NAME

gcloud-compute-instances-create - Create Compute Engine virtual machine instances

SYNOPSIS

gcloud compute instances create
  NAME [NAME …]
  [--boot-disk-device-name BOOT_DISK_DEVICE_NAME]
  [--boot-disk-size BOOT_DISK_SIZE]
  [--boot-disk-type BOOT_DISK_TYPE]
  [--can-ip-forward]
  [--description DESCRIPTION]
  [--disk PROPERTY=VALUE [PROPERTY=VALUE …]]
  [--format FORMAT]
  [--help]
  [--image IMAGE]
  [--image-project IMAGE_PROJECT]
  [--machine-type MACHINE_TYPE; default="n1-standard-1"]
  [--maintenance-policy MAINTENANCE_POLICY]
  [--metadata KEY=VALUE [KEY=VALUE …]]
  [--metadata-from-file KEY=LOCAL_FILE_PATH [KEY=LOCAL_FILE_PATH …]]
  [--network NETWORK; default="default"]
  [--address ADDRESS | --no-address]
  [--no-boot-disk-auto-delete]
  [--no-restart-on-failure]
  [--project PROJECT]
  [--quiet, -q]
  [--no-scopes | --scopes [ACCOUNT=]SCOPE [[ACCOUNT=]SCOPE …]]
  [--tags TAG [TAG …]]
  [--zone ZONE]
  [-h]

DESCRIPTION

gcloud compute instances create facilitates the creation of Google Compute Engine virtual machines. For example, running:

$ gcloud compute instances create \
    my-instance-1 my-instance-2 my-instance-3 \
    --zone us-central1-a

will create three instances called “my-instance-1”, “my-instance-2”, and “my-instance-3” in the “us-central1-a” zone.

For more examples, refer to the EXAMPLES section below.

POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS

NAME [NAME …]

The names of the instances to create.

FLAGS

--address ADDRESS

Assigns the given external IP address to the instance that is created. This option can only be used when creating a single instance.

--boot-disk-device-name BOOT_DISK_DEVICE_NAME

The name the guest operating system will see for the boot disk as. This option can only be specified if a new boot disk is being created (as opposed to mounting an existing persistent disk).

--boot-disk-size BOOT_DISK_SIZE

The size of the boot disk. This option can only be specified if a new boot disk is being created (as opposed to mounting an existing persistent disk). The value must be a whole number followed by a size unit of “KB” for kilobyte, “MB” for megabyte, “GB” for gigabyte, or “TB” for terabyte. For example, “10GB” will produce a 10 gigabyte disk. If omitted, a default size of 200 GB is used. The minimum size a boot disk can have is 10 GB. Disk size must be a multiple of 1 GB.

--boot-disk-type BOOT_DISK_TYPE

The type of the boot disk. This option can only be specified if a new boot disk is being created (as opposed to mounting an existing persistent disk). To get a list of available disk types, run gcloud compute disk-types list .

--can-ip-forward

If provided, allows the instances to send and receive packets with non-matching destination or source IP addresses.

--description DESCRIPTION

Specifies a textual description of the instances.

--disk PROPERTY=VALUE [PROPERTY=VALUE …]

Attaches persistent disks to the instances. The disks specified must already exist.

name

The disk to attach to the instances. When creating more than one instance and using this property, the only valid mode for attaching the disk is read-only (see mode below).

mode

Specifies the mode of the disk. Supported options are “ro” for read-only and “rw” for read-write. If omitted, “rw” is used as a default. It is an error for mode to be “rw” when creating more than one instance because read-write disks can only be attached to a single instance.

boot

If “yes”, indicates that this is a boot disk. The virtual machines will use the first partition of the disk for their root file systems. The default value for this is “no”.

device-name

An optional name that indicates the disk name the guest operating system will see. If omitted, a device name of the form “persistent-disk-N” will be used.

auto-delete

If “yes”, this persistent disk will be automatically deleted when the instance is deleted. However, if the disk is later detached from the instance, this option won’t apply. The default value for this is “no”.

--format FORMAT

Specify a format for printed output. By default, a command-specific human-friendly output format is used. Setting this flag to one of the available options will serialize the result of the command in the chosen format and print it to stdout. Supported formats are: "json", "text", "yaml".

--help

Display detailed help.

--image IMAGE

Specifies the boot image for the instances. For each instance, a new boot disk will be created from the given image. Each boot disk will have the same name as the instance.

The value for this option can be the name of an image or an alias from the table below.

