Create and Manage Compute Engine VM’s in GCP

Cloud

Create and Manage Compute Engine VM’s in GCP

By novicejava1 0

Test Environment

Fedora 32 installed
Active GCP account

Procedure

Step1: Create an Ubuntu instance with the following parameter in the GUI

Instance Name : ubser-1
Label : env=dev
Region : us-central1
Zone : us-central1-a
Machine Type : e2-micro
Image : Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with 10 GB Standard Persistent Disk
Other Config : Set as default

This will create an instance with a Boot disk name same as Instance name (ie. ubser-1). Also it will assign an Internal IP address based on the default subnet which is assigned for your instance based on the region selected and an external IP address is also assigned.

In my case the default subnet that is assigned to my instance is ‘10.128.0.0/20’

Internal IP address - 10.128.0.4
External IP address - 34.122.64.164

Step2: Get the list of instances and disks using gcloud cli

gcloud compute instances list

Output:

NAME     ZONE           MACHINE_TYPE  PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP    STATUS
ubser-1  us-central1-a  e2-micro                   10.128.0.4   34.122.64.164  RUNNING

gcloud compute disks list

Output:

NAME     LOCATION       LOCATION_SCOPE  SIZE_GB  TYPE         STATUS
ubser-1  us-central1-a  zone            10       pd-standard  READY

The output that we see here is a human readable format with limited details about the instance. In case we want to get the complete details about the instance in JSON or YAML format we can run the below command.

gcloud compute instances list --format json
gcloud compute instances list --format yaml
gcloud compute instances list --format text

Step3: Stop the Compute instance

gcloud compute instances stop ubser-1 --zone=us-central1-a

Output:

NAME     ZONE           MACHINE_TYPE  PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP  STATUS
ubser-1  us-central1-a  e2-micro                   10.128.0.4                TERMINATED

Step4: Start the Compute instance

gcloud compute instances list

Output:

NAME     ZONE           MACHINE_TYPE  PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP     STATUS
ubser-1  us-central1-a  e2-micro                   10.128.0.4   35.188.124.254  RUNNING

One important thing to note here is that once we restart the instance the External IP associated with the instances gets changed. The External IP address assigned to the instance is not persistent with the instance lifecycle.

gcloud compute instances list --format text | grep -i nat

Output:

networkInterfaces[0].accessConfigs[0].name:            External NAT
networkInterfaces[0].accessConfigs[0].natIP:           35.188.124.254
networkInterfaces[0].accessConfigs[0].type:            ONE_TO_ONE_NAT

The External IP address that is assigned to the instance is an NAT IP address.

Step5: Create an Ubuntu instance with the following parameter using Cloud SDK or Cloud Shell

Instance Name : ubser-2
Label : env=uat
Region : us-central1
Zone : us-central1-b
Machine Type : e2-micro
Image : Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with 10 GB Standard Persistent Disk
Other Config : Set as default

Identify the image name from the list of images available in public images.

gcloud compute images list --filter=[ubuntu]

Output:

NAME                                  PROJECT          FAMILY                   DEPRECATED  STATUS
ubuntu-1604-xenial-v20201210          ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-1604-lts                      READY
ubuntu-1804-bionic-v20201211a         ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-1804-lts                      READY
ubuntu-2004-focal-v20201211           ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-2004-lts                      READY
ubuntu-2010-groovy-v20201210          ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-2010                          READY
ubuntu-minimal-1604-xenial-v20201210  ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-minimal-1604-lts              READY
ubuntu-minimal-1804-bionic-v20201216  ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-minimal-1804-lts              READY
ubuntu-minimal-2004-focal-v20201211   ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-minimal-2004-lts              READY
ubuntu-minimal-2010-groovy-v20201210  ubuntu-os-cloud  ubuntu-minimal-2010                  READY

Create Compute instance using gcloud

gcloud compute instances create ubser-2 --machine-type=e2-micro --image=ubuntu-2004-focal-v20201211 --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud --labels=env=uat --zone=us-central1-b

Output:

Created [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/gcplearning-299822/zones/us-central1-b/instances/ubser-2].
NAME     ZONE           MACHINE_TYPE  PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP    STATUS
ubser-2  us-central1-b  e2-micro                   10.128.0.5   34.122.64.164  RUNNING

gcloud compute instances list

Output:

NAME     ZONE           MACHINE_TYPE  PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP     STATUS
ubser-1  us-central1-a  e2-micro                   10.128.0.4   35.188.124.254  RUNNING
ubser-2  us-central1-b  e2-micro                   10.128.0.5   34.122.64.164   RUNNING

gcloud compute disks list

Output:

NAME     LOCATION       LOCATION_SCOPE  SIZE_GB  TYPE         STATUS
ubser-1  us-central1-a  zone            10       pd-standard  READY
ubser-2  us-central1-b  zone            10       pd-standard  READY

Step6: Create a snapshot of the disk

Lets create a snapshot of the disk using gcloud as show below.

gcloud compute disks snapshot ubser-1 --snapshot-names=ubser-1-snapshot --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute disks snapshot ubser-2 --snapshot-names=ubser-2-snapshot --zone=us-central1-b

Fetch the details about the snapshot that has been created in previous step.

gcloud compute snapshots describe ubser-1-snapshot

Output:

creationTimestamp: '2020-12-28T00:58:22.710-08:00'
diskSizeGb: '10'
downloadBytes: '655537518'
id: '2955226188043526337'
kind: compute#snapshot
labelFingerprint: 42WmSpB8rSM=
licenseCodes:
- '2211838267635035815'
licenses:
- https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/licenses/ubuntu-2004-lts
name: ubser-1-snapshot
selfLink: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/gcplearning-299822/global/snapshots/ubser-1-snapshot
sourceDisk: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/gcplearning-299822/zones/us-central1-a/disks/ubser-1
sourceDiskId: '8882054917905462950'
status: READY
storageBytes: '655521856'
storageBytesStatus: UP_TO_DATE
storageLocations:
- us

gcloud compute snapshots describe ubser-2-snapshot

Output:

creationTimestamp: '2020-12-28T00:59:09.097-08:00'
diskSizeGb: '10'
downloadBytes: '655024833'
id: '4327695696288555187'
kind: compute#snapshot
labelFingerprint: 42WmSpB8rSM=
licenseCodes:
- '2211838267635035815'
licenses:
- https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/licenses/ubuntu-2004-lts
name: ubser-2-snapshot
selfLink: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/gcplearning-299822/global/snapshots/ubser-2-snapshot
sourceDisk: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/gcplearning-299822/zones/us-central1-b/disks/ubser-2
sourceDiskId: '237275101069060074'
status: READY
storageBytes: '655009216'
storageBytesStatus: UP_TO_DATE
storageLocations:
- us

Hope you enjoyed reading this article. Thank you..