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Filebrowser on Cloud Run — Lab Guide

📖 Configuration Guide

Overview​

Estimated time: 45–90 minutes

File Browser is a lightweight, open-source web file manager written in Go — it serves a directory tree over HTTP for browsing, uploading, editing, and sharing files, with no external database. This lab takes you through the full operational lifecycle of the Filebrowser on Cloud Run module on Google Cloud: deploy it, access and verify it, run it day-to-day, observe it, diagnose common problems, and tear it down.

The lab focuses on operating the Cloud Run module and the Google Cloud platform, not on Filebrowser product features. For the complete list of provisioned services and every configuration input (organised by group), see the Configuration Guide — this lab deliberately does not duplicate that detail so it stays accurate over time.

Objectives​

By the end of this lab you will be able to:

  • Deploy the module from the RAD platform and locate the resources it provisions.
  • Access and verify the running service, including the default admin login.
  • Perform day-2 operations — inspect revisions, manage ingress, and inspect the persistent GCS-backed state.
  • Observe the service with Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring.
  • Diagnose and resolve the most common deployment and runtime issues.
  • Tear the deployment down cleanly.

Prerequisites​

  • Services_GCP deployed in the target project (provides the VPC, Artifact Registry, and shared service accounts this module depends on).
  • A Google Cloud project with billing enabled.
  • gcloud CLI authenticated: gcloud auth login and gcloud auth application-default login.
  • Project Owner (or equivalent) IAM on the project.
  • RAD platform access with permission to deploy modules into the project.

Set these shell variables once; every task below reuses them:

export PROJECT="<your-gcp-project-id>"
export REGION="us-central1"          # the region you deploy into

Task 1 — Deploy the module [Automated]​

  1. In the RAD platform, open Filebrowser (Cloud Run), set project_id, and review the inputs. Configure only what you need — the Configuration Guide documents every input by group, with defaults. Note that ingress defaults to internal — decide up front whether you need ingress_settings = "all" for public access. Review the estimated cost (if credits are enabled) and click Deploy, which opens the deployment status page with real-time logs.

  2. The platform provisions the Cloud Run service, a Cloud Storage bucket mounted at /database via GCS FUSE (holding the embedded SQLite database), and builds the container image. There is no Cloud SQL instance, no Secret Manager application secret, and no database-initialisation job — Filebrowser is self-contained. First deploys typically complete in 5–10 minutes.

  3. When it completes, discover the resources with name-agnostic filters (so the commands keep working regardless of the deployment suffix):

    SERVICE=$(gcloud run services list --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION" \
      --filter="metadata.name~filebrowser" --format="value(metadata.name)" --limit=1)
    SERVICE_URL=$(gcloud run services describe "$SERVICE" \
      --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION" --format="value(status.url)")
    echo "Service: $SERVICE"
    echo "URL:     $SERVICE_URL"

Task 2 — Access & verify [Manual]​

  1. Confirm the service is healthy. Filebrowser exposes an unauthenticated health endpoint that returns 200 as soon as the server is listening:

    curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" "$SERVICE_URL/health"   # expect 200

  2. If ingress_settings is still internal (the default), the URL above is only reachable from inside the VPC — curl it from a Cloud Shell/VM on the same network, or temporarily set ingress_settings = "all" in the RAD platform and apply via Update to reach it from your workstation.

  3. Open $SERVICE_URL in a browser and log in with the seeded default credential admin / admin. Immediately change the password (and ideally the username) under Settings → Profile — this credential is well-known and grants full control of the file tree.

Task 3 — Operate & keep it running (Day-2) [Manual]​

  1. Inspect the service and its revisions (each deploy creates an immutable revision; traffic shifts to the newest healthy one):

    gcloud run services describe "$SERVICE" --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION"
    gcloud run revisions list --service="$SERVICE" --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION"

  2. Do not scale beyond one instance. min_instance_count = max_instance_count = 1 is intentional — the embedded SQLite database on the GCS FUSE mount does not tolerate concurrent writers. Leave max_instance_count at 1 in the RAD platform; a manual gcloud edit would be reverted on the next apply anyway.

