Create a Confidential VM instance

You can create a Confidential VM instance as part of creating a new Compute Engine virtual machine.

Before you begin

Before creating a Confidential VM instance, you need to set up your environment as follows:

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

4. Enable the Compute Engine API.

   Enable the API

5. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

6. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

7. Enable the Compute Engine API.

   Enable the API

8. Optional: To use the gcloud CLI examples in this guide:
   • Install or update to the latest version of the gcloud CLI.
   • Set a default region and zone for your client that supports Confidential VM.
9. Optional: To use the API examples in this guide, set up authentication for your requests. Learn more about OAuth 2.0.

Create an instance

Console

To create an AMD SEV Confidential VM with the Google Cloud console, complete the following steps.

Note: To create an SEV-SNP or Intel TDX Confidential VM instance, use the gcloud CLI or REST API.

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.

   Go to VM instances

2. Click Create instance.

3. In the Confidential VM service section, click Enable.

4. In the Enable Confidential Computing dialog, review the list of settings that are updated when you enable the service. They can include the following fields, if they were set to incompatible values.

   • Series and Machine type. For more information, see Machine types, CPUs, and zones.

   • Region and zone. For more information, see Machine types, CPUs, and zones.

   • Boot disk image. For more information, see Operating systems.

   • On-host maintenance. For more information, see Set host maintenance policy of a VM.

   • Network interface card. For more information, see Using Google Virtual NIC.

5. Click Enable.

6. In the Machine configuration section, expand Advanced configurations.

7. For the CPU platform, choose AMD Milan or later.

8. Verify that you are satisfied with these settings, and then click Create.

After you click Create, the VM instances page opens. On this page you can view the status and details for your new instance. When an Available icon appears in the Status column for your Confidential VM instance, it's ready to use.

gcloud

To create a Confidential VM instance with the gcloud CLI, use the instances create sub-command with the --confidential-compute-type flag.

gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME \
    --confidential-compute-type=CONFIDENTIAL_COMPUTING_TECHNOLOGY \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE_NAME \
    --min-cpu-platform="CPU_PLATFORM" \
    --maintenance-policy="MAINTENANCE_POLICY" \
    --zone=ZONE_NAME \
    --image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY_NAME \
    --image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

Provide the following values:

• INSTANCE_NAME: The name of the new VM instance.

• CONFIDENTIAL_COMPUTING_TECHNOLOGY: The type of Confidential Computing technology to use. Choose one of the following values:

  • SEV

  • SEV_SNP

  • TDX

• MACHINE_TYPE_NAME: The VM machine type, for example, n2d-standard-2. Valid machine types for Confidential VM instances are determined by the Confidential Computing technology you've chosen. See Machine types, CPUs, and zones.

• CPU_PLATFORM: Choose one of the following values:

  • For AMD SEV: Either AMD Milan (C2D or N2D machine types) or AMD Genoa (C3D machine types).

  • For AMD SEV-SNP: AMD Milan (N2D machine types).

  • For Intel TDX: Remove this flag.

• MAINTENANCE_POLICY: For N2D machine types that use SEV, set this to MIGRATE for live migration support. For all other machine types, set this value to TERMINATE, as they don't support live migration.

• ZONE_NAME: The Confidential VM-supported zone in which to create the instance.

• IMAGE_FAMILY_NAME: The family for the Confidential VM-supported operating system image. When you don't additionally specify --image, the latest image version is selected.

• IMAGE_PROJECT: The project containing the supported operating system image.

• PROJECT_ID: Optional. The ID of the project to create the VM in.

Example

Run the following command to create an n2d-standard-2 instance called my-instance in the us-central1-a zone, using AMD SEV-SNP:

gcloud compute instances create my-instance \
    --machine-type=n2d-standard-2 \
    --min-cpu-platform="AMD Milan" \
    --zone=us-central1-a \
    --confidential-compute-type=SEV_SNP \
    --maintenance-policy=TERMINATE \
    --image-family=ubuntu-2404-lts-amd64 \
    --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud

Response

A response to a creation request looks similar to the following example:

Created [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instances/my-instance].
NAME: my-instance
ZONE: us-central1-a
MACHINE_TYPE: n2d-standard-2
PREEMPTIBLE:
INTERNAL_IP: 0.0.0.0
EXTERNAL_IP: 0.0.0.0
STATUS: RUNNING

REST

To create a Confidential VM instance, you need to send a POST request with the appropriate body content.

The HTTP method and URL:

POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE_NAME/instances

Request JSON body:

{
  "name": "INSTANCE_NAME",
  "confidentialInstanceConfig": {
    "confidentialInstanceType": "CONFIDENTIAL_COMPUTING_TECHNOLOGY"
  },
  "machineType": "zones/ZONE_NAME/machineTypes/MACHINE_TYPE_NAME",
  "minCpuPlatform": "CPU_PLATFORM",
  "disks": [
    {
      "boot": true,
      "initializeParams": {
        "sourceImage": "projects/IMAGE_PROJECT/global/images/family/IMAGE_FAMILY_NAME"
      }
    }
  ],
  "networkInterfaces": [
    {
      "nicType": "gVNIC"
    }
  ],
  "scheduling": {
    "automaticRestart": true,
    "nodeAffinities": [],
    "preemptible": false,
    "onHostMaintenance": MAINTENANCE_POLICY
  }
}

Provide the following values:

• PROJECT_ID: The ID of the project to create the VM in.

