Creating VM instances
-
Creating and starting a VM instance
Create a virtual machine instance from an image or a snapshot.
-
Creating and starting a preemptible VM instance
Create a preemptible virtual machine instance.
-
Adding or removing GPUs
Add or remove GPUs from a virtual machine instance.
-
Provisioning VMs on sole-tenant nodes
Provision VMs on sole-tenant nodes to physically separate VMs from other projects.
-
Creating customized boot disks
Create a boot disk using a public image, a custom private image, or a snapshot from another boot disk.
-
Creating and managing Windows Server instances
Create Windows virtual machine instances on Compute Engine.
-
Creating passwords for Windows instances
Generate or reset the password for a Windows Compute Engine instance.
-
Creating a Windows persistent disk snapshot
Create snapshots of a Windows persistent disk and use those snapshots to create new persistent disks.
-
Creating a Windows image
Create a Windows operating system image that you can use to start new Windows instances on Compute Engine.
-
Bring your own licenses with sole-tenant nodes
Bring your licenses to Compute Engine.
-
Determining server usage
Learn how to determine physical server IDs for licensing requirements.
-
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions around bringing your own license to Compute Engine.
-
Automating Windows password generation
Automate the generation of Windows passwords for your users.
-
Using existing Microsoft application licenses
Learn how to deploy eligible Microsoft Windows Server applications on Google Cloud using your existing app licenses.
-
Creating SQL Server instances
Create a SQL Server instance from an image family.
-
Creating a VM instance with a custom machine type
Create a virtual machine instance with custom virtualized hardware settings, such as a custom number of vCPUs and amount of memory, effectively using a custom machine type.
-
Creating a VM instance from an instance template
Create a virtual machine instance from an instance template.
-
Creating a VM instance from an existing instance
Create an instance using the same configuration of an existing instance.
-
Creating a VM instance with a custom hostname
Create an instance with a customized hostname.
-
Creating instances that use the Compute Engine virtual network interface
Create a new instance with the Compute Engine virtual network interface.
Managing access to VM instances
-
Setting up OS Login
Manage SSH access to Linux VM instances by using OS Login.
-
Setting up OS Login with 2-step verification
Add an extra layer of security to OS Login by using two-factor authentication.
-
Managing OS Login in an organization
Setup and manage OS Login at the organization level.
-
Managing SSH keys in metadata
Manage SSH access to Linux VM instances by using SSH key metadata.
Connecting to VM instances
Managing storage
-
Adding or resizing persistent disks
Add or resize persistent disks.
-
Adding or resizing regional persistent disks
Add or resize regional persistent disks.
-
Adding local SSDs
Add always-encrypted local solid-state drives to your instance.
-
Connecting to Cloud Storage buckets
Connect Cloud Storage buckets as common storage between your Compute Engine instances, your on-premises systems, and other Google Cloud services.
-
Mounting in-memory RAM disks
Allocate some memory to create a RAM disk with exceptionally low latency and high throughput but no automatic data replication.
-
Optimizing persistent disk performance
Learn how to optimize persistent disk storage for your workloads.
-
Optimizing local SSD performance
Learn how to optimize local SSD storage for your workloads.
-
Benchmarking persistent disk performance
Learn how to benchmark persistent disk performance.
-
Benchmarking local SSD performance
Learn how to benchmark local SSD performance.
Creating and managing instance templates
Working with machine images
Building and managing custom images
-
Creating, deprecating, and deleting custom images
Learn how to create, deprecate, and delete custom images.
-
Sharing images and snapshots across projects
Share images and snapshots across projects.
-
Setting up trusted image policies
Define organization policies that restrict the use of images in a project.
-
Building custom operating systems
Build your own operating system.
-
Exporting a custom image to Cloud Storage
Export a custom image to Cloud Storage.
Importing custom images and VM instances
-
Choosing an import method
Learn how to decide on the best import method for your use case.
-
Importing virtual disks
Import a virtual disk into Compute Engine using the images import tool.
-
Importing virtual appliances
Use OVF virtual appliances to import VM instances to Compute Engine.
-
Manually import virtual disks
Manually import boot disk image into Compute Engine.
-
Manually configure imported images
Optimize your manually imported boot disk image for Compute Engine.
Managing your instances
-
Stopping and starting an instance
Stop an instance temporarily or restart a stopped instance.
-
Viewing source image
View the source image for a VM.