  3. Update the application version by changing the version input in the RAD platform and applying it via Update; a new image builds and a new revision rolls out. Pin application_version explicitly in production rather than tracking latest.

  4. Change ingress or add access control — flip ingress_settings between internal and all, or enable enable_iap with authorized users/groups, then apply via Update.

  5. Inspect the persistent state — the SQLite database lives in the /database GCS bucket reported in the deployment Outputs. Never delete this bucket; doing so destroys all users, settings, and share links:

    gcloud storage buckets list --project="$PROJECT" --filter="name~storage"
    gcloud storage ls gs://<data-bucket>/
    gcloud storage ls gs://<data-bucket>/filebrowser.db

Task 4 — Observe: Logging & Monitoring [Manual]​

  1. Logs — from the CLI or the Logs Explorer:

    gcloud run services logs read "$SERVICE" --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION" --limit=50

    Logs Explorer filter: resource.type="cloud_run_revision" AND resource.labels.service_name="<service>".

  2. Monitoring — open the Cloud Run dashboard for the service and review request count, request latency, instance count (should stay at 1), and CPU / memory utilisation. If uptime_check_config is enabled, confirm it is green under Monitoring → Uptime checks, and review Alerting → Policies.

Task 5 — Troubleshoot & debug [Manual]​

Durable techniques for the failure modes you are most likely to hit. These are platform-level diagnostics and do not change with Filebrowser releases.

  • Revision unhealthy / service won't serve: inspect the latest revision and its logs for startup errors. The startup probe targets /health with a 15-second delay — startup is fast since there are no migrations to wait on. 
    gcloud run revisions list --service="$SERVICE" --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION"
    gcloud run services logs read "$SERVICE" --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION" --limit=100
  • Service unreachable from your workstation: check ingress_settings — the default is internal (VPC-only), which is expected behaviour, not a fault.
  • GCS FUSE mount / state not persisting: confirm execution_environment = gen2 (required for the /database GCS FUSE mount) and that the /database bucket still exists. 
    gcloud run services describe "$SERVICE" --project="$PROJECT" --region="$REGION" \
      --format='value(spec.template.spec.containers[0].env)'
    gcloud storage buckets list --project="$PROJECT" --filter="name~storage"
  • Login shows admin/admin still active after redeploy: this is expected — the credential is seeded only if no SQLite DB exists yet at /database. If a fresh admin/admin prompt appears unexpectedly, the /database bucket may have been replaced or emptied; check for a bucket deletion/recreation in Cloud Audit Logs.
  • Image build failed: review Cloud Build history for the failed build's log.
  • 403 / permission errors: verify the runtime service account's IAM roles.

See the Configuration Guide's Configuration Pitfalls section for setting-specific gotchas (including the critical rule to keep max_instance_count = 1 and to never delete the /database bucket).

Task 6 — Tear down [Automated]​

On the Deployments page, open the deployment and click the Trash icon (Delete). Delete runs terraform destroy and is irreversible (the deployment record is retained for history). If a deployment is stuck and the RAD platform can no longer manage it (for example after manual changes that conflict with the Terraform state), use Purge instead — it removes the deployment from RAD's records without destroying the cloud resources (it makes RAD forget the project). This removes everything the module created — the Cloud Run service, the /database GCS bucket (including the embedded SQLite database — this is destructive and unrecoverable), and Artifact Registry images. Resources owned by Services_GCP (the VPC, shared Artifact Registry) are managed separately and are not removed here.

Summary​

TaskTypeOutcome
1 — DeployAutomatedModule provisions Cloud Run and the /database GCS FUSE bucket; no Cloud SQL, no init job
2 — Access & verifyManualHealth check passes; log in with seeded admin/admin and change the password immediately
3 — OperateManualInspect revisions, keep max_instance_count = 1, update version, adjust ingress, inspect GCS state
4 — ObserveManualQuery Cloud Logging; review Cloud Monitoring metrics and uptime check
5 — TroubleshootManualDiagnose revision, ingress, GCS FUSE, and build/IAM issues
6 — Tear downAutomatedDelete (Trash) removes the service and the /database bucket (destructive)

By · Google Cloud certified: ACE · PCA · PCD · PDE · PSE · CDL

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