This page describes how to create and manage instance templates. Instance templates let you specify the machine type, boot disk image, network, and other VM properties that you want to use when creating virtual machine (VM) instances.
You can use instance templates to do the following:
- Create individual VMs.
- Create VMs in a managed instance group (MIG).
- Create reservations for VMs.
- Create future reservations for VMs.
Before you begin
- Read when and why to create deterministic instance templates.
- Read about regional and global instance templates.
-
If you haven't already, then set up authentication.
Authentication is
the process by which your identity is verified for access to Google Cloud services and APIs.
To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to
Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:
Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:
Console
When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.
gcloud
-
Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:
gcloud init
- Set a default region and zone.
Terraform
To use the Terraform samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.
- Install the Google Cloud CLI.
-
To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:
gcloud init
-
If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:
gcloud auth application-default login
You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.
For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.
Go
To use the Go samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.
- Install the Google Cloud CLI.
-
To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:
gcloud init
-
If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:
gcloud auth application-default login
You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.
For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.
Java
To use the Java samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.
- Install the Google Cloud CLI.
-
To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:
gcloud init
-
If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:
gcloud auth application-default login
You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.
For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.
Node.js
To use the Node.js samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.
- Install the Google Cloud CLI.
-
To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:
gcloud init
-
If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:
gcloud auth application-default login
You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.
For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.
Python
To use the Python samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.
- Install the Google Cloud CLI.
-
To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:
gcloud init
-
If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:
gcloud auth application-default login
You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.
For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.
REST
To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.
Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:
gcloud init
For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.
-
Limitations
- Shared VPC on interfaces other than
nic0
for instance templates is supported in gcloud CLI and REST, but not in Google Cloud console. - You can't update an existing instance template or change an instance template after it has been created. If an instance template goes out of date, or you need to make changes to the configuration, create a new instance template.
- If you want to specify an image family in an instance template, you can't use the Google Cloud console. You can use the Google Cloud CLI or REST instead.
- If you want to specify regional disks instead of zonal disks in an instance template, you can't use the Google Cloud console. You can use the Google Cloud CLI or REST instead.
- You can use an instance template to create VMs with a Hyperdisk Balanced boot disk that is in a storage pool, if the storage pool exists in the same zone that the VM is created in. You can't use global instance templates to create VMs with non-boot disks that are in a storage pool.
Create an instance template
Most of the VM properties that you can specify in a request to create an individual VM instance can also be specified for an instance template, including any VM metadata, startup scripts, persistent disks, and service accounts. You must specify the machine type, boot disk, and network.
Create a regional or global instance template through the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, or the API. To create a global instance template, you can also use the Terraform or the Cloud Client Libraries.
Console
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Instance templates page.
The remaining steps appear in the Google Cloud console.
- Click
Create instance template . - Select the Location as follows:
- If you want to use the instance template across regions, choose Global.
- If you want to reduce cross-region dependency, choose Regional.
- If you chose regional, then select the Region where you want to create your instance template.
For the following fields, either accept the default values or modify them as required. The default values change based on the machine family that you select.
- Select a
Machine type . - To update the boot disk type or image, in the
Boot disk section, click Change. - To update the network interface or IP address settings, click
Advanced options , then click Networking, and then click the network interface you want to edit.
- Select a
Optional: If you chose an image that supports Shielded VM, change the VM's Shielded VM settings:
- Click Advanced options, and then click the Security tab.
- If you want to disable Secure Boot, clear the Turn on Secure Boot checkbox. Secure Boot helps protect your VM instances against boot-level and kernel-level malware and rootkits. For more information, see Secure boot.
If you want to disable the virtual trusted platform module (vTPM), clear the Turn on vTPM checkbox. The vTPM enables Measured boot, which validates the VM pre-boot and boot integrity. For more information, see Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM).
If you want to disable integrity monitoring, uncheck the Turn on Integrity Monitoring checkbox. Integrity monitoring lets youn monitor the boot integrity of your Shielded VM instances by using Cloud Monitoring. For more information, see Integrity monitoring.
Optional: Under Advanced options, click the tabs to further customize your template. For example, you can add up to 15 secondary non-boot disks.
