Snipe-IT on GKE Autopilot

Snipe-IT is a free, open-source IT asset and inventory management system used to track hardware, software licences, accessories, and consumables, with asset check-in/out, audit logging, depreciation, and a full REST API. It is built on Laravel/PHP and runs behind Apache. This module deploys Snipe-IT on GKE Autopilot on top of the App_GKE foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services Snipe-IT uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics that are common to every GKE application — Workload Identity, ingress, autoscaling, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_GKE foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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What Snipe-IT costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Snipe-IT in your own GCP project costs about $110.13/month in Google Cloud charges; RAD's module fee is a one-time 110 credits (or 99 credits in a RAD-managed project), covering setup and support -- not the ongoing cloud bill, which Google bills you directly in your own project or RAD meters hourly in credits in a RAD-managed one. If a lower running cost matters more than the deployment target, see the Cloud Run guide for the lower-cost option; otherwise, if you deploy into a RAD-managed project you can pause the whole thing for free when you are not using it -- see Pause it for free below.

What you pay on RAD

	Your own project	RAD-managed project
Module fee	110 credits, once	99 credits, once (10% lower)
Build time	metered in credits as the build runs (a few credits, typically)	same
Google Cloud running cost	~$110.13/month, billed to your own billing account at Google's list price	~99 credits/day, metered hourly by RAD at list price plus margin

Default running cost in your own project

Resource	US$/month (Google list price, us-central1)
GKE Autopilot pod, 1x vCPU / 2 GiB	$39.68
Cloud SQL for MySQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	$51.02
NFS/cache file server (small VM)	$13.43
Cloud NAT and networking	$5.00
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	$1.00
GKE cluster management fee	shared across every GKE app in the project; $0 if this is your only cluster, else ~$73
Total	$110.13

How it compares

• Snipe-IT's own official hosted plans start at $39.99/month (Basic Hosting, unlimited users and assets; source: https://snipeitapp.com/pricing) -- a close, directly comparable alternative to running it yourself.
• Running it yourself on a bare VPS is still the cheapest cash option -- Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4GB) runs about $24/month, a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet is also $24/month, and a GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8GB) is about $49/month -- plus the admin's own time for backups, security patches and upgrades, which RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring cover for you -- but RAD's price is never meant to beat a VPS, only to replace the admin time a VPS still needs.
• An asset register is checked in and out of occasionally through the working day, not continuously polled, so the running cost below is driven by the database and the shared file server, not by request volume.

Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it

This is the headline for a RAD-managed project. Deleting a RAD-managed project first unlinks its billing, then asks Google to delete the project outright -- Google's own 30-day recoverable soft delete. Unlike deleting one module, this does not tear down Cloud SQL, any VM or the compute resource one by one: the whole project simply stops, and nothing is charged while it waits, because billing is already unlinked.

Restoring, within 30 days and only by the project's owner, asks Google to undelete the project and reattaches its billing account, then asks you to run Update on each deployment to confirm everything came back. Because nothing was individually destroyed, that Update finds the same resources already there -- it is a check, not a rebuild, and an Update never charges the module fee again. This costs only a handful of credits (under US$1) in total for a typical 2-3-deployment chain.

What this needs: you must own the project (not one RAD only manages billing for), you must restore it yourself within 30 days -- after that Google deletes it for good -- and restoring is admitted like creating a new project, so your purchased credit balance must still clear the tier's floor (100 credits for the sandbox tier most study/demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.

One real gap: nightly backups are written to a bucket inside the project, and that bucket has Cloud Storage's soft-delete explicitly turned off, so it is very likely gone as soon as you delete the project -- even though the project itself is recoverable for 30 days. If you have customised the app and want to keep that work, copy a backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket outside the project) before deleting. For a default install with nothing irreplaceable in it, this does not matter.

Pay only while you use it, the other way: delete and redeploy

In your own project (or once you are past the 30-day restore window above), the alternative is to delete Snipe-IT outright and redeploy it later. A redeploy costs the module fee again, plus the builds -- roughly 110 + 3-6 credits of build time.

Deleting saves money only once Snipe-IT would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own daily running cost -- against the own-project total above, that works out to about 3 days or more. Most of the running cost here is usually the database and the NFS/cache VM; they stop only when nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting this app while something else shares the project saves only this app's own compute part.

Keep data first: nightly backups go to a bucket inside the deployment and are deleted with it, so copy the latest backup out before deleting if you want to keep it.

