Creating instances

MySQL | PostgreSQL | SQL Server

This page describes how to create a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance.

For detailed information about all instance settings, see Instance Settings.

Creating an instance

Console

Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page in the Google Cloud Platform Console.
Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page
Click Create instance.
Select PostgreSQL and click Next.
Enter a name.
Do not include sensitive or personally identifiable information in your instance name; it is externally visible.
You do not need to include the project ID in the instance name. This is done automatically where appropriate (for example, in the log files).
Enter a password for the postgres user.

Under Configuration options, update any other settings you need for your instance:

Setting	Notes
Database version
Database version	PostgreSQL 11 (default) or PostgreSQL 9.6
Connectivity
Private IP	Configures private IP connectivity for your instance. Learn more.
Public IP	Adds a public IPv4 address for your instance. Learn more.
Machine type and storage
Cores	The number of vCPUs for your instance. Learn more.
Memory	The amount of memory for your instance, in GiBs. Learn more.
Storage type	Determines whether your instance uses SSD or HDD storage. Learn more.
Storage capacity	The amount of storage provisioned for the instance. Learn more.
Automatic storage increase	Determines whether Cloud SQL automatically provides more storage for your instance when free space runs low. Learn more.
Automatic backups and high availability
High availability	If you need your instance to be configured for high availability, you must select the High availability (regional) option. Learn more.
Automatic backups	The window of time when you would like backups to start. Learn more.
Authorized networks
Database flags
Database flags	You can use database flags to control settings and parameters for your instance. Learn more.
Maintenance schedule
Maintenance window	Determines a one-hour window when Cloud SQL can perform disruptive maintenance on your instance. If you do not set the window, then disruptive maintenance can be done at any time. Learn more.
Maintenance timing	Your preferred timing for instance updates, relative to other instances in the same project. Learn more.

Click Create.
After the instance finishes initializing, click the instance name to open it.

gcloud

For information about installing and getting started with the gcloud command-line tool, see Installing Cloud SDK. For information about starting Cloud Shell, see the Cloud Shell documentation.

Create the instance:

gcloud sql instances create [INSTANCE_NAME] --database-version=POSTGRES_11 \
       --cpu=[NUMBER_CPUS] --memory=[MEMORY_SIZE] \
       --region=[REGION] | --gce-zone=[GCE_ZONE] | --zone=[ZONE]

The default value for [REGION] is us-central.

Do not include sensitive or personally identifiable information in your instance name; it is externally visible.
You do not need to include the project ID in the instance name. This is done automatically where appropriate (for example, in the log files).

There are restrictions on the values for vCPUs and memory size:

vCPUs must be either 1 or an even number between 2 and 32.
Memory must be:
- 0.9 to 6.5 GiB per vCPU
- A multiple of 256 MiB
- At least 3.75 GiB (3840 MiB)

For example, the following string creates an instance with two vCPUs and 7,680 MiB of memory:

 gcloud sql instances create myinstance --database-version=POSTGRES_11 --cpu=2 \
        --memory=7680MiB --region="us-central"

For some sample values, see Sample machine types.

You can also create a shared-core instance by using --tier db-f1-micro or --tier db-g1-small and dropping the --cpu and --memory parameters.

You can add more parameters to determine other instance settings:

Setting	Parameter	Notes
Required parameters
Database version	`--database-version`	`POSTGRES_11` (default) `POSTGRES_9_6`
Region	`--region`	See valid values.
Connectivity
Private IP	`--network`	Specifies the name of the VPC network you want to use for this instance. Private services access must already be configured for the network. Available only for the beta command (`gcloud beta sql instances create`). Learn more.
Public IP	`--authorized-networks`	For public IP connections, only connections from authorized networks can connect to your instance. Learn more.
Machine type and storage
Machine type	`--tier`	Used to specify a shared-core instance (`db-f1-micro` or `db-g1-small`). You cannot specify the `--cpu` or `--memory` parameters if you use this parameter.
Storage type	`--storage-type`	Determines whether your instance uses SSD or HDD storage. Learn more.
Storage capacity	`--storage-size`	The amount of storage provisioned for the instance, in GB. Learn more.
Automatic storage increase	`--storage-auto-increase`	Determines whether Cloud SQL automatically provides more storage for your instance when free space runs low. Learn more.
Automatic storage increase limit	`--storage-auto-increase-limit`	Determines how large Cloud SQL can automaticaly grow storage. Available only for the beta command (`gcloud beta sql instances create`). Learn more.
Automatic backups and high availability
High availability	`--availability-type`	For a highly-available instance, set to `REGIONAL`. Learn more.
Automatic backups	`--backup-start-time`	The window of time when you would like backups to start. Learn more.
Add database flags
Database flags	`--database-flags`	You can use database flags to control settings and parameters for your instance. Learn more about database flags. Learn more about how to format this parameter.
Maintenance schedule
Maintenance window	`--maintenance-window-day`, `--maintenance-window-hour`	Determines a one-hour window when Cloud SQL can perform disruptive maintenance on your instance. If you do not set the window, then disruptive maintenance can be done at any time. Learn more.
Maintenance timing	`--maintenance-release-channel`	Your preferred timing for instance updates, relative to other instances in the same project. Use `preview` for earlier updates, and `production` for later updates. Learn more.

Note the automatically assigned IP address.
If you are not using the Cloud SQL Proxy, you will use this address as the host address that your applications or tools use to connect to the instance.

Set the password for the postgres user:

gcloud sql users set-password postgres no-host --instance=[INSTANCE_NAME] \
       --password=[PASSWORD]

cURL

Create the instance:
```
gcloud auth login
ACCESS_TOKEN="$(gcloud auth print-access-token)"
curl --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --data '{"name":"[INSTANCE_NAME]", "region":"[REGION]",
              "databaseVersion": "POSTGRES_11",
              "settings": {"tier": "[TIER_STRING]",
                           "backupConfiguration": {"enabled":true}}}' \
     -X POST \
     https://www.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/[PROJECT-ID]/instances
```
Do not include sensitive or personally identifiable information in your instance name; it is externally visible.
You do not need to include the project ID in the instance name. This is done automatically where appropriate (for example, in the log files).

TIER_STRING is a string that represents the number of CPUs and the amount of memory you want your new instance to have. The string has the following format: db-custom-[CPUS]-[MEMORY_MBS]. For some example valid values, see Sample machine types. You can also create a shared-core instance by supplying db-f1-micro or db-g1-small for the tier parameter.

For a complete list of parameters for this call, see the Instances:insert page. For information about instance settings, including valid values for region and machine type, see Instance Settings.

When the instance finishes initializing, update the password for the postgres user:

curl --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --data '{"name": "postgres", "host": "", "password": "[PASSWORD]"}' \
     -X PUT \
     'https://www.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/[PROJECT-ID]/instances/[INSTANCE_NAME]/users?host=&name=postgres'

Retrieve the automatically assigned IPv4 address for the new instance:

curl --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
     -X GET \
     https://www.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/[PROJECT-ID]/instances/[INSTANCE_NAME]

Look for the ipAddress field in the response.

Sample machine types

With custom machine types, you can configure your instance with the amount of memory and CPUs that it needs. However, there are some restrictions on these values:

vCPUs must be either 1 or an even number between 2 and 32.
Memory must be:
- 0.9 to 6.5 GiB per vCPU
- A multiple of 256 MiB
- At least 3.75 GiB (3840 MiB)

Here are some sample machine type values, based on the predefined machine types available for MySQL instances:

Predefined machine type	vCPUs	Memory (MiBs)	API tier string
db-n1-standard-1	1	3840	db-custom-1-3840
db-n1-standard-2	2	7680	db-custom-2-7680
db-n1-standard-4	4	15360	db-custom-4-15360
db-n1-standard-8	8	30720	db-custom-8-30720
db-n1-standard-16	16	61440	db-custom-16-61440
db-n1-standard-32	32	122880	db-custom-32-122880
db-n1-standard-64	64	245760	db-custom-64-245760
db-n1-highmem-2	2	13312	db-custom-2-13312
db-n1-highmem-4	4	26624	db-custom-4-26624
db-n1-highmem-8	8	53248	db-custom-8-53248
db-n1-highmem-16	16	106496	db-custom-16-106496
db-n1-highmem-32	32	212992	db-custom-32-212992
db-n1-highmem-64	64	425984	db-custom-64-425984

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Last updated October 15, 2019.