Optional: Click Equivalent REST to view the REST request body, which includes the JSON representation of your instance template.
Click Create to create the template.
gcloud
To create a regional or global instance template, use the
instance-templates create
command.
For a regional instance template, you must use the
--instance-template-region
flag to set the region of the template.
Create a regional instance template using the following command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \ --instance-template-region=REGION
Create a global instance template using the following command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
If you don't provide explicit template settings, gcloud compute
uses
the following default values:
- Machine type: the machine type—for example,
n1-standard-1
- Image: the latest Debian image
- Boot disk: a new standard boot disk named after the VM
- Network: the default VPC network
- IP address: an ephemeral external IP address
You can also explicitly provide these configuration settings. For example:
gcloud compute instance-templates create example-template-custom \ --machine-type=e2-standard-4 \ --image-family=debian-10 \ --image-project=debian-cloud \ --boot-disk-size=250GB
You can add up to 15 secondary non-boot disks. Specify the --create-disk
flag for each secondary disk you create. To create secondary disks from a
public or custom image, specify the image
and image-project
properties
for each disk in the --create-disk
flag. To create a blank disk, don't
include these properties. Optionally, include properties for the disk size
and type
. To
specify regional disks, use the replica-zones
property.
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \ --create-disk= \ image-family=DISK_IMAGE_FAMILY, \ image-project=DISK_IMAGE_PROJECT, \ size=SIZE_GB_DISK1 \ --create-disk= \ device-name=DISK_NAME,type=DISK_TYPE, \ size=SIZE_GB_DISK2 \ replica-zones=^:^ZONE:REMOTE_ZONE, \ boot=false
Tip: When specifying
the disk replica-zones
parameter, the characters ^:^
specify that
the separation character between values is a colon (:
) instead of the
expected comma (,
).
Replace the following:
INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
: the name for the templateREGION
: the region where you want to create the regional instance templateIMAGE_FAMILY
: an image family to use as a non-boot diskFor more information on image families, see best practices when using image families on Compute Engine.
You can use instead the flag
--image=IMAGE
to specify a specific version of an image.For blank disks, don't specify the
image-family
orimage
property.DISK_IMAGE_PROJECT
: the image project that contains the imageFor blank disks, don't specify the
image-project
property. For more information on public images, see Public images.SIZE_GB_DISK1
andSIZE_GB_DISK2
: the size of each secondary diskDISK_NAME
: Optional: the disk name displayed to the guest OS after the VM is created.DISK_TYPE
: Optional: the type of disk to create. If not specified, the default ispd-standard
orpd-balanced
, depending on the machine type.ZONE
andREMOTE_ZONE
: the zone to create the regional disk in and the zone to replicate it to.For zonal disks, don't include the
replica-zones
property.
If you chose an image that supports Shielded VM, you can optionally change the instance's Shielded VM settings using one of the following flags:
--no-shielded-secure-boot
: turns off Secure BootSecure Boot helps protect your VM instances against boot-level and kernel-level malware and rootkits. For more information, see Secure Boot.
--no-shielded-vtpm
: turns off the virtual trusted platform module (vTPM)The vTPM enables Measured Boot, which validates the VM pre-boot and boot integrity. For more information, see Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM).
--no-shielded-integrity-monitoring
: turns off integrity monitoringIntegrity monitoring lets you monitor the boot integrity of your Shielded VM instances using Cloud Monitoring. For more information, see Integrity monitoring.
For a list of all available subcommands and flags, see the
instance-templates
reference.
A template with the default configuration settings might look like the following:
gcloud compute instance-templates describe example-template
creationTimestamp: '2019-09-10T16:18:32.042-07:00' description: '' id: '6057583701980539406' kind: compute#instanceTemplate name: example-template properties: canIpForward: false disks: - autoDelete: true boot: true initializeParams: sourceImage: https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/debian-10 kind: compute#attachedDisk mode: READ_WRITE type: PERSISTENT machineType: e2-standard-2 networkInterfaces: - accessConfigs: - kind: compute#accessConfig name: external-nat type: ONE_TO_ONE_NAT network: https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/myproject/global/networks/default scheduling: automaticRestart: true onHostMaintenance: MIGRATE serviceAccounts: - email: default scopes: - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only selfLink: https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/myproject/global/instanceTemplates/example-template
Terraform
To create an instance template, you can use the google_compute_instance_template
resource.
