Your Go-To Guide: Managing Google Cloud Virtual Machines (GCP VM Cheatsheet)

This cheatsheet provides a quick reference for working with Virtual Machines (VMs) on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using the gcloud command-line interface and key concepts.

Core Concepts:

Compute Engine: GCP’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering for creating and managing VMs.
Instance: A virtual machine hosted on Google’s infrastructure.
Zone: A deployment area within a region (e.g., us-central1-a). Provides fault isolation within a region.
Region: A geographical area consisting of one or more zones (e.g., us-central1).
Machine Type: Defines the virtualized hardware resources available to an instance (CPU, memory, etc.). Examples: n1-standard-1, e2-medium.
Image: A template used to create instances. Can be public (Google-provided), custom, or marketplace images.
Disk: Persistent storage attached to an instance. Can be standard persistent disks (HDD) or SSD persistent disks.
Network: A virtual network that provides connectivity for your instances.
Firewall Rules: Control network traffic to and from your instances.
IP Addresses: Instances can have ephemeral (temporary) or static (reserved) external and internal IP addresses.
Metadata: Key/value pairs that can be configured on instances and accessed from within the VM. Used for configuration and management.
Service Account: A special type of Google account that belongs to your application or VM, rather than to an individual end user. Used for authentication and authorization.

gcloud compute Commands:

Instance Management:

Create an instance:
```
gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
    --image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY \
    --image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --boot-disk-size=SIZE \
    --boot-disk-type=DISK_TYPE
```
- INSTANCE_NAME: Name of your VM instance.
- ZONE: GCP zone where you want to create the instance (e.g., us-central1-a).
- MACHINE_TYPE: Predefined machine type (e.g., n1-standard-1) or custom machine type (custom-CPU-MEMORY).
- IMAGE_FAMILY: Family of the OS image (e.g., debian-11).
- IMAGE_PROJECT: Project containing the image (e.g., debian-cloud).
- SIZE: Boot disk size in GB (e.g., 50GB).
- DISK_TYPE: Type of boot disk (pd-standard, pd-ssd).

List instances:

gcloud compute instances list --zone=ZONE
gcloud compute instances list --region=REGION
gcloud compute instances list --project=PROJECT_ID

Describe an instance:

gcloud compute instances describe INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

Start an instance:

gcloud compute instances start INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

Stop an instance:

gcloud compute instances stop INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

Reset an instance (hard reset):

gcloud compute instances reset INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

Delete an instance:

gcloud compute instances delete INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

Add --keep-disks=boot,data to preserve disks.

Connect to an instance using SSH:

gcloud compute ssh INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

Copy files to an instance:

gcloud compute scp LOCAL_FILE INSTANCE_NAME:/REMOTE_PATH --zone=ZONE
gcloud compute scp --recurse LOCAL_DIR INSTANCE_NAME:/REMOTE_PATH --zone=ZONE

Copy files from an instance:

gcloud compute scp INSTANCE_NAME:/REMOTE_FILE LOCAL_PATH --zone=ZONE
gcloud compute scp --recurse INSTANCE_NAME:/REMOTE_DIR LOCAL_PATH --zone=ZONE

Disk Management:

Create a disk:

gcloud compute disks create DISK_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --size=SIZE \
    --type=DISK_TYPE

List disks:

gcloud compute disks list --zone=ZONE
gcloud compute disks list --region=REGION

Describe a disk:

gcloud compute disks describe DISK_NAME --zone=ZONE

Attach a disk to an instance:

gcloud compute instances attach-disk INSTANCE_NAME \
    --disk=DISK_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --device-name=DEVICE_NAME \
    --mode=READ_WRITE

DEVICE_NAME: Name of the device within the VM (e.g., sdb).