Lab sessions and Managed Environments

• Lab sessions, for training: a trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets the app in their own Google Cloud project for 15 minutes to 24 hours, within an allowance the trainer sets. Either the trainer funds every place, or each participant pays for their own. Everything is deleted when the session ends and unused credits go back to the trainer.
• Managed Environments, for consultancies: a partner runs the app for a client from a ring-fenced wallet it funds, and settles with the client directly. If the wallet runs low, billing pauses and the data is kept, so nobody receives an unexpected charge. At the end the partner hands the project over and the deployments become the client's own.
• Credits can be bought in more than 20 currencies, including XAF, XOF, NGN, GHS, KES and ZAR, by card, bank transfer or mobile money.

Sources (8 October 2026): Google Cloud Billing Catalog API list prices; radmodules.dev/pricing for RAD's own fees and daily-credit estimates; https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/delete-restore-projects for the pause/restore mechanics; https://snipeitapp.com/pricing for the named competitor's price.

1. Overview

Snipe-IT runs as a single PHP/Apache web workload pulled directly from the official Docker Hub image. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	GKE Autopilot	Prebuilt snipe/snipe-it PHP/Apache pods on port 80, 1 vCPU / 2 GiB by default
Database	Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0	Required — the engine is fixed at MYSQL_8_0
File persistence	Cloud Filestore (NFS)	Uploaded asset images, signatures, barcodes, and the runtime keystore persist under /var/lib/snipeit, shared across pods
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A snipeit-uploads bucket provisioned automatically
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated Laravel APP_KEY; database password managed by the foundation
Ingress	Cloud Load Balancing	External LoadBalancer with a reserved static IP; optional custom domain + managed certificate

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• Prebuilt official image, no custom build. container_image_source = "prebuilt" deploys snipe/snipe-it:<application_version> (default tag v8-latest) directly from Docker Hub, mirrored into Artifact Registry when enable_image_mirroring = true. There is no Cloud Build/Dockerfile step.
• MySQL 8.0 is mandatory. SnipeIT_Common fixes database_type = "MYSQL_8_0"; other engines are not supported.
• Cloud SQL is reached via the Auth Proxy sidecar on loopback. The variant sets enable_cloudsql_volume = true and the merged config forces DB_HOST = 127.0.0.1; main.tf hard-codes db_user_env_var_name = "DB_USERNAME", db_name_env_var_name = "DB_DATABASE", and db_password_env_var_name = "DB_PASSWORD" — the Laravel-native env names, not the Foundation's generic DB_* defaults.
• Single replica by default. min_instance_count = 1, max_instance_count = 1. enable_pod_disruption_budget defaults false to match. Session state uses SESSION_DRIVER = "database" so sessions survive restarts even at one replica.
• NFS is enabled by default (enable_nfs = true, mounted at /var/lib/snipeit) so uploaded asset images, signatures, and barcodes persist and are shared across pods. network_tags = ["nfsserver"] is required for NFS connectivity.
• Session affinity is ClientIP so a client's requests reach the same pod.
• Two ordered init jobs run on every apply. db-init (creates the database/user via mysql:8.0-debian) runs first, then migrate (php artisan migrate --force against the snipe/snipe-it image) — both execute_on_apply = true, safe to re-run.
• A Laravel APP_KEY is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager, injected as the APP_KEY secret env var. Deleting/recreating it invalidates sessions and any data Snipe-IT encrypted with the old key.
• Redis is on by default (enable_redis = true); when redis_host is blank, REDIS_HOST resolves to the NFS server IP.

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume you have run gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster> --region <region> --project <project> and that PROJECT, REGION, and NAMESPACE are set. The namespace and other identifiers are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. GKE Autopilot — the Snipe-IT workload

Snipe-IT pods are scheduled on Autopilot, which bills for the CPU/memory the pods actually request. The workload deploys as a Deployment (not StatefulSet) reading/writing state to the shared NFS volume and Cloud SQL.

• Console: Kubernetes Engine → Workloads → select the Snipe-IT workload for pods, revisions, and events. Kubernetes Engine → Services & Ingress shows the external IP.
• CLI:

  kubectl get pods,svc -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" deploy/<service-name> --tail=100
  kubectl describe pod -n "$NAMESPACE" -l app=<service-name>

See App_GKE for how Autopilot, scaling, and the workload type (Deployment vs StatefulSet) are managed.

B. Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0

Snipe-IT stores all application data (assets, licences, accessories, consumables, users, audit trail) in a managed Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0 instance. Pods reach it through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar on 127.0.0.1:3306; no public IP is exposed. On first deploy the db-init job creates the application database, user, and grants; the migrate job then runs Laravel's artisan migrate --force to create the schema.

• 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 the Secret Manager secret holding the password are all in the Outputs. See App_GKE for the connection model, automated backups, and password rotation.