-
Deleting an instance
Delete an instance permanently.
-
Preventing accidental VM deletion
Protect a VM instance from accidental deletion.
-
Resetting or restarting an instance
Restart a stopped instance, or perform a soft reset on a running instance.
-
Working with persistent disk snapshots
Use snapshots to back up data from your persistent disks.
-
Creating scheduled snapshots for persistent disk
Use snapshot schedules to automatically back up data from your persistent disks.
-
Moving an instance between zones
Learn how to move your instances between zones.
-
Migrating a VM between networks
Learn how to move your VM instances from one network to another.
-
Applying sizing recommendations for VM instances
Use Compute Engine machine type recommendations to resize your instance's machine type and to more efficiently use its resources.
-
Changing the machine type of a stopped instance
Learn how to change the machine type of a stopped instance.
-
Specifying a minimum CPU platform for VM instances
Set a baseline minimum CPU platform for a new or existing VM instance.
-
Creating and enabling service accounts for instances
Learn how to create and enable service accounts for your instances. Service accounts let you authenticate apps running on your instance to other Google Cloud services.
-
Setting instance availability policies
Learn how to set or update the scheduling options for your instances during maintenance events.
-
Storing and retrieving instance metadata
Every instance stores its metadata on a metadata server; this page shows how to query the metadata server programmatically.
-
Migrating to v1 metadata server endpoint
Learn how to migrate from the legacy v0.1 metadata endpoint.
-
Modifying Shielded VM options
Learn how to change Shielded VM settings like secure boot, measured boot, and integrity monitoring.
-
Monitoring integrity on Shielded VM instances
Learn how to monitor the boot integrity of Shielded VM instances using Cloud Monitoring.
-
Installing the guest environment
Install the guest environment for Compute Engine.
-
Running startup scripts
Create and run your own startup scripts on your virtual machine instances to perform automated tasks every time your instance boots up.
-
Running shutdown scripts
Create and run shutdown scripts that execute commands right before an instance is terminated or restarted.
-
Viewing serial port output
Learn to view serial port output, including using Cloud Logging to retain serial port output even after an instance is stopped or deleted.
-
Interacting with the serial console
Enable interactive access to the serial console of a virtual machine instance.
-
Viewing referrers to VM instances (Beta)
Explore the relationship between resources in your project.
-
Enabling Virtio RNG
Learn how to enable and test the Virtio RNG random number generator.
-
Performing other tasks with your instances
Learn a variety of less common tasks you might perform to manage your instances.
Creating and managing groups of instances
-
Creating groups of managed instances
Create and manage groups of virtual machine instances (also known as managed instance groups, or MIGs) that are based on an instance template.
-
Working with managed instances
Learn how to control the VMs inside a MIG.
-
Getting info about MIGs and managed instances
Get details about a managed instance group (MIG) and the VMs it manages.
-
Setting up health checking and autohealing
Improve availability by configuring application-based autohealing for your MIG.
-
Distributing instances with regional managed instance groups
Create MIGs that are distributed across a single region.
-
Distributing instances with regional managed instance groups
You can add instance groups to a target pool or backend service.
-
Updating managed instance groups
Perform updates on your MIG.
-
Performing one-click OS image upgrades in MIGs
Use image families and a rolling replace to update the OS of each managed instance in a MIG.
-
Applying sizing recommendations for managed instance groups (beta)
View and apply sizing recommendations for managed instance groups.
-
Creating groups of unmanaged instances
Group dissimilar VMs to accommodate pre-existing configurations for load balancing tasks.
Networking
-
VPC documentation
Learn more about using Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networks by reviewing the VPC documentation.
-
Locating IP addresses for an instance
Locate the external and internal IP address for an instance.
-
Reserving a static external IP address
Reserve a static external IP address, promote an ephemeral IP address, and change the external IP address for an instance.
-
Reserving a static internal IP address
Reserve a static internal IP address or promote an ephemeral IP address.
-
Using protocol forwarding
Create forwarding rule objects that can send packets to a non-NAT'ed target instance.
-
Creating a PTR record for a VM instance
Create a PTR record for your VM instance.
Deploying containers
-
Deploying containers on VMs and managed instance groups
Learn how to deploy and update a container on a VM or a managed instance group.
-
Configuring options to run your container
Learn how to configure and update configuration options for containers, running on VM instances or managed instance groups.