The following Terraform example is similar to the following gcloud CLI command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create my-instance-template \ --machine-type=e2-standard-4 \ --image-family=debian-9 \ --image-project=debian-cloud \ --boot-disk-size=250GB
To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.
Go
Java
Node.js
Python
REST
To create a regional instance template, make a POST
request to the
regionInstanceTemplates.insert
method
as follows:
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/regions/REGION/instanceTemplates
To create a global instance template, make a POST
request to the
instanceTemplates.insert
method:
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/instanceTemplates
You can add up to 15 secondary non-boot disks by using the
disks
property, with a field for each additional disk. For each
additional disk, you can do the following:
- Create additional disks with a public or custom image.
- To add a blank disk, define the
initializeParams
entry with nosourceImage
value. - To create regional disks, define the
initializeParams
entry with the propertyreplicaZones
.
In the body of the request, provide the template properties:
{ "name": "INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME", "properties": { "machineType": "MACHINE_TYPE", "networkInterfaces": [ { "network": "global/networks/default", "accessConfigs": [ { "name": "external-IP", "type": "ONE_TO_ONE_NAT" } ] } ], "disks": [ { "type": "PERSISTENT", "boot": true, "mode": "READ_WRITE", "initializeParams": { "sourceImage": "projects/IMAGE_PROJECT/global/images/IMAGE" } }, { "type": "PERSISTENT", "boot": false, "deviceName": "DISK_NAME", "initializeParams": { "replicaZones": [ "projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/ZONE", "projects/PROJECT_NAME/zones/REMOTE_ZONE" ] } } ] } }
Replace the following:
PROJECT_ID
: your project idREGION
: the region where you want to create your regional instance templateINSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
: the name of the instance templateZONE
: the zone where VMs are locatedMACHINE_TYPE
: the machine type of the VMs-
IMAGE_PROJECT
: the image project that contains the imageFor more information on public images, see Public images.
-
IMAGE
orIMAGE_FAMILY
: specify one of the following:-
IMAGE
: a specific version of the imageFor example,
"sourceImage": "projects/debian-cloud/global/images/debian-10-buster-v20200309"
-
IMAGE_FAMILY
: an image familyThis creates the VM from the most recent, non-deprecated OS image. For example, if you specify
"sourceImage": "projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/debian-10"
, Compute Engine creates a VM from the latest version of the OS image in the Debian 10 image family.For more information on image families, see best practices when using image families on Compute Engine.
-
DISK_NAME
: Optional: the disk name displayed to the guest OS after the VM is created.PROJECT_NAME
: the project associated with the VMREMOTE_ZONE
: the zone where the regional disk should be replicated to
You can specify one of the following options for the disks
property:
Specify
initializeParams
to create boot disks for each instance. You can create disks by using public or custom images (or image families) using thesourceImage
property, as shown in the preceding example. To add blank disks, don't specify asourceImage
. You can also add up to 15 secondary non-boot disks by using theinitializeParams
property for each additional disk.Specify
source
to attach an existing boot disk. If you attach an existing boot disk, you can only create one instance from your template.
Optionally, you can specify the diskSizeGb
, diskType
, and
labels
properties for
initializeParams
and the diskSizeGb
property for source
.
If you chose an image that supports Shielded VM, you can optionally change the VM's Shielded VM settings by using the following Boolean request body items:
enableSecureBoot
: turns on or off Secure BootSecure Boot helps protect your VM instances against boot-level and kernel-level malware and rootkits. For more information, see Secure Boot.
enableVtpm
: turns on or off the virtual trusted platform module (vTPM)The vTPM enables Measured Boot, which validates the VM pre-boot and boot integrity. For more information, see Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM).
enableIntegrityMonitoring
: turns on or off integrity monitoringIntegrity monitoring lets you monitor and verify the runtime boot integrity of your Shielded VM instances by using Cloud Monitoring reports. For more information, see Integrity monitoring.
