Google Cloud Cheatsheet

Compute Engine

Use this Google Cloud reference while you build software engineering projects, review code for technical interview prep, or polish examples for a software engineer resume.

Create & Manage Instances

# Create a VM (minimal)
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --machine-type=e2-micro \
  --image-family=debian-12 \
  --image-project=debian-cloud

# Create with more options
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --machine-type=n2-standard-4 \
  --image-family=ubuntu-2204-lts \
  --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
  --boot-disk-size=50GB \
  --boot-disk-type=pd-ssd \
  --tags=http-server,https-server \
  --service-account=my-sa@proj.iam.gserviceaccount.com \
  --scopes=cloud-platform

# List instances
gcloud compute instances list

# Describe a VM
gcloud compute instances describe my-vm --zone=us-central1-a

# Start / stop / reset
gcloud compute instances start my-vm --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances stop my-vm --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances reset my-vm --zone=us-central1-a

# Delete
gcloud compute instances delete my-vm --zone=us-central1-a

Machine Types

Family	Type	vCPUs	RAM	Best for
E2 (economy)	`e2-micro`	0.25	1 GB	Dev, low traffic
E2	`e2-standard-4`	4	16 GB	General-purpose
N2 (balanced)	`n2-standard-4`	4	16 GB	Web, databases
C3 (compute)	`c3-highcpu-8`	8	16 GB	CPU-bound workloads
M3 (memory)	`m3-ultramem-32`	32	976 GB	SAP HANA, in-mem DB
A2/A3 (accelerator)	`a2-highgpu-1g`	12	85 GB	ML training (GPU)
Custom	`n1-custom-6-20480`	6	20 GB	Fine-grained sizing

Spot VMs add --provisioning-model=SPOT — up to 91% discount, can be preempted.

SSH & File Transfer

# SSH (connects via the VM's external IP by default)
gcloud compute ssh my-vm --zone=us-central1-a

# Tunnel through IAP — required for VMs with no external IP
# (gcloud also falls back to IAP automatically when the VM has none)
gcloud compute ssh my-vm --zone=us-central1-a --tunnel-through-iap

# Run a command remotely
gcloud compute ssh my-vm --zone=us-central1-a --command="df -h"

# SCP
gcloud compute scp ./local.txt my-vm:/home/user/ --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute scp my-vm:/var/log/syslog ./syslog.txt --zone=us-central1-a

Startup Scripts

# Inline startup script
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --metadata=startup-script='#!/bin/bash
apt-get update
apt-get install -y nginx
systemctl start nginx'

# Script from file
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --metadata-from-file=startup-script=startup.sh

# Script from GCS
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --metadata=startup-script-url=gs://my-bucket/startup.sh

Disks

# Create a persistent disk
gcloud compute disks create my-disk \
  --size=100GB \
  --type=pd-ssd \
  --zone=us-central1-a

# Attach to VM
gcloud compute instances attach-disk my-vm \
  --disk=my-disk \
  --zone=us-central1-a

# Detach
gcloud compute instances detach-disk my-vm \
  --disk=my-disk \
  --zone=us-central1-a

# Snapshot a disk
gcloud compute disks snapshot my-disk \
  --snapshot-names=my-snap \
  --zone=us-central1-a

# Create disk from snapshot
gcloud compute disks create restored-disk \
  --source-snapshot=my-snap \
  --zone=us-central1-a

Disk Types

Type	Latency	Throughput	Use case
`pd-standard`	High	Moderate	Boot disks, cold storage
`pd-balanced`	Medium	Good	General-purpose
`pd-ssd`	Low	High	Databases, high IOPS
`pd-extreme`	Very low	Very high	SAP HANA, top-tier DB
`hyperdisk-extreme`	Lowest	Highest	OLTP at scale

Instance Templates & Managed Groups

# Create instance template
gcloud compute instance-templates create my-template \
  --machine-type=e2-standard-2 \
  --image-family=debian-12 \
  --image-project=debian-cloud \
  --tags=http-server

# Create a Managed Instance Group (MIG)
gcloud compute instance-groups managed create my-mig \
  --template=my-template \
  --size=3 \
  --zone=us-central1-a

# Enable autoscaling
gcloud compute instance-groups managed set-autoscaling my-mig \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --min-num-replicas=1 \
  --max-num-replicas=10 \
  --target-cpu-utilization=0.6

# Rolling update
gcloud compute instance-groups managed rolling-action start-update my-mig \
  --version=template=new-template \
  --zone=us-central1-a

Firewall Rules

# Allow HTTP/HTTPS to tagged VMs
gcloud compute firewall-rules create allow-http \
  --direction=INGRESS \
  --action=ALLOW \
  --rules=tcp:80,tcp:443 \
  --target-tags=http-server

# Allow SSH from specific IP
gcloud compute firewall-rules create allow-ssh-office \
  --direction=INGRESS \
  --action=ALLOW \
  --rules=tcp:22 \
  --source-ranges=203.0.113.0/24

# List rules
gcloud compute firewall-rules list

Metadata & Serial Console

# Set instance metadata
gcloud compute instances add-metadata my-vm \
  --metadata=key=value,env=prod

# Read metadata from inside the VM
curl -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google" \
  http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/

# View serial console output (boot logs)
gcloud compute instances get-serial-port-output my-vm --zone=us-central1-a