google-cloud-storage.md

• How to get started
  • 1. Create Google Cloud project
  • 2. Create new bucket
  • 3. Install gsutil
  • 4. Upload and share
    • Pre-signed URLs
• Quick reference

Google Cloud Storage

Google Cloud Storage is great for personal file sharing. Google also provides a feature to transfer all data from an S3 bucket to Google's cloud storage bucket.

After everything is setup, the actual upload to Cloud Storage is a single command:

gsutil cp my-file.mp4 gs://<bucket-name>

# Will be accessible in this URL:
# http://<bucket-name>.storage.googleapis.com/my-file.mp4

How to get started

You need to have a Google account

1. Create Google Cloud project

Sign in to Google Cloud Console. Create a billing account in https://console.cloud.google.com/billing. Create a new project

2. Create new bucket

After creating the project, go to Storage console

Create new bucket, I named my personal bucket as "kimmobrunfeldt" The bucket URL will be in this format: http://.storage.googleapis.com/my-file.mp4

Note: this could also be done via gsutil CLI tool

3. Install gsutil

Install gsutil https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/gsutil_install. This is the Google Cloud Storage CLI tool.

Authenticate gsutil https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/gsutil_install#authenticate. You might want to check Google Cloud IAM users: https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/iam but currently the feature is in Alpha.

4. Upload and share

You can make new objects to have public-read ACL by default if that's what you want: gsutil defacl set public-read gs://<bucket-name>. After that all your uploads will be publicly readable.

Uploading is simple: gsutil cp my-file.mp4 gs://<bucket-name>/

Pre-signed URLs

It's also possible to generate signed URLs which are available limited time to minimize the risk of accidentally creating a huge bill. The downside to this is that you always have to generate the signed url after uploading.

To sign urls with gsutil, you need to setup Service Account Authentication. Follow this guide: https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/access-control#signing-gsutil

After that you can generate a signed url which is e.g. available for 10 minutes:

gsutil signurl -d 10m path/to/your/key.json gs://<bucket-name>/file.mp4

Quick reference

Command	Description
gsutil cp file.mp4 gs://<bucket-name>/	Upload file to bucket root
gsutil rm gs://<bucket-name>/file.mp4	Remove file in bucket
gsutil acl set public-read gs://<bucket-name>/file.mp4	Set object ACL to public-read
gsutil defacl set public-read gs://<bucket-name>	Set default ACL for new objects
gsutil acl set private gs://<bucket-name>	Set bucket ACL as private