Scaling your app
-
Cloud CDN documentation
Learn more about caching by reviewing the Cloud CDN documentation.
-
Cloud Load Balancing documentation
Learn more about using load balancing by reviewing the Cloud Load Balancing documentation.
-
Autoscaling groups of instances
Use autoscaling capabilities to automatically add or remove instances from a managed instance group based on increases or decreases in load.
-
Scaling based on CPU utilization
Perform autoscaling based on the CPU utilization of a group of virtual machine instances.
-
Scaling based on load balancing serving capacity
Perform autoscaling based on the HTTP(S) load balancing serving capacity of a group of instances.
-
Scaling based on Monitoring metrics
Set up autoscaler to scale based on a standard or custom metric provided by the Cloud Monitoring service.
-
Using multiple policies
Create an autoscaler with multiple scaling policies and the autoscaler will scale based on the policy that provides the largest number of virtual machine instances in the group.
-
Understanding autoscaler behavior
Understand autoscaler behavior when scaling your managed instance groups.
-
Viewing autoscaler logs (beta)
View and interpret logs related to autoscaling.
-
Managing autoscalers
Learn to perform administrative tasks for your autoscalers.
Managing compute accelerators
-
Adding or Removing GPUs
Add or remove GPUs from virtual machine instance.
-
Creating groups of GPU instances using instance templates
Create instance groups that have attached GPUs.
-
Creating groups of GPU instances using instance templates
Create instance groups that have attached GPUs.
-
Installing GPU drivers
Install GPU drivers.
-
Installing GRID® drivers for virtual workstations
Install GRID drivers for virtual workstations.
-
Monitoring GPU performance
Learn how to monitor GPU performance.
-
Optimizing GPU performance
Learn how to optimize GPU performance.
-
Handling GPU host maintenance events
Learn how to perform GPU host maintenance.
Managing operating systems
-
Setting up VM Manager
Learn about the diffent systems management services.
-
Viewing operating system details
View the operating system details for the operating system that is running on your VM instance.
-
Creating patch jobs
Create on-demand patch jobs for your VM instances.
-
Managing patch jobs
Learn how to view and modify existing patch jobs.
-
Scheduling patch jobs
Schedule a recurring or one-time patch job.
-
Creating a guest policy
Create a guest policy to deploy, query, and maintain consistent configurations on your VM instance.
-
Managing guest policies
Learn how to view and modify existing guest policies.
Monitoring activity
-
Viewing audit logs
View logs for API operations that are run in Compute Engine.
-
Viewing usage reports
Enable automatic exporting of detailed reports about your Compute Engine usage to a Cloud Storage bucket.
-
Viewing activity logs (beta)
View activity logs to track events that affect your project, such as API calls and system events.
Granting access to Compute Engine resources
Viewing available regions and zones
Changing the default region or zone
Migrating VMs to Compute Engine
Advanced virtual machine configurations
-
Enabling nested virtualization for VM instances (beta)
Enable support for nested virtualization on VM instances.
-
Encrypting disks with customer-supplied encryption keys
If you want to provide your own encryption keys, this section describes how to control and manage encryption yourself.
-
Encrypting disks with customer-managed encryption keys
If you want to use Cloud Key Management Service, this section describes how to manage Cloud KMS keys.
-
Sending email from an instance
Learn about the options you have for sending mail from Compute Engine and read some general recommendations.
-
Sending email with SendGrid
How to set up your instances so that they send email by using SendGrid.
-
Sending email with Mailgun
How to set up your instances so that they send email by using Mailgun.
-
Sending email with Mailjet
How to set up your instances so that they send email using Mailjet.
-
Automated image builds with Jenkins, Packer, and Kubernetes
Learn about two general approaches to building custom images and how to use several popular open source tools—including Jenkins, Packer, Docker, and Kubernetes—to create an automated pipeline to continuously build images.
Best practices
-
Designing robust systems
General tips about how to design a robust system to help mitigate instance downtime and be prepared for times where your instances have an unexpected failure.
-
Securely connecting to VM instances
Learn several methods for securing communications with Compute Engine instances with or without external IP addresses.
-
Best practices for SQL Server instances
Learn best practices for running a high-performance SQL Server instance.
-
Image management best practices
Learn how to manage Compute Engine images.
-
Optimizing app latency with load balancing
Learn how to use load balancing on Compute Engine.
-
Best practices for floating IP addresses
Learn how to use floating IP addresses.