Compute: GCE & GKE

Compute Engine (GCE) VM lifecycle, and GKE cluster/node-pool management.

Creating a VM instance#

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gcloud compute instances create my-instance \
  --zone=us-central1-a --machine-type=e2-medium \
  --image-family=debian-12 --image-project=debian-cloud \
  --network=my-network --subnet=my-subnet --tags=web-server

--image-family tracks the latest image in a family automatically (e.g. debian-12 always resolves to the newest Debian 12 build) — pin --image to an exact image name instead when you need a reproducible, non-drifting build for something like a golden AMI-equivalent pipeline.

Listing and inspecting instances#

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gcloud compute instances list
gcloud compute instances list --filter="zone:us-central1-a"
gcloud compute instances describe my-instance --zone=us-central1-a

Starting, stopping, and deleting instances#

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gcloud compute instances start my-instance --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances stop my-instance --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances delete my-instance --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances delete my-instance --zone=us-central1-a --keep-disks=boot   # delete VM, keep its boot disk

SSHing into an instance#

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gcloud compute ssh my-instance --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute ssh my-instance --zone=us-central1-a --tunnel-through-iap   # no external IP/firewall rule needed

gcloud compute ssh handles SSH key generation and propagation to the instance metadata automatically — --tunnel-through-iap is the standard pattern for reaching instances with no public IP, tunneling through Identity-Aware Proxy instead of opening an SSH-facing firewall rule.

Creating a GKE cluster#

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gcloud container clusters create my-cluster \
  --zone=us-central1-a --num-nodes=3 --machine-type=e2-medium

Getting kubectl credentials for a cluster#

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gcloud container clusters get-credentials my-cluster --zone=us-central1-a

Same role as aws eks update-kubeconfig — writes/merges a kubeconfig entry so kubectl can authenticate to the cluster; it doesn't create or modify anything in the cluster itself.

Listing clusters and node pools#

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gcloud container clusters list
gcloud container node-pools list --cluster=my-cluster --zone=us-central1-a

Resizing a cluster's node pool#

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gcloud container clusters resize my-cluster --zone=us-central1-a --num-nodes=5
gcloud container clusters resize my-cluster --zone=us-central1-a --node-pool=default-pool --num-nodes=5

Manually resizing a node pool is a one-time operation, not a standing policy — if the cluster has a Cluster Autoscaler configured, a manual resize can be immediately reverted by the autoscaler unless you also adjust its min/max node bounds.