OpenProject on Google Cloud Run

OpenProject is an open-source, GPLv3-licensed project-management and team-collaboration suite — work packages, Gantt timelines, agile boards, wikis, time tracking, and budgets. This module deploys OpenProject on Cloud Run v2 on top of the App_CloudRun foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services OpenProject uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics common to every Cloud Run application — service identity, ingress and load balancing, scaling and concurrency, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_CloudRun foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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1. Overview

OpenProject runs as a Ruby on Rails (Puma) container on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Rails/Puma service, 2 vCPU / 4 GiB by default, always-allocated CPU
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — OpenProject does not support MySQL or other engines
Attachment storage	Cloud Filestore (NFS)	Durable work-package attachment storage, mounted at /opt/openproject/storage
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated SECRET_KEY_BASE; database password
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL; optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain
Background jobs	good_job (in-process, on PostgreSQL)	No Redis — the job queue lives in PostgreSQL

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is mandatory. The database engine is fixed by the shared application layer; selecting any other engine breaks startup.
• Private-IP TCP database connection. enable_cloudsql_volume = false on Cloud Run. OpenProject (Rails) reads a single URL-form DATABASE_URL, and Ruby's URI parser cannot hold the Cloud SQL Unix-socket directory (its colons break URL parsing), so the entrypoint connects over the instance private IP with sslmode=require.
• No Redis. Background jobs run through good_job with the queue in PostgreSQL (GOOD_JOB_EXECUTION_MODE = async); enable_redis is forwarded as false.
• SECRET_KEY_BASE is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager. It must never be rotated after first boot — rotating it makes every existing session and all encrypted database columns unreadable.
• CPU is always allocated (cpu_always_allocated = true, min_instance_count = 1) because the in-process good_job worker and cron scheduler must keep running without an inbound request. This defeats scale-to-zero by design; see the pitfalls table for the cost-first flip-back.
• Migrations run in a db-migrate job, not on boot. The service runs web-only (./docker/prod/web); a dedicated apply-time job runs rake db:migrate db:seed first, so the web container boots fast against a migrated schema.
• Health probes are TCP / disabled. Rails 8 Host Authorization 400s any HTTP probe whose Host header is the pod IP, so the startup probe is TCP and the liveness probe is disabled.
• The first login is admin / admin. OpenProject forces a password change on the first sign-in — do it immediately.

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume PROJECT and REGION are set. Service and resource names are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. Cloud Run — the OpenProject service

OpenProject runs as a Cloud Run v2 service that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.

• Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

OpenProject stores all application data (projects, work packages, wikis, users, attachments metadata) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance. On Cloud Run the service connects over the instance private IP with sslmode=require (not the Auth Proxy socket — Ruby's URL DSN parser cannot hold the socket directory). On first deploy the db-init job creates the database and user, and the db-migrate job runs rake db:migrate db:seed to build the schema and seed the admin account.

• Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=<db-user> --database=<db-name> --project "$PROJECT"

The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_CloudRun for the connection model, backups, and password rotation.

C. Cloud Filestore (NFS attachment storage)

Work-package attachments are stored on a Cloud Filestore NFS share mounted at /opt/openproject/storage (enable_nfs = true by default). Without it, attachments land on the container's ephemeral disk and are lost on every revision/redeploy.

• Console: Filestore → Instances.
• CLI:

  gcloud filestore instances list --project "$PROJECT"

To use GCS-compatible object storage instead, set OPENPROJECT_FOG_* environment variables. See App_CloudRun for the NFS server model.

D. Secret Manager

One cryptographic secret is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager: SECRET_KEY_BASE (Rails session/cookie signing and encrypted-column key derivation). The database password is managed separately by the foundation.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

  gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~secret-key-base"
  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

E. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on; ingress settings and VPC egress control connectivity. OpenProject builds absolute URLs from OPENPROJECT_HOST__NAME (set by the entrypoint) and OPENPROJECT_HTTPS = true.

• Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun.

F. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring, with optional uptime checks and alert policies.

• Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50

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3. OpenProject Application Behaviour

• Two-phase first-deploy database setup. The db-init job (postgres:15-alpine) creates the role and database; the db-migrate job then runs the app image with rake db:migrate db:seed. The migrate job drops any partial tables from an interrupted prior attempt (DROP OWNED BY CURRENT_USER CASCADE) before migrating, and creates the pg_trgm extension needed by OpenProject's trigram indexes. Both jobs run at apply time.
• Migrations do not run on boot. The service runs web-only (./docker/prod/web), which skips the all-in-one seeder. Rails (production) refuses to boot Puma while migrations are pending, so if db-migrate fails the service creation fails loudly — there is no silent empty-DB ship.
• SECRET_KEY_BASE is immutable after first boot. It is generated once and stored in Secret Manager. Changing it makes existing sessions and all encrypted columns unreadable. Only rotate during a planned maintenance window with a full data re-encryption plan.
• Background jobs run in-process. good_job runs its worker and cron inside the web container (GOOD_JOB_EXECUTION_MODE = async) with the queue on PostgreSQL — no Redis. This is why CPU is always allocated by default.
• Host Authorization gates health probes. Rails 8 returns 400 Invalid host_name to any request whose Host header is not OPENPROJECT_HOST__NAME, including HTTP health probes (which use the pod IP). The startup probe is therefore TCP and the liveness probe is disabled; the readiness probe hits /health_checks/default where the platform sets the Host correctly.
• First login is admin / admin. Seeded by rake db:seed. OpenProject forces a password change on first sign-in.
• Inspect job execution:

  gcloud run jobs list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run jobs executions list --job <job-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

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4. Configuration Variables

Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for OpenProject are listed; every other input is inherited from App_CloudRun with its standard behaviour.

Group 1 — Project & Identity

Variable	Default	Description
project_id	(required)	Target Google Cloud project.
region	us-central1	Region for the service and regional resources.

Group 2 — Deployment Environment

Variable	Default	Description
tenant_deployment_id	demo	Short suffix that makes resource names unique per environment.
support_users	[]	Emails granted project access and monitoring alerts.
resource_labels	{}	Labels applied to all resources.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	openproject	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	OpenProject	Human-readable name shown in the Console.
description	(set)	Service description.
application_version	latest	OpenProject image tag (OPENPROJECT_VERSION). latest is pinned to the stable major 16; OpenProject publishes only numeric major tags.
db_name	openproject	PostgreSQL database name. Immutable after first deploy.
db_user	openproject	Application database user.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
cpu_limit	2000m	CPU per instance; 2 vCPU recommended.
memory_limit	4Gi	Memory per instance; Rails needs headroom for migrations and workers.
cpu_always_allocated	true	Keeps CPU allocated so the in-process good_job worker + cron run without inbound requests.
min_instance_count	1	Keeps one instance warm for background jobs.
max_instance_count	5	Autoscaling upper bound.
container_port	80	The all-in-one image serves on port 80.
execution_environment	gen2	Gen2 required for NFS mounts.
timeout_seconds	300	Maximum request duration (0–3600 seconds).
enable_cloudsql_volume	false	Off on Cloud Run — OpenProject connects over private-IP TCP.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror the OpenProject image into Artifact Registry.
traffic_split	[]	Split traffic across revisions for staged rollouts.
max_revisions_to_retain	7	How many old revisions to keep.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	Public ingress for browser and API access.
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	Route only RFC 1918 traffic via VPC.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in in front of OpenProject.
iap_authorized_users / iap_authorized_groups	[]	Who may access through IAP.

Group 6 — Environment Variables & Secrets

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	{}	Extra non-secret settings (e.g. OPENPROJECT_* overrides). Do not set SECRET_KEY_BASE or DATABASE_URL here — they are managed automatically.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name.
secret_propagation_delay	30	Seconds to wait after secret creation before proceeding.
secret_rotation_period	2592000s	Secret Manager rotation notification frequency.

Group 7 — Backup & Restore

Variable	Default	Description
backup_schedule	0 2 * * *	Automated backup cron (UTC).
backup_retention_days	7	Retention; raise for production/compliance.
enable_backup_import / backup_source / backup_uri / backup_format	restore options	Restore from a backup on deploy.

Group 8 — CI/CD & Binary Authorization

Standard App_CloudRun Cloud Build / Cloud Deploy integration — see App_CloudRun. Key inputs: enable_cicd_trigger, github_repository_url, github_token, enable_cloud_deploy, enable_binary_authorization.

Group 10 — Load Balancer, CDN & Image Retention

Variable	Default	Description
enable_cloud_armor	false	Provision Global HTTPS LB + Cloud Armor WAF.
admin_ip_ranges	[]	CIDR ranges exempted from WAF rules.
application_domains	[]	Custom domain names for the HTTPS LB.
enable_cdn	false	Enable Cloud CDN on the HTTPS LB backend.
max_images_to_retain / delete_untagged_images / image_retention_days	(set)	Artifact Registry cleanup policy.

Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
create_cloud_storage	true	Create GCS buckets defined in storage_buckets.
storage_buckets	[{ name_suffix = "data" }]	GCS buckets provisioned by default; add more for custom needs.
enable_nfs	true	Cloud Filestore for durable attachment storage.
nfs_mount_path	/opt/openproject/storage	OpenProject attachment path inside the container.
gcs_volumes	[]	GCS Fuse volume mounts (requires gen2).
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek	false	CMEK options.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
db_name	openproject	PostgreSQL database name. Immutable after first deploy.
db_user	openproject	Application database user. Password auto-generated in Secret Manager.
database_password_length	32	Generated password length (16–64).
enable_auto_password_rotation / rotation_propagation_delay_sec	off	DB password rotation.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init + db-migrate jobs.
cron_jobs	[]	Optional Cloud Scheduler + Cloud Run Jobs (e.g. an external cron endpoint if you flip to cold-start).

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	TCP, 30s delay, 30 × 15s window	TCP because Rails Host Authorization 400s HTTP probes; checks Puma is listening.
liveness_probe	disabled	Cloud Run has no TCP liveness; an HTTP one would restart-loop a healthy container.
startup_probe_config	HTTP /, enabled, 60s delay, failure_threshold 30	App_CloudRun-level structured probe (parallel to startup_probe, which is what actually gates the container).
health_check_config	HTTP /, enabled, 60s delay, failure_threshold 3	App_CloudRun-level structured liveness probe (parallel to liveness_probe, which is disabled on the container).
uptime_check_config	disabled	Cloud Monitoring uptime check; enable for production monitoring.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging

Variable	Default	Description
enable_vpc_sc	false	Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter (requires organization_id).
vpc_cidr_ranges / vpc_sc_dry_run	(set)	Access level CIDRs / dry-run mode.
enable_audit_logging	false	Detailed Cloud Audit Logs.

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5. Outputs

Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Cloud Run service name.
service_url	Default run.app URL of the service.
service_location	Region the service runs in.
stage_services	Stage-specific service URLs (Cloud Deploy).
load_balancer_ip / load_balancer_url	External HTTPS load balancer IP / URL (when enabled).
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name / database_user	Application database name / user.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
database_host / database_port	DB endpoint / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets.
network_name / network_exists / regions	VPC network, presence, regions.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names	Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks.
initialization_jobs	Names of the setup jobs (db-init, db-migrate).
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / cicd_configuration	CI/CD status and details.
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id	Registry and build trigger.
vpc_sc_enabled / vpc_sc_perimeter_name / vpc_sc_dry_run_mode	VPC-SC status.
audit_logging_enabled / artifact_registry_cmek_enabled	Audit logging and CMEK status.

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6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults

Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).

Inherited plan-time validation. This module passes its configuration through the App_CloudRun foundation engine, which validates values and combinations at plan time — a read replica without its primary, IAP with no authorized identities, a gen1 runtime with NFS/GCS mounts, a database_type that does not match an enabled extension, an out-of-range backup_retention_days. Invalid configuration fails the plan with a clear, named error before any resource is created, so most mistakes below are caught up front rather than at apply or runtime.

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
SECRET_KEY_BASE (auto-generated)	Never rotate after first boot	Critical	Rotating it makes every existing session and all encrypted database columns unreadable.
db_name / db_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data.
enable_nfs	true	Critical	Disabling it puts attachments on ephemeral disk — they are lost on every revision/redeploy.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job.
enable_cloudsql_volume	false on Cloud Run	High	Enabling the socket makes the Rails URL DSN unparseable (socket colons break the URL); the app fails to connect.
startup_probe.type	TCP	High	An HTTP startup probe hits Rails Host Authorization (400 Invalid host_name) and never passes — the revision never becomes Ready even though Puma is healthy.
liveness_probe.enabled	false	High	An HTTP liveness probe 400s on Host Authorization and restart-loops a healthy container.
memory_limit	4Gi	High	Migrations and in-process workers OOM below ~2 GiB.
cpu_always_allocated	true	Medium	Setting false throttles the good_job worker/cron to ~0 between requests — background emails/notifications stall. Flip-back only with an external Cloud Scheduler cron endpoint.
application_version	Pin a major (16)	Medium	latest has no image tag on Docker Hub; the module pins it to 16. Pin explicitly to control upgrades.
min_instance_count	1	Medium	Set 0 only alongside cpu_always_allocated = false and an external cron — otherwise background jobs stop between requests.
enable_iap	as needed	Medium	IAP blocks all unauthenticated access, including the API; enable only when that is intended.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — service identity, scaling and concurrency, ingress and load balancing, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_CloudRun. OpenProject-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in OpenProject_Common.