Radicale on GKE Autopilot — Lab Guide

Overview

Estimated time: 30–60 minutes

Radicale is an open-source, self-hosted CalDAV/CardDAV server for calendar and contacts sync. This lab takes you through the full operational lifecycle of the Radicale on GKE Autopilot 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 GKE module and the Google Cloud platform, not on Radicale 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 (with a production-style block PVC) and locate the resources it provisions.
Access and verify the running workload, retrieve the generated admin credential, and connect a CalDAV/CardDAV client.
Create a NEW calendar on GKE (which works natively, unlike Cloud Run) and understand where the pre-seeded defaults land when a PVC is used.
Perform day-2 operations — inspect, scale, and update.
Observe the workload 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, GKE Autopilot cluster, 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.
(Optional) A CalDAV/CardDAV client to verify end-to-end sync — e.g. Thunderbird, Apple Calendar/Contacts, or DAVx5.

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
export NAMESPACE="<deployment-namespace>"   # reported in the deployment Outputs
gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster-name> --region "$REGION" --project "$PROJECT"

Task 1 — Deploy the module [Automated]

In the RAD platform, open Radicale (GKE), set project_id, and review the inputs. Configure only what you need — the Configuration Guide documents every input by group, with defaults. Set application_display_name = "Radicale" explicitly (the module's default currently carries a stale value inherited from its clone source), and set stateful_pvc_enabled = true for a production-style deployment with real block storage. Review the estimated cost (if credits are enabled) and click Deploy, which opens the deployment status page with real-time logs.
The platform provisions the Kubernetes workload (a StatefulSet when stateful_pvc_enabled = true, otherwise a Deployment backed by GCS FUSE), a Secret Manager secret holding a generated ADMIN_PASSWORD, and runs the seed-default-collections initialization Job. First deploys typically take 5–10 minutes.

When it completes, discover the resources with name-agnostic filters:

SERVICE=$(kubectl get svc -n "$NAMESPACE" -o name | grep radicale | head -1 | cut -d/ -f2)
EXTERNAL_IP=$(kubectl get svc "$SERVICE" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
echo "Service: $SERVICE"
echo "IP:      $EXTERNAL_IP"

Task 2 — Access & verify [Manual]

Confirm the pod is healthy and serving:

kubectl get pods -n "$NAMESPACE" -l app="$SERVICE"    # expect N/N Running, 0 restarts
curl -s "http://$EXTERNAL_IP/" -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n'   # expect 302

Radicale ships with no built-in default admin account — retrieve the generated credential from Secret Manager:

SECRET=$(gcloud secrets list --project="$PROJECT" --filter="name~radicale-admin-password" \
  --format="value(name)" --limit=1)
ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret="$SECRET" --project="$PROJECT")
echo "Username: admin"
echo "Password: $ADMIN_PASSWORD"

Confirm authenticated access works with a PROPFIND against the admin's principal (expect 207 Multi-Status):

curl -s -u "admin:$ADMIN_PASSWORD" -X PROPFIND "http://$EXTERNAL_IP/admin/" \
  -H "Depth: 1" -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n'

If you deployed with stateful_pvc_enabled = true, the pre-seeded Default Calendar/Default Address Book will not appear (the seed job cannot mount the StatefulSet's PVC — see Task 5). Create your first calendar directly — this works natively on GKE, unlike Cloud Run:
```
curl -s -u "admin:$ADMIN_PASSWORD" -X MKCOL "http://$EXTERNAL_IP/admin/my-calendar/" \
  -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n'   # expect 201 Created
```
If you deployed without a PVC, connect a CalDAV/CardDAV client (Thunderbird, Apple Calendar, DAVx5) to http://$EXTERNAL_IP/admin/ and you should see the pre-seeded Default Calendar and Default Address Book.