C. Cloud Storage & file persistence

A dedicated Cloud Storage bucket (suffix snipeit-uploads) is provisioned automatically and the workload service account is granted access. Separately, Snipe-IT's runtime data tree (uploaded asset images, signatures, barcodes, keystore) lives on NFS (Cloud Filestore) at /var/lib/snipeit, shared across pods.

• Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets; Filestore → Instances.
• CLI:

  gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~snipeit-uploads"
  gcloud filestore instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  kubectl get pvc -n "$NAMESPACE"

See App_GKE for CMEK options and GCS Fuse mounts.

D. Secret Manager

One Snipe-IT secret is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager: the Laravel APP_KEY (base64:<...>, 32 random bytes base64-encoded). The database password is managed separately by the foundation. On GKE, secrets are projected into pods via the Secret Store CSI driver.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

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

See App_GKE for the Secret Store CSI integration and rotation.

E. Networking & ingress

By default the workload is exposed through an external Cloud Load Balancing IP (service_type = LoadBalancer, reserve_static_ip = true so the address survives redeploys). enable_custom_domain = true provisions a Kubernetes Ingress; add hostnames via application_domains for a Google-managed certificate.

• Console: Network services → Load balancing; VPC network → IP addresses.
• CLI:

  kubectl get svc,ingress -n "$NAMESPACE"
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_GKE for custom domains, Cloud CDN, and static IP details.

F. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Pod stdout/stderr flow to Cloud Logging; GKE and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring. Optional uptime checks and alert policies are available (uptime_check_config.enabled = false by default).

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

  gcloud logging read 'resource.type="k8s_container" AND resource.labels.namespace_name="'"$NAMESPACE"'"' \
    --project "$PROJECT" --limit 50

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3. Snipe-IT Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. The db-init job runs on mysql:8.0-debian, idempotently creating the application database, user, and grants (safe to re-run — execute_on_apply = true, max_retries = 3).
• Explicit migration job, not boot-time auto-migration. Unlike some Laravel apps that migrate on container start, Snipe-IT here runs an explicit migrate init job (php /var/www/html/artisan migrate --force, depends on db-init, max_retries = 2) so the schema is ready before the first app revision serves traffic. The official image's own boot-time auto-migration behaviour, if any, is a secondary safety net.
• DB env-var mapping to Laravel names. main.tf hard-codes db_user_env_var_name = "DB_USERNAME", db_name_env_var_name = "DB_DATABASE", and db_password_env_var_name = "DB_PASSWORD" so the Foundation injects the tenant-scoped DB credentials directly under the names Snipe-IT's Laravel config expects — no entrypoint aliasing needed. DB_HOST is forced to 127.0.0.1 (the Auth Proxy sidecar) and DB_PORT = "3306" is set by SnipeIT_Common.
• Session/cache/queue persistence. SnipeIT_Common sets SESSION_DRIVER = "database", CACHE_DRIVER = "file", and QUEUE_DRIVER = "database" so sessions and queued jobs survive pod restarts.
• APP_URL is derived automatically. SnipeIT_Common sets APP_URL from the predicted GKE service URL when known; override via environment_variables if you assign a custom domain after deploy.
• Health path. Default startup probe is TCP (30 s initial delay, 15 s period, failure threshold 20 — generous to allow first-boot DB setup). Default liveness probe is HTTP GET / (300 s initial delay, 60 s period, failure threshold 3) — Snipe-IT serves its login page at / unauthenticated, confirming the PHP app and DB connection are healthy.
• Inspect the init jobs and running config:

  kubectl get jobs -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" job/<db-init-job-name>
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" job/<migrate-job-name>
  kubectl exec -n "$NAMESPACE" deploy/<service-name> -- env | grep DB_

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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 Snipe-IT are listed; every other input is inherited from App_GKE with its standard behaviour and defaults.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	snipeit	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
application_version	v8-latest	Tag of the official snipe/snipe-it image. Use a pinned version in production.
php_memory_limit	512M	PHP memory_limit. Accepted but not applied by SnipeIT_Common — the prebuilt image keeps its own PHP config.
upload_max_filesize / post_max_size	64M / 64M	PHP upload / POST size. upload_max_filesize must not exceed post_max_size (plan-time guard); neither is applied to the prebuilt image.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
container_image_source	prebuilt	Deploys the official image directly; "custom" would build via Cloud Build.
cpu_limit / memory_limit	1000m / 2Gi	Per-pod CPU/memory limits.
container_port	80	Snipe-IT (Apache) listens on port 80.
min_instance_count / max_instance_count	1 / 1	HPA replica bounds.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Auth Proxy sidecar (loopback) — required on GKE; plan-time guard rejects it when database_type = "NONE".

