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This page documents updates to the guest environment, which is a set of scripts,
daemons, and binaries that read the content of the metadata server to make a VM
run properly on Compute Engine. Check this page for announcements about new or
updated features, bug fixes, known issues, and deprecated functionality.
For more information about the guest environment, see
Guest environment.
You can see the latest product updates for all of Google Cloud on the
Google Cloud page, browse and filter all release notes in the
Google Cloud console,
or programmatically access release notes in
BigQuery.
To get the latest product updates delivered to you, add the URL of this page to your
feed
reader, or add the
feed URL directly.
September 03, 2025
Starting with version 20250901.00, the guest agent is migrated to a new
plugin-based architecture to improve modularity. You can revert to the previous
version by setting the metadata attribute enable-guest-agent-core-plugin to
FALSE. For more information about the plugin-based architecture, see
Guest agent.
This plugin-based guest agent is available for the following operating systems:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9
Rocky Linux 9
CentOS Stream 9
Oracle Linux 9
AlmaLinux 9
With the introduction of the plugin-based architecture, the guest agent includes
the following updates:
A new command-line tool, ggactl_plugin, is available to manage and restart
the guest agent core plugin. To restart the agent, run:
All guest agent components now use a new logging framework. This framework
lets you set the logging level in the
guest agent configuration file.
For more information about the logging options, see core settings
in the configuration options table.
The workload refresh service gce-workload-cert-refresher is now part of the
guest agent's core plugin. It is no longer a separate systemd service.
The guest agent updates the metadata script runner and the Authorized Keys
binary (Windows only) to use the new, configurable logging framework.
Compatibility managers are included to facilitate the migration.
An issue is fixed where network routes were not consistently applied
(GitHub Issue #516).
The system now consistently applies network routes by monitoring the route table
and re-adding routes when they disappear.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-09-04 UTC."],[],[],null,["This page documents updates to the guest environment, which is a set of scripts, daemons, and binaries that read the content of the metadata server to make a VM run properly on Compute Engine. Check this page for announcements about new or updated features, bug fixes, known issues, and deprecated functionality.\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nFor more information about the guest environment, see\n[Guest environment](/compute/docs/images/guest-environment).\n\n\nYou can see the latest product updates for all of Google Cloud on the\n[Google Cloud](/release-notes) page, browse and filter all release notes in the\n[Google Cloud console](https://console.cloud.google.com/release-notes),\nor programmatically access release notes in\n[BigQuery](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigquery?p=bigquery-public-data&d=google_cloud_release_notes&t=release_notes&page=table).\n\nTo get the latest product updates delivered to you, add the URL of this page to your\n[feed\nreader](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_feed_aggregators), or add the\n[feed URL](https://cloud.google.com/feeds/guestenvironment-release-notes.xml) directly.\n\nSeptember 03, 2025 \nStarting with version `20250901.00`, the guest agent is migrated to a new\nplugin-based architecture to improve modularity. You can revert to the previous\nversion by setting the metadata attribute `enable-guest-agent-core-plugin` to\n`FALSE`. For more information about the plugin-based architecture, see\n[Guest agent](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/images/guest-agent).\n\nThis plugin-based guest agent is available for the following operating systems:\n\n- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9\n- Rocky Linux 9\n- CentOS Stream 9\n- Oracle Linux 9\n- AlmaLinux 9 \nWith the introduction of the plugin-based architecture, the guest agent includes\nthe following updates:\n\n- A new command-line tool, `ggactl_plugin`, is available to manage and restart\n the guest agent core plugin. To restart the agent, run:\n\n ggactl_plugin coreplugin restart\n\n For more information, see [Restarting the guest agent](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/images/manage-guest-agent#restart-guest-agent).\n- All guest agent components now use a new logging framework. This framework\n lets you set the logging level in the\n [guest agent configuration file](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/images/manage-guest-agent#update-guest-agent-config).\n For more information about the logging options, see [core settings](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/images/manage-guest-agent#core)\n in the configuration options table.\n\n- The workload refresh service `gce-workload-cert-refresher` is now part of the\n guest agent's core plugin. It is no longer a separate systemd service.\n\n- The guest agent updates the metadata script runner and the Authorized Keys\n binary (Windows only) to use the new, configurable logging framework.\n Compatibility managers are included to facilitate the migration.\n\nAn issue is fixed where network routes were not consistently applied\n([GitHub Issue #516](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/guest-agent/issues/516)).\nThe system now consistently applies network routes by monitoring the route table\nand re-adding routes when they disappear."]]