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

Inspect the workload and its rollout history:

kubectl get statefulset "$SERVICE" -n "$NAMESPACE"     # if stateful_pvc_enabled = true
kubectl get deploy "$SERVICE" -n "$NAMESPACE"           # otherwise
kubectl rollout status statefulset/"$SERVICE" -n "$NAMESPACE"

Scale — max_instance_count is pinned to 1 and should not be raised: Radicale's storage backend is not designed for concurrent multi-instance access. min_instance_count can be raised to 1 via the RAD platform's Update flow if you want to avoid cold starts.
Update the application version tag via the RAD platform's Update flow. Remember: Radicale's container registry tags have no v prefix (e.g. 3.7.7, not v3.7.7).

Manage secrets and the PVC:

gcloud secrets list --project="$PROJECT" --filter="name~radicale"
kubectl get jobs -n "$NAMESPACE"
kubectl get pvc -n "$NAMESPACE"    # only when stateful_pvc_enabled = true

Task 4 — Observe: Logging & Monitoring [Manual]

Logs:

kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" statefulset/"$SERVICE" --tail=100

Monitoring — open the GKE Workloads dashboard for the workload and review CPU/memory utilisation and replica count.

Task 5 — Troubleshoot & debug [Manual]

Pod unhealthy / CrashLoopBackOff: inspect pod events and logs. The startup probe targets /.

kubectl describe pod -n "$NAMESPACE" -l app="$SERVICE"
kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" statefulset/"$SERVICE" --tail=200

seed-default-collections succeeded, but no default calendar shows up on a PVC-backed deployment. This is expected, not a bug, when stateful_pvc_enabled = true. The seed job (a shared Cloud-Run/GKE Common-module Job) only mounts the shared GCS storage bucket — it cannot attach to the StatefulSet's ReadWriteOnce block PVC, which is already held by the running pod. The job's writes land harmlessly in the unused GCS bucket. Create your first calendar via curl -X MKCOL or a real CalDAV client instead (see Task 2, step 4) — this works natively on GKE.
```
kubectl get jobs -n "$NAMESPACE"
kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" job/<seed-default-collections-job-name>
```
PVC stuck Pending: check the StorageClass and regional quota. stateful_pvc_storage_class defaults to standard (HDD) specifically to avoid the tight SSD_TOTAL_GB quota — if you overrode it to standard-rwo/premium-rwo (SSD), verify you have SSD quota headroom.
```
kubectl describe pvc -n "$NAMESPACE"
```
401 Unauthorized on every request, even with the right-looking credential: double-check you retrieved the current ADMIN_PASSWORD from Secret Manager, and that you're using admin (or your configured ADMIN_USERNAME), not an email address.
403 / permission errors: verify the Workload Identity binding.

See the Configuration Guide's Configuration Pitfalls section for setting-specific gotchas.

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. If a deployment is stuck and the RAD platform can no longer manage it, use Purge instead — it removes the deployment from RAD's records without destroying the cloud resources. This removes everything the module created — the Kubernetes workload, Service, PVC (if used), Secret Manager secrets, and the GCS bucket. Resources owned by Services_GCP (the VPC, GKE cluster, registry) are managed separately and are not removed here.

Summary

Task	Type	Outcome
1 — Deploy	Automated	Module provisions the GKE workload (StatefulSet + PVC recommended), a generated admin secret, and runs the default-collection seed job
2 — Access & verify	Manual	Pod Ready 0 restarts; retrieve the generated admin password; create/verify a calendar (MKCOL works natively on GKE)
3 — Operate	Manual	Inspect rollout, understand the `max=1` scaling limit, update version, manage PVC
4 — Observe	Manual	Query Cloud Logging; review Cloud Monitoring metrics
5 — Troubleshoot	Manual	Diagnose pod, seed-job/PVC-mount, and auth issues
6 — Tear down	Automated	Delete (Trash) removes all module resources, including the PVC and every stored collection

By Dr Shiyghan Emmanuel Navti · Google Cloud certified: ACE · PCA · PCD · PDE · PSE · CDL

Overview​

Objectives​

Prerequisites​

Task 1 — Deploy the module [Automated]​

Task 2 — Access & verify [Manual]​

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

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

Task 5 — Troubleshoot & debug [Manual]​

Task 6 — Tear down [Automated]​

Summary​