About Ostgate
Ostgate is a native macOS app for reaching Google Compute Engine VMs through Identity-Aware Proxy. It is made by one independent developer in Poland, who works and signs the guides on this site as Ostgate.
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Why it exists
Google's own client for this job, IAP Desktop, runs only on Windows. Its most-voted feature request is a version for macOS, and its maintainers have said there are no firm plans for one. On a Mac the documented route is the gcloud command line: a terminal per tunnel, ports picked by hand, a separate Remote Desktop client, and a closed socket when something is missing. Ostgate is the Mac app that should exist for people who spend their day on private VMs.
How it is built
- A native Swift and SwiftUI app for Apple Silicon. It opens IAP tunnels itself, from an implementation of the relay protocol written against the gcloud CLI's and IAP Desktop's published sources, so it needs no gcloud and no Python.
- It is tested against a real Google Cloud organization with Linux and Windows VMs, not only in unit tests. Several bugs, from the relay handshake to Remote Desktop input ordering, were found and fixed that way.
- It talks to Google as you, from your Mac. There is no Ostgate server in the path of your connections; the only other server it contacts checks the trial or licence. Details are in the privacy policy.
- Ostgate is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Google.
How the guides are made
The guides are drafted with AI assistance by the developer, then checked against the gcloud CLI's source, Google's and the tools' own documentation, and Ostgate's code. What a guide says about Ostgate was tried in the app on real Google Cloud projects, and every measured number says how it was measured. Each guide shows when it was last updated; corrections are welcome at the address below.
Contact
Write to support@ostgate.app, or open an issue in the ostgate-iap-app repository on GitHub, which hosts the releases and the issue tracker.