The gcloud
command-line tool lets you manage your Compute Engine resources, using the
gcloud compute
command group. gcloud compute
is an alternative to using the
Compute Engine API.
The gcloud
tool is part of the Cloud SDK and is a unified
command-line tool that includes features like statement autocompletion,
in-place updating, command-line help, human-readable and
machine-parsable output formats, and integration with Cloud SDK.
If you have never used Compute Engine, get started with either the Linux quickstart or the Windows quickstart.
Before you begin
- If you want to run
gcloud compute
in a command prompt, install, update, and initialize the Cloud SDK. - If you don't have a command prompt readily available, try using
gcloud compute
in Cloud Shell. Cloud Shell is automatically installed, updated, and initialized with the latest Cloud SDK.
Default properties
When you create a virtual machine instance, Compute Engine configures a VM using default properties from the metadata server. You can check your VM's default properties by running the following command:
gcloud compute project-info describe --project PROJECT_ID
Replace PROJECT_ID
with your project ID.
Default region and zone
Some gcloud compute
commands require --region
or --zone
flags.
Instead of specifying these flags each time you run commands, you can set a
default region and zone for your project. If you don't set a default region or
zone and you run a region- or zone-dependent command, the gcloud
command-line tool might
prompt you to provide a --region
or --zone
flag, or return an error.
You can set the default region and zone in three ways:
- In the metadata server.
The default region and zone set in the metadata server are applied to your
local client when you run
gcloud init
. - In your local client. The default region and zone set in your local client override the default region and zone set in the metadata server.
- In environment variables. The default region and zone set in environment variables override the default region and zone set in your local client and in the metadata server.
You can override the default region and zone in the
metadata server, in your local client, or in environment variables, by providing
--region
and --zone
flags when you run commands.
View default region and zone
To view your configuration's default region and zone, run the following commands:
gcloud config get-value compute/region
gcloud config get-value compute/zone
If the output is (unset)
, no default region or zone is set.
View available regions and zones
You can view a list of regions and zones by running the following commands:
gcloud compute regions list
gcloud compute zones list
Set default region and zone in the metadata server
The default region and zone in the metadata server apply to all configurations in your project. To set the default region and zone in the metadata server, do the following:
Set the default region and zone:
gcloud compute project-info add-metadata \ --metadata=[google-compute-default-region=REGION | google-compute-default-zone=ZONE]
For example:
gcloud compute project-info add-metadata \ --metadata google-compute-default-region=europe-west1,google-compute-default-zone=europe-west1-b
Initialize the change in your local client:
gcloud init
You can override the default region and zone set in the metadata server by
setting the default region and zone in your local client, setting the default
region and zone in environment variables, or by including the --zone
or
--region
flag in your commands.
Unset default region and zone in the metadata server
To unset the default region and zone in the metadata server, do the following:
Unset metadata:
gcloud compute project-info remove-metadata \ --keys=[google-compute-default-region | google-compute-default-zone]
Initialize the change in your local client:
gcloud init
Set default region and zone in your local client
The default region and zone set in your local client override the default region and zone set in the metadata server.
To set the default region and zone in your local client, run the following commands:
gcloud config set compute/region REGION
gcloud config set compute/zone ZONE
Unset default region and zone in your local client
To unset the default region or zone in your local client, run the following commands:
gcloud config unset compute/zone
gcloud config unset compute/region
You can override the default region and zone set in your local client by setting
the default region and zone in environment variables, or by including the
--zone
or --region
flag in your commands.
Set default region and zone in environment variables
The default region and zone set in environment variables override the default region and zone set in your local client and in the metadata server.
Linux and macOS
Use the export
command to set the region and zone variables.
export CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_REGION=REGION
export CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE=ZONE
To make these environment variables permanent, include these commands in
your ~/.bashrc
file and restart your terminal.
Windows
Use the set
command to set the region and zone variables.
set CLOUDSDK_CORE_REGION=REGION
set CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE=ZONE
You can override environment variables by including the --zone
or --region
flag in your commands.
Unset default region and zone in environment variables
Use the following commands to unset the default region and zone in environment variables.
Linux and macOS
To unset your region and zone environment variables, use the following
unset
commands:
unset CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_REGION
unset CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE
Windows
To unset your region and zone environment variables, use the following commands:
set CLOUDSDK_CORE_PROJECT=
set CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE=
Override default region and zone with flags
Use the --region
and --zone
flags to override the default region and zone
set in the metadata server, your local client, and environment variables.
For example:
gcloud compute instances create example-instance \ --region=REGION \ --zone=ZONE \
Configurations
gcloud topic configurations
are
an advanced feature that you can use to influence the behavior of the
gcloud
tool. For most users, using default configurations is
sufficient.
Configurations might be useful for users who:
- Work with multiple projects. You can create a separate configuration for each project.
- Use multiple accounts. For example, a user account and a service account.
- Perform a variety of independent tasks (work on an App Engine app in one project, administer a Compute Engine cluster in zone us-central-1a, manage the network configurations for region asia-east-1, etc.)
To switch between configurations, run the following command:
gcloud config configurations activate CONFIGURATION_NAME
For more information about managing configurations, see
gcloud config configurations
.
What's next?
- Follow the Quickstart guide for the
gcloud
command-line tool. - Review
gcloud compute
usage tips. - Discover
common
gcloud compute
commands.