To learn more about request parameters, see the instanceTemplates.insert
method.
Create an instance template based on an existing instance
You can use REST or gcloud CLI to save the configuration of an existing VM instance as an instance template. You can optionally override how the source disks are defined in the template.
If you need to override other properties, first create an instance template based on an existing instance, then create a similar template with additional overrides.
gcloud
Use the
gcloud compute instance-templates create
command
with the --source-instance
and --source-instance-zone
flags. If you want
to create a regional instance template, then you must also use the
--instance-template-region
flag to specify the region of the instance
template.
To create a regional instance template, use the following command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \ --source-instance=SOURCE_INSTANCE \ --source-instance-zone=SOURCE_INSTANCE_ZONE \ --instance-template-region=REGION
To create a global instance template, use the following command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \ --source-instance=SOURCE_INSTANCE \ --source-instance-zone=SOURCE_INSTANCE_ZONE
To override how the source instance's disks are defined, add one or more
--configure-disk
flags.
The following example creates a global instance template from an existing instance and overrides the source instance's disk with the specifications that you provide.
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \ --source-instance=SOURCE_INSTANCE \ --source-instance-zone=SOURCE_INSTANCE_ZONE \ --configure-disk= \ device-name=SOURCE_DISK, \ instantiate-from=INSTANTIATE_OPTIONS, \ auto-delete=AUTO_DELETE
Replace the following:
INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
is the name of the template to create.SOURCE_INSTANCE
is the name of the instance to use as a model for the new template.SOURCE_INSTANCE_ZONE
is the zone that contains the source instance.REGION
is the region where you want to create the regional instance template..SOURCE_DISK
is the name of a source-instance disk that you want to override within the template.INSTANTIATE_OPTIONS
specifies whether to include the disk and which image to use. Valid values depend on the type of disk:source-image
orsource-image-family
(valid only for boot and other persistent read-write disks). Specify this option if you want to use the same source image or source image family that was used to create the disk in the source VM instance.custom-image
(valid only for boot and other persistent read-write disks). If you want to retain applications and settings from the source VMs in your instance template, you can create a custom image and then specify it when you create the template. If specified, then provide the path or URL for the custom image, as shown in the following example. Alternatively, you can specify an image family using the following format:--configure-disk=device-name=DATA_DISK_NAME,instantiate-from=custom-image,
custom-image=projects/PROJECT_ID/global/images/family/IMAGE_FAMILY_NAMEattach-read-only
(valid only for read-only disks).blank
(valid only for non-boot persistent disks and local SSDs). If specified, then, when the template is used to create a new instance, the disk is created unformatted. You must format and mount the disk in a startup script before you can use it in a scalable setup.do-not-include
(valid only for non-boot persistent disks and read-only disks).
AUTO_DELETE
specifies whether the disk is auto-deleted when the instance is deleted. Valid values are:false
,no
,true
, andyes
.
For example, the following command creates an instance template based on
my-source-instance
, with the option to use the original image from
data-disk-a
, but set auto-delete to true
and replace data-disk-b
with a custom image.
gcloud compute instance-templates create my-instance-template \ --source-instance=my-source-instance \ --configure-disk=device-name=data-disk-a,instantiate-from=source-image, \ auto-delete=true --configure-disk=device-name=data-disk-b,instantiate-from=custom-image, \ custom-image=projects/cps-cloud/global/images/cos-89-16108-403-15
Go
Java
Node.js
Python
REST
To create a regional instance template, use the regionInstanceTemplates.insert
method,
or, to create a global instance template, use the instanceTemplates.insert
method.
In your request, you must specify the sourceInstance
field. To override how the source
instance's disks are defined, add one or more diskConfigs
fields.
For example, make the following call to create a global instance template from an existing instance.
