-proxy, make sure only root can read as it is credential for connection.
7. Copy above gist to /lib/systemd/system/cloud-sql-proxy.service
8. Run systemctl daemon-reload
9. Run systemctl start cloud-sql-proxy
10. Profit$$$$

cloud-sql-proxy.service

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description=Google Cloud Compute Engine SQL Proxy
Requires=networking.service
After=networking.service

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/bin
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cloud_sql_proxy -dir=/var/run/cloud-sql-proxy -instances=<instance_connection_name>=tcp:5432 -credential_file=/var/local/cloud_sql_proxy/<credential_json>.json
Restart=always
StandardOutput=journal
User=root

For Centos 7, use the following:

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description=Google Cloud Compute Engine SQL Proxy
Requires=network.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/bin
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cloud_sql_proxy -dir=/var/run/cloud-sql-proxy -instances=<instance_connection_name>=tcp:3306 -credential_file=/var/local/cloud-sql-proxy/<credential_json>.json
Restart=always
StandardOutput=journal

If you find that /var/run/cloud-sql-proxy gets deleted on reboot - add this under line 10

RuntimeDirectory=cloud-sql-proxy

This works for RHEL8/Centos8

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description=Google Cloud Compute Engine SQL Proxy
Requires=network.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/bin
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cloud_sql_proxy -dir=/var/run/cloud-sql-proxy -instances=prod-modpress-prj:northamerica-northeast1:prod-modpress-inst=tcp:3306
Restart=always
StandardOutput=journal
User=root

For ubuntu 20.04 this should work:

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description=Google Cloud Compute Engine SQL Proxy
Requires=network.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/bin
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cloud_sql_proxy -dir=/var/run/cloud-sql-proxy -instances=<instance_connection_name>=tcp:3306 -credential_file=/var/local/cloud-sql-proxy/<credential_json>.json
Restart=always
StandardOutput=journal
User=root

I've found out that Google Cloud SQL proxy has watchdog support, even though I can't find this mentioned anywhere.

What this means is you can change Type=simple to Type=notify and add WatchdogSec=10 and then any time Google Cloud SQL proxy detects a connection error it will stop informing systemd that all is well and systemd will restart it.

This happens for example when Google Cloud SQL rotates SSL certificates. Which doesn't happen often, but it does happen every once in a while. Without using watchdog the service will just keep running but it can't connect anymore. With watchdog the service will be restarted and will reconnect using the new certificates.

Scratch that, it only notifies once started, it doesn't keep pinging to indicate it's still alive :(

Hello, I appreciate this resource. Recently the cloud sql proxy has been updated to a version 2.0.0 and takes new args I was able to get this setup to work on Ubuntu 20.04 with the proxy downloaded at these instructions "https://cloud.google.com/sql/docs/postgres/sql-proxy#linux-64-bit"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description=Google Cloud Compute Engine SQL Proxy
Requires=network.target
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/bin
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cloud-sql-proxy --credentials-file /var/local/cloud-sql-proxy/<credentials_file>.json <instance_connection_name> 
Restart=always
StandardOutput=journal

I have created a wrapper for CloudSQL proxy
https://github.com/arnoldj-devops/cloudsql-proxy-pal