GSP094

Overview

The Pub/Sub service allows applications to exchange messages reliably, quickly, and asynchronously. To accomplish this, a data producer publishes messages to a Cloud Pub/Sub topic. A subscriber client then creates a subscription to that topic and consumes messages from the subscription. Cloud Pub/Sub persists messages that could not be delivered reliably for up to seven days.

In this lab, you will learn how to get started publishing messages with Pub/Sub using the Python client library.

What you'll do

In this lab, you'll do the following:

• Learn the basics of Pub/Sub
• Create, delete, and list Pub/Sub topics and subscriptions
• Publish messages to a topic.
• Use a pull subscriber to output individual topic messages.

Setup and Requirements

Before you click the Start Lab button

Read these instructions. Labs are timed and you cannot pause them. The timer, which starts when you click Start Lab, shows how long Google Cloud resources are made available to you.

This hands-on lab lets you do the lab activities in a real cloud environment, not in a simulation or demo environment. It does so by giving you new, temporary credentials you use to sign in and access Google Cloud for the duration of the lab.

To complete this lab, you need:

• Access to a standard internet browser (Chrome browser recommended).

• Time to complete the lab—remember, once you start, you cannot pause a lab.

How to start your lab and sign in to the Google Cloud console

1. Click the Start Lab button. If you need to pay for the lab, a dialog opens for you to select your payment method. On the left is the Lab Details pane with the following:

   • The Open Google Cloud console button
   • Time remaining
   • The temporary credentials that you must use for this lab
   • Other information, if needed, to step through this lab

2. Click Open Google Cloud console (or right-click and select Open Link in Incognito Window if you are running the Chrome browser).

   The lab spins up resources, and then opens another tab that shows the Sign in page.

   Tip: Arrange the tabs in separate windows, side-by-side.

   Note: If you see the Choose an account dialog, click Use Another Account.

3. If necessary, copy the Username below and paste it into the Sign in dialog.

   {{{user_0.username | "Username"}}}

   You can also find the Username in the Lab Details pane.

4. Click Next.

5. Copy the Password below and paste it into the Welcome dialog.

   {{{user_0.password | "Password"}}}

   You can also find the Password in the Lab Details pane.

6. Click Next.

   Important: You must use the credentials the lab provides you. Do not use your Google Cloud account credentials. Note: Using your own Google Cloud account for this lab may incur extra charges.

7. Click through the subsequent pages:

   • Accept the terms and conditions.
   • Do not add recovery options or two-factor authentication (because this is a temporary account).
   • Do not sign up for free trials.

After a few moments, the Google Cloud console opens in this tab.

Note: To access Google Cloud products and services, click the Navigation menu or type the service or product name in the Search field.

Activate Cloud Shell

Cloud Shell is a virtual machine that is loaded with development tools. It offers a persistent 5GB home directory and runs on the Google Cloud. Cloud Shell provides command-line access to your Google Cloud resources.

1. Click Activate Cloud Shell at the top of the Google Cloud console.

2. Click through the following windows:

   • Continue through the Cloud Shell information window.
   • Authorize Cloud Shell to use your credentials to make Google Cloud API calls.

When you are connected, you are already authenticated, and the project is set to your Project_ID, . The output contains a line that declares the Project_ID for this session:

gcloud is the command-line tool for Google Cloud. It comes pre-installed on Cloud Shell and supports tab-completion.

3. (Optional) You can list the active account name with this command:

4. Click Authorize.

Output:

5. (Optional) You can list the project ID with this command:

Output:

Task 1. Create a virtual environment

Python virtual environments are used to isolate package installation from the system.

1. Install the virtualenv environment:

2. Build the virtual environment:

3. Activate the virtual environment:

Task 2. Install the client library

1. Run the following to install the client library:

2. Get the sample code by cloning a GitHub repository:

3. Navigate to the directory:

Task 3. Pub/Sub - the Basics

Pub/Sub is an asynchronous global messaging service. There are three terms in Pub/Sub that appear often: topics, publishing, and subscribing.

A topic is a shared string that allows applications to connect with one another through a common thread.

Publishers push (or publish) a message to a Pub/Sub topic. Subscribers will then make a subscription to that thread, where they will either pull messages from the topic or configure webhooks for push subscriptions. Every subscriber must acknowledge each message within a configurable window of time.

In sum, a publisher creates and sends messages to a topic and a subscriber creates a subscription to a topic to receive messages from it.

Pub/Sub in Google CLoud

Pub/Sub comes preinstalled in Cloud Shell, so there are no installations or configurations required to get started with this service. In this lab you use Python to create the topic, subscriber, and then view the message. You use a gcloud command to publish the message to the topic.

Task 4. Create a topic

To publish data to Pub/Sub you create a topic and then configure a publisher to the topic.

1. In Cloud Shell, your Project ID should automatically be stored in the environment variable GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT:

2. Ensure the output is the same as the Project ID in your CONNECTION DETAILS.

publisher.py is a script that demonstrates how to perform basic operations on topics with the Cloud Pub/Sub API. View the content of publisher script:

3. For information about the publisher script:

Example output:

4. Run the publisher script to create Pub/Sub Topic:

Example output:

Test Completed Task

Click Check my progress to verify your performed task. If you have successfully created a Cloud Pub/Sub topic, you will see an assessment score.

5. This command returns a list of all Pub/Sub topics in a given project:

Example output:

You can also view the topic you just made in the Cloud Console.

6. Navigate to Navigation menu > Pub/Sub > Topics.

You should see MyTopic.

Task 5. Create a subscription

1. Create a Pub/Sub subscription for topic with subscriber.py script:

Test Completed Task

Click Check my progress to verify your performed task. If you have successfully created a Cloud Pub/Sub subscription, you will see an assessment score.

2. This command returns a list of subscribers in given project:

You'll see only one subscription because you've made only one subscription.

Example output:

3. Check out the subscription you just made in the console. In the left pane, click Subscriptions. You should see the subscription name and other details.

4. For information about the subscriber script:

Output:

Task 6. Publish messages

Now that you've set up MyTopic (the topic) and a subscription to MyTopic (MySub), use gcloud commands to publish a message to MyTopic.

1. Publish the message "Hello" to MyTopic:

2. Publish a few more messages to MyTopic—run the following commands (replacing <YOUR NAME> with your name and <FOOD> with a food you like to eat):

Task 7. View messages

Now that you've published messages to MyTopic, pull and view the messages using MySub.

1. Use MySub to pull the message from MyTopic:

Example output:

2. Click Ctrl+c to stop listening.

Task 8. Test your understanding

Below are multiple-choice questions to reinforce your understanding of this lab's concepts. Answer them to the best of your abilities.

Congratulations!

You used Python to create a Pub/Sub topic, published to the topic, created a subscription, then used the subscription to pull data from the topic.

Next steps /Learn more

Complementing Pub/Sub, Pub/Sub Lite is a zonal service for messaging systems with predictable traffic patterns. If you publish 1 MiB-1 GiB of messages per second, Pub/Sub Lite is a low cost option for high-volume event ingestion. Try Pub/Sub Lite with this lab:

• Pub/Sub Lite: Qwik Start

This lab is part of a series of labs called Qwik Starts. These labs are designed to give you a little taste of the many features available with Google Cloud. Search for "Qwik Starts" in the Google Cloud Skills Boost catalog to find the next lab you'd like to take!

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Manual Last Updated February 13, 2024

Lab Last Tested September 22, 2023

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