implementing-gcp-organization-policy-constraints

Implements GCP Organization Policy constraints via gcloud and Terraform, such as restricting external IPs, resource locations, default service accounts, and service account keys, plus dry-run testing of policy impact before enforcement. Use when enforcing security guardrails across an org's resource hierarchy, or hardening GCP config at the org, folder, or project level.

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Implementing GCP Organization Policy Constraints

Overview

The GCP Organization Policy Service provides centralized and programmatic control over cloud resources. Organization policies configure constraints that restrict one or more Google Cloud services, enforced at organization, folder, or project levels. They improve security by blocking external IPs, requiring encryption, and minimizing unauthorized access. Changes can take up to 15 minutes to propagate.

When to Use

When deploying or configuring implementing gcp organization policy constraints capabilities in your environment
When establishing security controls aligned to compliance requirements
When building or improving security architecture for this domain
When conducting security assessments that require this implementation

Prerequisites

GCP Organization with Organization Administrator role
gcloud CLI configured and authenticated
Terraform or gcloud for policy management
Organization Policy Administrator IAM role (roles/orgpolicy.policyAdmin)

Core Concepts

Constraint Types

List Constraints: Allow or deny specific values (e.g., allowed regions)
Boolean Constraints: Enable or disable a capability (e.g., disable serial port access)
Custom Constraints: User-defined rules targeting specific resource fields (Preview)

Policy Inheritance

Policies inherit from the lowest ancestor with an enforced policy. If no ancestor has a policy, Google's managed default behavior applies.

Essential Security Constraints

Restrict VM External IP Addresses

# Deny external IP addresses on all VMs
gcloud resource-manager org-policies set-policy \
  --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID \
  policy.yaml

policy.yaml:

constraint: constraints/compute.vmExternalIpAccess
listPolicy:
  allValues: DENY

Restrict Resource Locations

gcloud org-policies set-policy \
  --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID \
  location-policy.yaml

location-policy.yaml:

constraint: constraints/gcp.resourceLocations
listPolicy:
  allowedValues:
    - "in:us-locations"
    - "in:eu-locations"

Disable Default Service Account Creation

constraint: constraints/iam.automaticIamGrantsForDefaultServiceAccounts
booleanPolicy:
  enforced: true

Require OS Login for SSH

constraint: constraints/compute.requireOsLogin
booleanPolicy:
  enforced: true

Disable Serial Port Access

constraint: constraints/compute.disableSerialPortAccess
booleanPolicy:
  enforced: true

Enforce Uniform Bucket-Level Access

constraint: constraints/storage.uniformBucketLevelAccess
booleanPolicy:
  enforced: true

Restrict Public IP on Cloud SQL

constraint: constraints/sql.restrictPublicIp
booleanPolicy:
  enforced: true

Disable Service Account Key Creation

constraint: constraints/iam.disableServiceAccountKeyCreation
booleanPolicy:
  enforced: true

Terraform Implementation

resource "google_organization_policy" "restrict_vm_external_ip" {
  org_id     = var.org_id
  constraint = "constraints/compute.vmExternalIpAccess"

  list_policy {
    deny {
      all = true
    }
  }
}

resource "google_organization_policy" "restrict_locations" {
  org_id     = var.org_id
  constraint = "constraints/gcp.resourceLocations"

  list_policy {
    allow {
      values = ["in:us-locations", "in:eu-locations"]
    }
  }
}

resource "google_organization_policy" "require_os_login" {
  org_id     = var.org_id
  constraint = "constraints/compute.requireOsLogin"

  boolean_policy {
    enforced = true
  }
}

resource "google_folder_organization_policy" "dev_folder_external_ip" {
  folder     = google_folder.dev.name
  constraint = "constraints/compute.vmExternalIpAccess"

  list_policy {
    allow {
      values = ["projects/dev-project/zones/us-central1-a/instances/bastion-host"]
    }
  }
}

Dry-Run Testing

Use Policy Intelligence tools to test changes before enforcement:

# Create a dry-run policy to monitor impact
gcloud org-policies set-policy \
  --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID \
  dry-run-policy.yaml

dry-run-policy.yaml:

constraint: constraints/compute.vmExternalIpAccess
listPolicy:
  allValues: DENY
dryRunSpec: true

# Check violations against dry-run policy
gcloud org-policies list-custom-constraints \
  --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID

Custom Constraints

# custom-constraint.yaml
name: organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/customConstraints/custom.disableGKEAutoUpgrade
resourceTypes:
  - container.googleapis.com/NodePool
methodTypes:
  - CREATE
  - UPDATE
condition: "resource.management.autoUpgrade == true"
actionType: DENY
displayName: Deny GKE auto-upgrade on node pools
description: Prevents enabling auto-upgrade on GKE node pools for controlled upgrades

gcloud org-policies set-custom-constraint custom-constraint.yaml

Monitoring and Compliance

List active policies

gcloud org-policies list --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID

Describe a specific policy

gcloud org-policies describe constraints/compute.vmExternalIpAccess \
  --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID

Audit policy violations with Cloud Asset Inventory

gcloud asset search-all-resources \
  --scope=organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID \
  --query="policy:constraints/compute.vmExternalIpAccess"

Recommended Baseline Policies

Constraint	Type	Scope	Purpose
compute.vmExternalIpAccess	List/Deny	Org	Prevent public VM IPs
gcp.resourceLocations	List/Allow	Org	Restrict to approved regions
iam.disableServiceAccountKeyCreation	Boolean	Org	Force Workload Identity
compute.requireOsLogin	Boolean	Org	Mandate OS Login for SSH
storage.uniformBucketLevelAccess	Boolean	Org	Enforce uniform bucket access
sql.restrictPublicIp	Boolean	Org	No public Cloud SQL
compute.disableSerialPortAccess	Boolean	Org	Disable serial port
compute.disableNestedVirtualization	Boolean	Org	No nested VMs

References

GCP Organization Policy Constraints: https://docs.google.com/resource-manager/docs/organization-policy/org-policy-constraints
GCP Policy Intelligence: https://cloud.google.com/policy-intelligence
CIS GCP Foundations Benchmark