• ZONE_NAME: The Confidential VM-supported zone in which to create the instance.

• INSTANCE_NAME: The name of the new VM instance.

• CONFIDENTIAL_COMPUTING_TECHNOLOGY: The type of Confidential Computing technology to use. Choose one of the following values:

  • SEV

  • SEV_SNP

  • TDX

• MACHINE_TYPE_NAME: The VM machine type, for example, n2d-standard-2. Valid machine types for Confidential VM instances are determined by the Confidential Computing technology you've chosen. See Machine types, CPUs, and zones.

• CPU_PLATFORM: Choose one of the following values:

  • For AMD SEV: Either AMD Milan (C2D or N2D machine types) or AMD Genoa (C3D machine types).

  • For AMD SEV-SNP: AMD Milan (N2D machine types).

  • For Intel TDX: Remove this key-value pair.

• IMAGE_PROJECT: The project containing the supported operating system image.

• IMAGE_FAMILY_NAME: The family for the Confidential VM-supported operating system image. When you don't additionally specify --image, the latest image version is selected.

• MAINTENANCE_POLICY: For N2D machine types that use SEV, set this to MIGRATE for live migration support. For all other machine types, set this value to TERMINATE, as they don't support live migration.

Example

Run one of the following commands to create an n2d-standard-2 instance called my-instance in the us-central1-a zone, in the my-project project, using AMD SEV-SNP:

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login, or by using Cloud Shell, which automatically logs you into the gcloud CLI. You can check the active account by running gcloud auth list.

curl -X POST \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -d '{
            "machineType": "zones/us-central1-a/machineTypes/n2d-standard-2",
            "name": "my-instance",
            "minCpuPlatform": "AMD Milan",
            "confidentialInstanceConfig": {
              "confidentialInstanceType": "SEV_SNP"
            },
            "disks": [
              {
                "boot": true,
                "initializeParams": {
                  "sourceImage": "projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/images/family/ubuntu-2404-lts-amd64"
                }
              }
            ],
            "networkInterfaces": [
              {
                "nicType": "gVNIC"
              }
            ],
            "scheduling": {
              "automaticRestart": true,
              "nodeAffinities": [],
              "preemptible": false,
              "onHostMaintenance": "TERMINATE"
            }
          }' \
      https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instances

PowerShell (Windows)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login. You can check the active account by running gcloud auth list.

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }
$body = @"
{
  "machineType": "zones/us-central1-a/machineTypes/n2d-standard-2",
  "name": "my-instance",
  "minCpuPlatform": "AMD Milan",
  "confidentialInstanceConfig": {
    "confidentialInstanceType": "SEV_SNP"
  },
  "disks": [
    {
      "boot": true,
      "initializeParams": {
        "sourceImage": "projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/images/family/ubuntu-2404-lts-amd64"
      }
    }
  ],
  "networkInterfaces": [
    {
      "nicType": "gVNIC"
    }
  ],
  "scheduling": {
    "automaticRestart": true,
    "nodeAffinities": [],
    "preemptible": false,
    "onHostMaintenance": "TERMINATE"
  }
}
"@
Invoke-WebRequest `
  -Method POST `
  -Headers $headers `
  -ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
  -Body $body `
  -Uri "https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instances" | Select-Object -Expand Content

Response

A response to a creation request looks similar to the following example:

{
  "kind": "compute#operation",
  "id": "0000000000000000000",
  "name": "operation-0000000000000-0000000000000-00000000-00000000",
  "zone": "https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a",
  "operationType": "insert",
  "targetLink": "https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instances/my-instance",
  "targetId": "0000000000000000000",
  "status": "RUNNING",
  "user": "[e-mail]",
  "progress": 0,
  "insertTime": "2024-09-29T18:06:52.174-07:00",
  "startTime": "2024-09-29T18:06:52.175-07:00",
  "selfLink": "https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/operations/operation-0000000000000-0000000000000-00000000-00000000"
}

You can check the VM creation progress by making a GET request to the selfLink:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE_NAME/operations/OPERATION_ID

Enable higher network bandwidth for C2D machine types

The three largest C2D Compute Engine VM shapes (32, 56, and 112) support high-bandwidth networking. When you select a Tier 1 network bandwidth configuration, the data transfer out bandwidth increases from the default 32 Gbps to 50 or 100 Gbps. To achieve the higher Tier 1 bandwidth speeds, the instance must be running the gVNIC virtual network driver. Learn more about configuring a VM with higher bandwidth.

What's next

Learn how to use Cloud Monitoring to validate your Confidential VM instances.