CTFd Deployment on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

This project automates the deployment of a CTFd instance on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) using Terraform. CTFd is a popular Capture The Flag platform that allows users to create and host security-focused competitions. The deployment includes a LoadBalancer service and SSL/TLS configuration using Kubernetes Ingress.

Prerequisites:

• A Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account with billing enabled
• Google Cloud SDK
• Terraform
• Kubernetes command-line tool kubectl
• DNS name that will point to a static global IP address in GCP
• SSL/TLS private key and certificate files (e.g., privkey.pem and fullchain.pem)

Setup

Authenticate your GCP account and set the project:

gcloud auth login
gcloud config set project <YOUR_PROJECT_ID>

To enable the Service Networking API, Kubernetes Engine API, and Compute Engine API via the gcloud command-line tool, you'll need to run the following commands:

gcloud services enable servicenetworking.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com

Create a GKE cluster and get its credentials:

gcloud container clusters create <CLUSTER_NAME> --zone <YOUR_ZONE>
gcloud container clusters get-credentials <CLUSTER_NAME> --zone <YOUR_ZONE>

Create a static external IP address in Google Cloud Platform. In this specific command:

gcloud compute addresses create ctfd --global

Create a Kubernetes secret to store the SSL private key and certificate:

kubectl create secret tls ctfd-tls --key privkey.pem --cert fullchain.pem

Initialize Terraform and apply the configuration:

terraform init
terraform apply

Components

Terraform project consists of several configuration files, each containing resources and settings related to a specific aspect of the infrastructure provisioning:

• ctfd.tf: This file usually contains the main Terraform configuration, including the provider settings and any shared or high-level resources.
• database.tf: This file contains the Terraform resources related to your database setup. In this case.
• ingress.tf: This file contains the Terraform resources related to the Kubernetes Ingress setup.
• redis.tf: This file contains the Terraform resources related to setting up a Redis instance.

Accessing CTFd

After deploying the CTFd instance on GKE, you can access it using the reserved static IP address:

gcloud compute addresses describe ctfd --global

You can also configure DNS name with this IP address.

Cleaning Up

To destroy the resources created by Terraform, run:

terraform destroy

To delete the GKE cluster, run:

gcloud container clusters delete <CLUSTER_NAME> --zone <YOUR_ZONE>

To delete the reserved static IP address, run:

gcloud compute addresses delete ctfd --global