How to create a GCP VM instance and perform login using SSH

Login to the management console

• Login to the GCP console using privileged account:

https://console.cloud.google.com/

• From the upper pane, select the relevant project

Adding account permissions

• From the upper left pane, click on “IAM & Admin” -> IAM
• Click on Add -> inside “Members”, specify either GMAIL or G Suite email address -> Specify the following roles:

• Compute Engine / Compute Image User
• Compute Engine / Compute Instance Admin (v1)
• Compute Engine / Compute OS Login
• Compute Engine / Compute Viewer
• Service Accounts / Service Account User

• Click on Add

Generating SSH keys for specific accounts (from Windows machine)

• Download puttygen.exe from:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

• Run the puttygen.exe
• Click Generate and follow the on-screen instructions to generate a new key.

Note: Make sure you create keys with at least 2048 bits

• In the Key comment section, replace the existing text with the username who will use this key to login to the VM instance.
• Click Save private key to write your private key to a file with a .ppk extension.
• Click Save public key to write your public key to a file for later use.

Generating SSH keys for specific accounts (from Linux machine)

• Login to the Linux machine console.
• Run the following command to generate the SSH key pair:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/[KEY_FILENAME] -C [USERNAME]

Note 1: Replace KEY_FILENAME with the actual private key file name

Note 2: Replace USERNAME with the user who will use this SSH key to login

• Change the permissions of the SSH private key using the command below:

chmod 400 ~/.ssh/[KEY_FILENAME]

Note: Replace KEY_FILENAME with the actual private key file name

Configure Metadata settings for the VM instances

• From the upper left pane, click on “Compute Engine”
• From the left pane, click on “Metadata”
• From the main pane, under “Metadata” click on Edit -> add new key:

• Key: enable-oslogin
• Value: false

• Click on Save
• Open the previously created public key (usually it has no file extension) using a text editor and copy its entire content into memory.
• From the main pane, under “SSH Keys” -> click on Edit -> click on Add item -> paste the content of the public key into the free text field labeled “Enter entire key data” -> click on Save

Creating a new VM instance

• From the left pane, under “Compute Engine”, click on “VM instances”
• From main pane, click on “Create Instance”:

• Name: Specify machine hostname
• Zone: Select a zone close to your location
• Machine type: Select appropriate machine type according to your needs.

For more information, see:

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/machine-types

• Boot disk: Choose either relevant “OS image” or pre-installed “Application image”

• Click on Create

Login to a VM instance (from Windows machine)

• Download Putty from:

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html

• Run putty.exe
• From the left pane, under “Connection” -> expand SSH -> click on “Auth” -> from the main pane, under “Authentication parameters”, click on “Browse” -> locate the SSH private key generated by puttygen.exe
• From the left pane, click on “Session” -> from the main pane, under “Host Name (or IP address)” specify the following:

USERNAME@IP_Address

Note 1: Replace USERNAME with the user who will use this SSH key to login

Note 2: Replace IP_Address with the VM instance external IP

• Under “Saved Sessions”, specify a name for this newly created connection.
• Click on Save
• Click on Open

Login to a VM instance (from Linux machine)

• Login to the Linux machine console.
• Run the following command:

ssh USERNAME@IP_Address -i ~/.ssh/[KEY_FILENAME]

Note 1: Replace USERNAME with the user who will use this SSH key to login

Note 2: Replace IP_Address with the VM instance external IP

Note 3: Replace KEY_FILENAME with the actual private key file name