Detach a disk from an instance:

gcloud compute instances detach-disk INSTANCE_NAME \
    --disk=DISK_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE

Delete a disk:

gcloud compute disks delete DISK_NAME --zone=ZONE

Image Management:

List available images:

gcloud compute images list --project=IMAGE_PROJECT
gcloud compute images list --filter="family=IMAGE_FAMILY" --project=IMAGE_PROJECT

Create a custom image from a disk:

gcloud compute images create IMAGE_NAME \
    --source-disk=DISK_NAME \
    --source-disk-zone=ZONE

Delete an image:
```
gcloud compute images delete IMAGE_NAME
```

Network & Firewall:

List networks:
```
gcloud compute networks list
```

Describe a network:

gcloud compute networks describe NETWORK_NAME

List firewall rules:

gcloud compute firewall-rules list --network=NETWORK_NAME

Create a firewall rule:

gcloud compute firewall-rules create FIREWALL_RULE_NAME \
    --network=NETWORK_NAME \
    --allow=PROTOCOL:PORT[,PROTOCOL:PORT,...] \
    --source-ranges=IP_RANGE[,IP_RANGE,...] \
    --target-tags=TAG[,TAG,...]

PROTOCOL: e.g., tcp, udp, icmp.
PORT: e.g., 80, 22-23.
IP_RANGE: e.g., 0.0.0.0/0 (any IP).
TAG: Network tags applied to instances.

Delete a firewall rule:

gcloud compute firewall-rules delete FIREWALL_RULE_NAME --network=NETWORK_NAME

IP Addresses:

List addresses:

gcloud compute addresses list --region=REGION

Reserve a static external IP address:

gcloud compute addresses create ADDRESS_NAME --region=REGION

Assign a static external IP address to an instance:

gcloud compute instances add-network-interface INSTANCE_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --network-interface-name=nic0 \
    --address=STATIC_IP_ADDRESS

Or during instance creation using --network-interface.

Release a static external IP address:

gcloud compute addresses delete ADDRESS_NAME --region=REGION

Service Accounts:

Create a service account:

gcloud iam service-accounts create SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME \
    --display-name="DISPLAY_NAME"

Add a service account to an instance:
```
gcloud compute instances update INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE \
    --service-account=SERVICE_ACCOUNT_EMAIL \
    --scopes=SCOPE1,SCOPE2,...
```
- SCOPE: Defines the permissions granted to the service account (e.g., https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute.readonly).

Metadata:

Set instance metadata during creation:

gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE \
    --metadata=key1=value1,key2=value2

Set instance metadata on an existing instance:

gcloud compute instances update INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE \
    --metadata=key1=new_value1,key3=value3

Get instance metadata:
```
gcloud compute instances describe INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE --format='value(metadata.items)'
```
- Access metadata from within the VM using curl "http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google".

Snapshots:

Create a snapshot of a disk:

gcloud compute snapshots create SNAPSHOT_NAME --disk=DISK_NAME --disk-zone=ZONE

List snapshots:
```
gcloud compute snapshots list
```

Create a disk from a snapshot:

gcloud compute disks create DISK_NAME --source-snapshot=SNAPSHOT_NAME --zone=ZONE

Delete a snapshot:

gcloud compute snapshots delete SNAPSHOT_NAME

Templates:

Create an instance template:

gcloud compute instance-templates create TEMPLATE_NAME \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
    --image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY --image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --boot-disk-size=SIZE --boot-disk-type=DISK_TYPE \
    --network=NETWORK_NAME \
    --tags=TAG1,TAG2

List instance templates:
```
gcloud compute instance-templates list
```

Create an instance from a template:

gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME --source-instance-template=TEMPLATE_NAME --zone=ZONE

Delete an instance template:

gcloud compute instance-templates delete TEMPLATE_NAME

Important Notes:

Replace placeholders like INSTANCE_NAME, ZONE, etc., with your actual values.
Use --help after any gcloud compute command to see more options and detailed usage.
Refer to the official Google Cloud documentation for the most up-to-date information and advanced configurations.
Consider using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or Deployment Manager for managing your GCP resources at scale.

This cheatsheet provides a starting point for working with Compute Engine. Explore the gcloud compute command-line official documentation for more advanced features and options.

Your Go-To Guide: Managing Google Cloud Virtual Machines (GCP VM Cheatsheet)

Your Go-To Guide: Managing Google Cloud Virtual Machines (GCP VM Cheatsheet)

Related Posts

Mastering Virtual Machines on Google Cloud Platform: A Cloud Engineer's Deep Dive

Diving Deep: Mastering Cloud Storage on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Locking Down Your Cloud: Mastering IAM on Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud VPC: Your Private Network in the Cloud