gcloud-compute

Google Compute Engine resource management

TLDR

List VM instances

$ gcloud compute instances list

Create instance

$ gcloud compute instances create [name] --zone=[zone]

SSH to instance

$ gcloud compute ssh [instance] --zone=[zone]

Stop instance

$ gcloud compute instances stop [name] --zone=[zone]

List disks

$ gcloud compute disks list

SYNOPSIS

gcloud compute resource command [options]

gcloud compute is the command-line interface for Google Compute Engine, Google's Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering. It provides complete control over virtual machines, persistent disks, networks, load balancers, and other infrastructure primitives.The instances subcommand handles VM lifecycle operations including creation with customizable machine types, starting and stopping instances, and deletion. Network resources like VPCs, subnets, firewall rules, and routes are managed through their respective subcommands.Special convenience features include built-in SSH access via gcloud compute ssh, which automatically manages SSH keys and connection details, and gcloud compute scp for secure file transfers. The command group supports advanced features like custom images, snapshots, instance groups, and managed instance groups for autoscaling. All operations respect zones and regions, which must be specified either per-command or via configuration defaults.

PARAMETERS

--zone ZONE

Compute zone for the resource (e.g. us-central1-a).

--region REGION

Compute region for regional resources.

--project PROJECT

Google Cloud project ID to target.

--format FORMAT

Output format (json, yaml, table, value).

--filter EXPR

Filter results by expression.

--help

Display help information.

SUBCOMMANDS

instances CMD

VM instance lifecycle (create, list, start, stop, delete, describe).

disks CMD

Persistent disk operations.

images CMD

Manage custom and public VM images.

snapshots CMD

Create and manage disk snapshots.

networks CMD

VPC networks, subnets and peering.

firewall-rules CMD

Manage VPC firewall rules.

ssh INSTANCE

SSH into an instance (automatically manages keys).

scp SRC DEST

Copy files to or from an instance over SSH.

CAVEATS

Resources incur costs. Zone selection affects availability. Some operations take time.

HISTORY

gcloud compute is part of the Google Cloud SDK for managing Compute Engine, Google's Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering for running virtual machines.