Global forwarding rules route traffic by IP address, port, and protocol to a load balancing configuration consisting of a target proxy, and URL map. The backend services are drawn from available instances that are grouped into resource views objects. The global forwarding rule provides a single global IP address that you can use in the DNS records for your application.

Global forwarding rule properties

See the GlobalForwardingRule resource for descriptions of the properties available when working with global forwarding rules through either the REST API or the gcloud command-line tool.

Adding a global forwarding rule

To add a new global forwarding rule with gcloud compute , use the forwarding-rules create subcommand:

$ gcloud compute forwarding-rules create
    FORWARDING_RULE --global
    [--address ADDRESS]
    [--description DESCRIPTION]
    [--ip-protocol IP_PROTOCOL]
    [--port-range [PORT | PORT-PORT]]
    [--target-http-proxy TARGET_HTTP_PROXY | --target-instance TARGET_INSTANCE | --target-pool TARGET_POOL]
    [--target-instance-zone TARGET_INSTANCE_ZONE]

To add a forwarding rule using the API, send a POST request to the following URI:

POST https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/<project-id>/global/forwardingRules

{
  "name": NAME,
  "IPAddress": EXTERNAL_IP,
  "IPProtocol": TCP_OR_UDP,
  "portRange": PORT_RANGE,
  "target": TARGET_HTTP_PROXY | TARGET_INSTANCE | TARGET_POOL
}

Listing global forwarding rules

To get a list of forwarding rules with gcloud compute , use the forwarding-rules list subcommand:

$ gcloud compute forwarding-rules list --global
    [NAME_REGEX ...]
    [--limit LIMIT]
    [--raw-links]
    [--sort-by SORT_BY]
    [-l]

In the API, make an empty GET request to the following URI:

https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/<project-id>/global/forwardingRules

Getting forwarding rules

To get a information about a single forwarding rule with gcloud compute , use the forwarding-rules get subcommand:

$ gcloud compute forwarding-rules describe FORWARDING_RULE --global

In the API, make an empty GET request to the following URI:

https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/<project-id>/global/forwardingRules/<forwarding-rule>

Updating the global forwarding rule target

If you have already created a global forwarding rule but want to change the target HTTP proxy that the forwarding rule is using using gcloud compute , use the forwarding-rules set-target sub-command:

$ gcloud compute forwarding-rules set-target FORWARDING_RULE --global
  [--target-http-proxy TARGET_HTTP_PROXY]

In the API, send a POST request to the URI below, passing the name of the target HTTP proxy resource that you want to set in the request body:

POST https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/<project-id>/global/forwardingRules/<forwarding-rule>/setTarget

{
  "target": TARGET_HTTP_PROXY
}

Deleting global forwarding rules

To delete a forwarding rule with gcloud compute , use the forwarding-rules delete sub-command:

$ gcloud compute forwarding-rules delete FORWARDING_RULE --global [--quiet]

To delete a global forwarding rule from the API, send an empty DELETE request to:

https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/<project-id>/global/forwardingRules/<forwarding-rule>

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