Handling sessions with Firestore

Examining the source code

The following diagram illustrates how Firestore handles sessions for the Cloud Run app.

The ConfigureServices method in the Startup.cs file sets up the app to use Cloud KMS for encryption and Cloud Storage to store encrypted keys.

1. In Cloud Shell, clickto launch the editor and examine the Startup.cs file.

     public 
     
    void 
     
    ConfigureServices 
    ( 
    IServiceCollection 
     
    services 
    ) 
    { 
     
    // Antiforgery tokens require data protection. 
     
    services 
    . 
    AddDataProtection 
    () 
     
    // Store keys in Cloud Storage so that multiple instances 
     
    // of the web application see the same keys. 
     
    . 
    PersistKeysToGoogleCloudStorage 
    ( 
     
    Configuration 
    [ 
    "DataProtection:Bucket" 
    ], 
     
    Configuration 
    [ 
    "DataProtection:Object" 
    ]) 
     
    // Protect the keys with Google KMS for encryption and fine- 
     
    // grained access control. 
     
    . 
    ProtectKeysWithGoogleKms 
    ( 
     
    Configuration 
    [ 
    "DataProtection:KmsKeyName" 
    ]); 
     
    services 
    . 
    AddFirestoreDistributedCache 
    ( 
     
    Configuration 
    [ 
    "FIRESTORE_PROJECT_ID" 
    ]) 
     
    . 
    AddFirestoreDistributedCacheGarbageCollector 
    (); 
     
    services 
    . 
    AddSession 
    (); 
    } 
    
   

Setting up the Google Cloud project

1. In the Cloud Shell editor, edit the appsettings.json file and replace the two instances of YOUR-PROJECT-ID with your Google Cloud project ID. Save the file.

     { 
     
    "Logging" 
    : 
     
    { 
     
    "LogLevel" 
    : 
     
    { 
     
    "Default" 
    : 
     
    "Warning" 
     
    } 
     
    }, 
     
    "AllowedHosts" 
    : 
     
    "*" 
    , 
     
    "DataProtection" 
    : 
     
    { 
     
    "Bucket" 
    : 
     
    "YOUR-PROJECT-ID-bucket" 
    , 
     
    "Object" 
    : 
     
    "DataProtectionProviderKeys.xml" 
    , 
     
    "KmsKeyName" 
    : 
     
    "projects/YOUR-PROJECT-ID/locations/global/keyRings/dataprotectionprovider/cryptoKeys/masterkey" 
     
    } 
    } 
    
   

2. Create a new Cloud Key Management Service key ring named dataprotectionprovider :

   gcloud  
   kms  
   keyrings  
   create  
   dataprotectionprovider  
   --location  
   global

3. Create a new Cloud Key Management Service key named masterkey :

   gcloud  
   kms  
   keys  
   create  
   masterkey  
   --location  
   global  
   --keyring  
   dataprotectionprovider  
   --purpose = 
   encryption

4. Create a Cloud Storage bucket to store the encrypted keys:

   gcloud  
   storage  
   buckets  
   create  
   gs:// PROJECT_ID 
   -bucket

Deploying and running on Cloud Run

You can use the Cloud Run to build and deploy an app that runs reliably under heavy load and with large amounts of data.

This tutorial uses the Cloud Run to deploy the server.

1. In your Cloud Shell, publish your app:

    dotnet publish -c Release 
   

2. Use Cloud Build to build a Docker container and publish to Container Registry:

   gcloud  
   builds  
   submit  
   --tag  
   gcr.io/ PROJECT_ID 
   /sessions  
   bin/Release/netcoreapp2.1/publish

3. Run the container with Cloud Run:

   gcloud  
   beta  
   run  
   deploy  
   sessions  
   --region  
   us-central1  
   --platform  
   managed  
   --image  
   gcr.io/ PROJECT_ID 
   /sessions  
   --allow-unauthenticated

   Make a note of the URL in the output:

   Service [sessions] revision [sessions-00003-xiz] has been deployed and is serving
   100 percent of traffic at https://sessions-r3f3em7nuq-uc.a.run.app

4. To view the live app, go to the URL that you copied from the previous step.

Deleting sessions

You can delete session data in the Google Cloud console or implement an automated deletion strategy. If you use storage solutions for sessions such as Memcache or Redis, expired sessions are automatically deleted.

Debugging the app

If you cannot connect to your Cloud Run app, check the following:

1. Check that the gcloud deploy commands successfully completed and didn't output any errors. If there were errors (for example, message=Build failed ), fix them, and try deploying the Cloud Run app again.
2. See the Cloud Run guide to viewing logs .