Group 6 — GKE Backend & Cluster

Variable	Default	Description
service_type	LoadBalancer	External IP for the Snipe-IT UI.
workload_type	null → Deployment	Deployment (NFS-backed).
session_affinity	ClientIP	Sticky routing so a client reaches the same pod.

Group 13 — NFS

Variable	Default	Description
enable_nfs	true	NFS is on by default so uploaded asset images/signatures/barcodes persist and are shared. Keep enabled.
nfs_mount_path	/var/lib/snipeit	Where Snipe-IT stores uploads and runtime data.

Group 15 — Redis

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	true	Injects REDIS_HOST/REDIS_PORT. Plan-time guard requires either redis_host set or enable_nfs = true (NFS server IP is the fallback Redis host).
redis_host	""	Leave blank to use the NFS server IP.

Group 16 — Database

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	null → MYSQL_8_0	Fixed by SnipeIT_Common; other engines are not supported.
application_database_name	snipeit	Database name. Immutable after first deploy.
application_database_user	snipeit	Application database user; password auto-generated in Secret Manager.

Group 19 — Custom Domain, Static IP & Networking

Variable	Default	Description
enable_custom_domain	true	Provisions a Kubernetes Ingress for custom hostnames.
reserve_static_ip	true	Stable external IP across redeploys.
network_tags	["nfsserver"]	Required for NFS connectivity — do not remove unless NFS is disabled.

All other inputs follow standard App_GKE behaviour.

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5. Outputs

These values are returned on a successful deployment and are the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Kubernetes Service name.
namespace	Namespace the workload runs in.
service_cluster_ip	In-cluster ClusterIP.
stage_service_cluster_ips	Map of ClusterIPs for stage-specific services.
service_external_ip	External LoadBalancer IP (when a static IP is reserved).
service_url	URL to reach Snipe-IT.
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 (127.0.0.1 via the Auth Proxy) / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets.
network_name / network_exists / regions	VPC network, presence, available regions.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels	Monitoring status and channels.
initialization_jobs / db_import_job	Names of the setup (db-init, migrate) and (optional) import jobs.
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / cicd_configuration	CI/CD status and details (repo, trigger, registry).
github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name	CI/CD GitHub details.
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id	Registry and build trigger.
kubernetes_ready	Whether the cluster/workload is ready.
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_GKE foundation engine, which validates values and combinations at plan time — a StatefulSet forced alongside a stateless setting, IAP with no authorized identities, quota_memory_* given as bare integers, an out-of-range container_port/ backup_retention_days. SnipeIT_GKE adds its own guards (upload_max_filesize ≤ post_max_size, min_instance_count ≤ max_instance_count, Redis needs redis_host or NFS, IAP needs both OAuth values, enable_cloudsql_volume needs database_type != "NONE"). 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
database_type	null (→ MYSQL_8_0)	Critical	Snipe-IT requires MySQL; other engines are not supported by SnipeIT_Common.
application_database_name / application_database_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and orphans all data.
APP_KEY (auto-generated)	Never change	Critical	Regenerating the Laravel key after first boot invalidates sessions and any data encrypted with the old key (e.g., stored LDAP credentials).
enable_nfs	true	High	Disabling it makes uploaded asset images/signatures/barcodes ephemeral — isolated per pod and lost on restart.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	High	The Auth Proxy sidecar on 127.0.0.1:3306 is required for DB connectivity on GKE.
max_instance_count	1	High	Scaling beyond 1 without verified shared-storage/lock behaviour risks split sessions and NFS/DB lock contention.
session_affinity	ClientIP	High	Without stickiness, requests bounce between pods and disrupt authenticated sessions.
network_tags	["nfsserver"]	High	Removing the tag while NFS is enabled breaks pod-to-Filestore connectivity.
memory_limit	2Gi	High	Below 512Mi the PHP/Apache pod OOMs under load.
upload_max_filesize / post_max_size	upload_max_filesize ≤ post_max_size	Medium	The wrong order silently truncates uploads at the PHP layer; plan-time guard blocks it, but only for these two variables.
quota_memory_requests / _limits	binary units (4Gi, 8192Mi)	Critical	Bare integers are treated as bytes and block all pod scheduling in the namespace.
reserve_static_ip	true	Medium	Without it, the external IP can change across redeploys, breaking DNS and any bookmarked/API-integrated URL.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — IAM and Workload Identity, autoscaling, ingress and certificates, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_GKE. Snipe-IT-specific application configuration shared with the Cloud Run variant (image, APP_KEY secret, init jobs) is described in modules/SnipeIT_Common/README.md — no standalone docs/modules/ SnipeIT_Common.md guide exists yet.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: SnipeIT on GKE Autopilot — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Snipe-IT on Google Cloud Run — the same application on Cloud Run, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Snipe-IT Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.