Connecting to Google Cloud Storage

Connect Publisher to Google Cloud Storage (GCS) to access and share your data. This connection requires Google Cloud credentials and specific project information.

Prerequisites

Before starting, gather these items:

• Google service account with appropriate permissions

• Service account key in JSON format

• Name of your GCS bucket

Configuration Process

Initial Setup

From the Publisher interface, select "Data Sources" in the navigation bar and click "Connect Data Source". Choose "Google Cloud Storage Object Store" from the available connectors.

Service Account Setup

1. Access your Google Cloud Platform Console:

   • Create a new service account or use an existing one

   • Navigate to the KEYS tab

   • Create a new key in JSON format

2. In Publisher, upload your JSON Service Account key

For detailed instructions on creating Google service account keys, refer to Google Cloud documentation.

Storage Configuration

Select your storage bucket from the available options.

Recommended Bucket Settings

When provisioning a GCS bucket to connect to Publisher, the following settings are strongly recommended for security:

• Public access prevention — set to enforced. Publisher data buckets should never be publicly reachable; access is always mediated by the connector's service account.

• Uniform bucket-level access — enable it. Publisher grants access through IAM, so per-object ACLs are unnecessary and make access harder to audit.

• Encryption — use Google-managed (default) encryption. Publisher does not support customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK); buckets encrypted with CMEK cannot be connected.

The following Terraform reflects these recommendations:

resource "google_storage_bucket" "publisher_data" {
  name     = "${var.project}-publisher-data"
  project  = var.project
  location = var.google_region

  public_access_prevention    = "enforced"
  uniform_bucket_level_access = true
  # Encryption is left unset so the bucket uses Google-managed keys.
  # Do not configure a CMEK key — Publisher does not support CMEK-encrypted buckets.
}

Data Update Settings

Choose how Publisher monitors your GCS bucket:

Google PubSub Option:

• Enable Google PubSub integration

• Provide:

  • PubSub topic ID

  • PubSub project ID

  • Service account key for PubSub (JSON format)

Schedule Option:

• Select an update interval (30 seconds to monthly)

• Updates can be configured later if needed

Finalizing Setup

1. Provide a descriptive name for your data source

2. Optionally create and share a collection from this data source