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/instanceTemplates { "name": "INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME", "sourceInstance": "zones/SOURCE_INSTANCE_ZONE/instances/SOURCE_INSTANCE", "sourceInstanceParams": { "diskConfigs": [ { "deviceName": "SOURCE_DISK", "instantiateFrom": "INSTANTIATE_OPTIONS", "autoDelete": false } ] } }
Replace the following:
PROJECT_ID
: your project idINSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
: the name for the new templateSOURCE_INSTANCE_ZONE
: the zone of the source instanceSOURCE_INSTANCE
: the name of the source instance to use as a model for this instance templateSOURCE_DISK
: the name of a source-instance disk that you want to override within the templateINSTANTIATE_OPTIONS
: specifies whether to include the disk and which image to useValid values depend on the type of disk:
source-image
orsource-image-family
(valid only for boot and other persistent read-write disks).custom-image
(valid only for boot and other persistent read-write disks). If you want to retain applications and settings from the source VMs in your instance template, you can create a custom image and then specify it when you create the template. If specified, then provide the path or URL for the custom image, as shown in the following example. Alternatively, you can specify an image family using the following format:--configure-disk=device-name=DATA_DISK_NAME,instantiate-from=custom-image,
custom-image=projects/PROJECT_ID/global/images/family/IMAGE_FAMILY_NAMEattach-read-only
(valid only for read-only disks).blank
(valid only for non-boot persistent disks and local SSDs). If specified, then, when the template is used to create a new instance, the disk is created unformatted. You must format and mount the disk in a startup script before you can use it in a scalable setup.do-not-include
(valid only for non-boot persistent disks and read-only disks).
The following example creates a new instance template based on
my-source-instance
. In the instance template, the image for data-disk-a
is replaced with projects/cos-cloud/global/images/cos-89-16108-403-15
.
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my_project/global/instanceTemplates { "name": "my-instance-template", "sourceInstance": "zones/us-central1-a/instances/my-source-instance", "sourceInstanceParams": { "diskConfigs": [ { "deviceName": "data-disk-a", "instantiateFrom": "custom-image", "customImage": "projects/cos-cloud/global/images/cos-89-16108-403-15" } ] } }
The following table shows how the options for overriding disks are defined in the template.
Disk type | Options |
---|---|
Boot disk |
|
Other read/write persistent disks |
|
Read-only disk(s) |
|
Local SSD(s) |
|
For each disk, you can also override the auto-delete
attribute to specify
whether the disk should be deleted when its associated instance is
deleted.
By default, if no override options are specified, the disk configuration in the template matches the source instance.
Create an instance template based on an existing template
You can't update an existing instance template. But, if an instance template goes out of date or if you need to make changes, you can create another one with similar properties by using the console.
Go to the Instance templates page.
Click the instance template that you want to copy and update.
Click Create similar.
Update the configuration in the new template.
Click Create.
Create an instance template for GPU VMs
When creating an instance template, you can configure it for creating VMs that have attached GPUs by specifying the following:
A machine type that supports the GPU type you want. If you want to create a regional instance template, the GPU type that you specify in the template must be available in at least one zone in the region.
A maintenance policy that stops VMs during host maintenance events.
Console
To create an instance template for GPU VMs, do the following:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Instance templates page.
Click Create instance template.
In the Name field, enter a name for the instance template.
In the Location section, select one of the following options:
To create a global instance template, select Global (default).
To create a regional instance template, select Regional, and then select the region where you want to create the instance template.
In the Machine configuration section, do the following:
Click the GPUs tab.
In the GPU type menu, select the GPU type.
In the Number of GPUs menu, select the number of GPUs.
Optional: If your GPU model supports NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstations (vWS) for graphics workloads, and you plan to run graphics-intensive workloads, select Enable Virtual Workstation (NVIDIA GRID).
In the Machine type section, select a machine type.
Optional: To change the default value boot disk type or image, in the Boot disk section, click Change. Then, follow the prompts to change the boot disk.
Click Create.
gcloud
To create an instance template for GPU VMs, use the
instance-templates create
command
with the --maintenance-policy
flag set to TERMINATE
.