Alias	Project	Image Name
centos-6	centos-cloud	centos-6
coreos	coreos-cloud	coreos-beta
debian-7	debian-cloud	debian-7-wheezy
debian-7-backports	debian-cloud	backports-debian-7-wheezy
opensuse-13	opensuse-cloud	opensuse-13-1
rhel-6	rhel-cloud	rhel-6
sles-11	suse-cloud	sles-11

When the value is an alias, this tool will query the public image project that contains the image type to find the latest image matching the alias. The user’s project is also queried for an image with the same name as the alias. If a conflict exists, the user will be prompted to resolve the conflict.

To specify an image in another project for which there is no alias, use “--image-project”. When “--image-project” is present, no API calls are made to resolve the image. This property is useful for scripts.

When using this option, “--boot-disk-device-name” and “--boot-disk-size” can be used to override the boot disk’s device name and size, respectively.

By default, “debian-7-backports” is assumed for this flag.

--image-project IMAGE_PROJECT

The project against which all image references will be resolved. See “--image” for more details.

--machine-type MACHINE_TYPE

Specifies the machine type used for the instances. To get a list of available machine types, run gcloud compute machine-types list .

--maintenance-policy MAINTENANCE_POLICY

Specifies the behavior of the instances when their host machines undergo maintenance. “TERMINATE” indicates that the instances should be terminated. “MIGRATE” indicates that the instances should be migrated to a new host. Choosing “MIGRATE” will temporarily impact the performance of instances during a migration event. If omitted, “MIGRATE” is assumed.

--metadata KEY=VALUE [KEY=VALUE …]

Metadata to be made available to the guest operating system running on the instances. Each metadata entry is a key/value pair separated by an equals sign. Metadata keys must be unique and less than 128 bytes in length. Values must be less than or equal to 32,768 bytes in length. Multiple arguments can be passed to this flag, e.g., “--metadata key-1=value-1 key-2=value-2 key-3=value-3”.

In images that have Compute Engine tools installed on them, the following metadata keys have special meanings:

startup-script

Specifies a script that will be executed by the instances once they start running. For convenience, “--metadata-from-file” can be used to pull the value from a file.

startup-script-url

Same as “startup-script” except that the script contents are pulled from a publicly-accessible location on the web.

--metadata-from-file KEY=LOCAL_FILE_PATH [KEY=LOCAL_FILE_PATH …]

Same as “--metadata” except that the value for the entry will be read from a local file. This is useful for values that are too large such as “startup-script” contents.

--network NETWORK

Specifies the network that the instances will be part of. If omitted, the “default” network is used.

--no-address

If provided, the instances will not be assigned external IP addresses.

--no-boot-disk-auto-delete

If provided, boot disks will not be automatically deleted when their instances are deleted.

--no-restart-on-failure

If provided, the instances will not be restarted if they are terminated by Compute Engine. By default, failed instances will be restarted. This does not affect terminations performed by the user.

--no-scopes

If provided, the default scopes ( https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only ) are not added to the instances.

--project PROJECT

Google Cloud Platform project to use for this invocation.

--quiet

Disable all interactive prompts when running gcloud commands. If input is required, defaults will be used, or an error will be raised.

--scopes [ACCOUNT=]SCOPE [[ACCOUNT=]SCOPE …]

Specifies service accounts and scopes for the instances. Service accounts generate access tokens that can be accessed through the instance metadata server and used to authenticate applications on the instance. The account can be either an email address or an alias corresponding to a service account. If account is omitted, the project’s default service account is used. The default service account can be specified explicitly by using the alias “default”. Example:

$ gcloud compute instances create my-instance \
    --scopes compute-rw [email protected]=storage-rw

If this flag is not provided, the “storage-ro” scope is added to the instances. To create instances with no scopes, use “--no-scopes”:

$ gcloud compute instances create my-instance --no-scopes

SCOPE can be either the full URI of the scope or an alias. Available aliases are:

Alias	URI
bigquery	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/bigquery
compute-ro	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute.readonly
compute-rw	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute
datastore	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/datastore
sql	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/sqlservice
storage-full	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.full_control
storage-ro	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only
storage-rw	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_write
taskqueue	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/taskqueue
userinfo-email	https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email

--tags TAG [TAG …]

Specifies a list of tags to apply to the instances for identifying the instances to which network firewall rules will apply. See gcloud-compute-firewalls-create(1) for more details.

--zone ZONE

The zone of the instances to create. If not specified, you will be prompted to select a zone.

To avoid prompting when this flag is omitted, you can set the “compute/zone” property:

gcloud config set compute/zone ZONE

A list of zones can fetched by running:

gcloud compute zones list

To unset the property, run:

gcloud config unset compute/zone

Alternatively, the zone can be stored in the environment variable “CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE”.

-h

Print a summary help and exit.

EXAMPLES

To create an instance with the latest “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6” image available, run:

$ gcloud compute instances create my-instance \
    --image rhel-6 --zone us-central1-a

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