Section 3 - gcloud

Contents

Overview

Some services have specific tools:

  • Cloud Storage - gsutil.
  • Cloud BigQuery - bq.
  • Cloud Bigtable - cbt.
  • Kubernetes - kubectl (Note: gcloud is used to manage clusters).

gcloud is part of Google Cloud SDK (Cloud SDK requires Python).

Install: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install

Syntax: gcloud GROUP SUBGROUP ACTION ...

Connecting to GCP:

gcloud init - initialize or reinitialize gcloud.

  • Authorize gcloud to use your user account credentials).
  • Setup configuration (includes current project, default zone etc).

gcloud config list - lists all properties of the active configuration.

Other Examples:

gcloud compute instances list

gcloud compute zones list

gcloud compute regions list

gcloud compute machine-types list

gcloud compute machine-types list --filter="zone:us-central1-b"

gcloud compute machine-types list --filter="zone:( us-central1-b europe-west1-d )"

Cloud Shell

  • Cloud Shell is backed by a VM instance (automatically provisioned by Google Cloud when you launch Cloud Shell).
  • 5 GB of free persistent disk storage is provided as your $HOME directory.
  • Pre-packaged with latest version of Cloud SDK, Docker etc.
  • Files in your home directory persist between sessions (scripts, user configuration files like .bashrc and .vimrc etc).
  • Instance is terminated if you are inactive for more than 20 minutes.
  • Any modifications that you made to it outside your $HOME will be lost.
  • After 120 days of inactivity, even your $HOME directory is deleted.
  • Cloud Shell can be used to SSH into virtual machines using their private IP addresses.