For example, to create a global instance template for GPU VMs, use the following command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \
--image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
--image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY \
--machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
--maintenance-policy=TERMINATE
Replace the following:
INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
: the name of the instance template.IMAGE_PROJECT
: the image project that contains the image; for example,debian-cloud
. For more information about the supported image projects, see Public images.IMAGE_FAMILY
orIMAGE
: specify one of the following:IMAGE_FAMILY
: an image family. This specifies the most recent, non-deprecated OS image. For example, if you specifydebian-10
, the latest version in the Debian 10 image family is used. For more information about using image families, see Image families best practices.IMAGE
: a specific version of the OS image; for example,debian-10-buster-v20200309
. If you choose to specify a specific version of the OS image, then you must replace the--image-family
flag with the--image
flag.
MACHINE_TYPE
: the machine type of the VMs. If you specify an N1 machine type, then include the--accelerator
flag to specify the number and type of GPUs to attach to your VMs.
For example, assume that you want to create a global instance template for GPU VMs that specifies the following properties:
An N1 predefined machine type with 2 vCPUs.
One NVIDIA T4 GPU to attach to the VMs.
Debian as the image project.
Debian 10 as the image family.
To create the example instance template, use the following command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create instance-template-gpu \
--accelerator=count=1,type=nvidia-tesla-t4 \
--machine-type=n1-standard-2 \
--image-family=debian-10 \
--image-project=debian-cloud \
--maintenance-policy=TERMINATE
Terraform
To create an instance template for GPU VMs, use the
google_compute_region_instance_template
resource.
For example, to create a global instance template, which specifies an N1 predefined machine type with 2 vCPUs and one NVIDIA T4 GPU attached, use the following resource:
To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.
REST
To create an instance template for GPU VMs, make a POST
request to the
instanceTemplates.insert
method.
In the request body, include the onHostMaintenance
field and set it to
TERMINATE
.
For example, to create a global instance template for GPU VMs, make a POST
request as follows:
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/instanceTemplates
{
"name": "INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME",
"properties": {
"disks": [
{
"type": "PERSISTENT",
"boot": true,
"mode": "READ_WRITE",
"initializeParams": {
"sourceImage": "projects/IMAGE_PROJECT/global/images/IMAGE"
}
}
],
"machineType": "MACHINE_TYPE",
"networkInterfaces": [
{
"accessConfigs": [
{
"name": "external-IP",
"type": "ONE_TO_ONE_NAT"
}
],
"network": "global/networks/default"
}
],
"scheduling": {
"onHostMaintenance": "TERMINATE"
}
}
}
Replace the following:
PROJECT_ID
: the ID of the project in which you want to create the instance template.INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
: the name of the instance template.IMAGE_PROJECT
: the image project that contains the image; for example,debian-cloud
. For more information about the supported image projects, see Public images.IMAGE
orIMAGE_FAMILY
: specify one of the following:IMAGE
: a specific version of the OS image; for example,debian-10-buster-v20200309
.IMAGE_FAMILY
: an image family. This specifies the most recent, non-deprecated OS image. For example, if you specifyfamily/debian-10
, the latest version in the Debian 10 image family is used. For more information about using image families, see Image families best practices.
MACHINE_TYPE
: the machine type of the VMs. If you specify an N1 machine type, then include theguestAccelerators
field to specify the number and type of GPUs to attach to your VMs.
For example, assume that you want to create a global instance template for GPU VMs that specifies the following properties:
An N1 predefined machine type with 2 vCPUs.
One NVIDIA T4 GPU to attach to the VMs.
Debian as the image project.
Debian 10 as the image family.
To create the example instance template, make a POST
request as follows:
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/example-project/global/instanceTemplates
{
"name": "instance-template-gpu",
"properties": {
"disks": [
{
"type": "PERSISTENT",
"boot": true,
"mode": "READ_WRITE",
"initializeParams": {
"sourceImage": "projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/debian-10"
}
}
],
"guestAccelerators": [
{
"acceleratorType": "nvidia-tesla-t4",
"acceleratorCount": 1
}
],
"machineType": "n1-standard-2",
"networkInterfaces": [
{
"accessConfigs": [
{
"name": "external-IP",
"type": "ONE_TO_ONE_NAT"
}
],
"network": "global/networks/default"
}
],
"scheduling": {
"onHostMaintenance": "TERMINATE"
}
}
}
For more configuration options when creating an instance template, see Create an instance template in this document.
Create an instance template with a container image
You can specify a container image in an instance template. By default, Compute Engine also includes in the template a Container-Optimized OS image with Docker installed. When you use the template to create a new instance, the container is launched automatically as the instance starts up.
Console
Go to the Instance templates page.
Click Create instance template.
In the Container section, click Deploy Container.
In the Configure container dialog, specify the Container image to use.
- You can specify an image from Container Registry
or Artifact Registry.
For example:
gcr.io/cloud-marketplace/google/nginx1:TAG
, where TAG is the tag defined for a specific version of NGINX container image available on Google Cloud Marketplace.us-docker.pkg.dev/google-samples/containers/gke/hello-app:1.0
selects a samplehello-app
image stored in Artifact Registry.
- If you use a container image from Docker Hub, always specify the
full Docker image name. For example, specify the following image name
to deploy an Apache container image:
docker.io/httpd:2.4
.
- You can specify an image from Container Registry
or Artifact Registry.
For example:
Optionally, click Advanced container options. For more information, see Configuring options to run your Container.
Click Create.
gcloud
Use the
gcloud compute instance-templates create-with-container
command:
gcloud compute instance-templates create-with-container INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \ --container-image=CONTAINER_IMAGE
Replace the following:
INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
: The name of the template to create.CONTAINER_IMAGE
: The full name of the container image to use.
For example, the following command creates a new instance template named
nginx-vm
. A VM instance created from this template launches and
runs the container image, gcr.io/cloud-marketplace/google/nginx1:TAG
,
when the VM starts.
gcloud compute instance-templates create-with-container nginx-vm \ --container-image=gcr.io/cloud-marketplace/google/nginx1:TAG
Replace TAG
with the tag defined for a specific
version of NGINX container image available on Google Cloud Marketplace.
You can also configure options to run your container.
Create an instance template that specifies a subnet
gcloud
To create a regional or global instance template, use the
instance-templates create
command.
Use the --subnet
flag to place instances that are created from the template
into the subnet of your choice. The --subnet
flag requires the --region
flag.
If you want to create a regional instance template, you must use the
--instance-template-region
flag to set the region of the template. Make sure
that you use a subnet from the same region as where you want to create the
regional instance template.
gcloud compute instance-templates create INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME \ --region=REGION \ --subnet=SUBNET_NAME_OR_URL \ --instance-template-region=INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_REGION
Replace the following:
INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME
: the name for the instance templateREGION
: the region of the subnetSUBNET_NAME_OR_URL
: either the name of the subnet or its URLINSTANCE_TEMPLATE_REGION
: the region where you want to create the instance template. This must be same as REGION
The following example creates a template called template-qa
that only creates
instances in the subnet-us-qa
subnet.
gcloud compute instance-templates create template-qa \
--region=us-central1 \
--subnet=subnet-us-qa
Created [https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/latest/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/instanceTemplates/template-qa].
NAME MACHINE_TYPE PREEMPTIBLE CREATION_TIMESTAMP
template-qa e2-standard-2 2019-12-23T20:34:00.791-07:00
Go
Java
Node.js
Python
Using this template to create instances for a MIG (with or without autoscaling) automatically creates the instance in the specified region and subnet. This lets you control the subnet of new instances created for load balancing.
Use custom or public images in your instance templates
You can either use a custom image or a public image for your instance templates:
Custom images. As MIGs are designed to add and remove instances frequently, it is useful to create a custom image and specify it in the instance template. You can prepare your image with the applications and settings that your VMs need, so you don't have to manually configure those items on individual VMs in the MIG.
Public images. You can create an instance template that uses a public image and a startup script to prepare the instance after it starts running.
Custom images are more deterministic and start more quickly than VMs with startup scripts. However, startup scripts are more flexible and let you update the apps and settings in your instances more easily.
If you're managing images using image families, you can specify the name of your custom or public image family in the instance template. For more information on image families, see best practices when using image families on Compute Engine.
What's next
- Create a VM from an instance template.
- Create a zonal managed instance group (MIG).
- Create a regional MIG.
- Update the VMs in an existing MIG to use the configuration from a new template.
- Create a reservation for VMs.