Google Cloud
Adding a Linux system image to a project (note: this can only be done from the command line and/or Google Cloud shell)
gcloud compute images create IMAGE_NAME --source-uri https://storage.googleapis.com/macalpine-vm-images/cmb551-2015-v3-image.tar.gz
- For example, issuing the above command with
IMAGE_NAME
equal tocmb551-2015-module-v3-ubuntu-image
 will enable the creation of any Virtual Machine with the configuration specified by thecmb551-2015-v3-image.tar.gz
system image
Creating a new VM (Virtual Machine) Instance
- Enter the Compute Engine section of the Google Cloud Platform
- Click on the "Hamburger Icon" (three horizontal lines) on the top-left of the page, to the left of "Google Cloud Platform" in the blue header bar
- Click on Compute Engine (second item under the Compute section, right below App Engine)
- By default, VM instances should be highlighted in the left sidebar (the first option in the Compute Engine section)
- Click on the blue link Create Instance (with the + bookmark symbol to the left of it) at the top of the page.  This will bring you to the Create an instance page.
- Enter the following parameters:
- Name (the name of your instance)
instance-1
- Zone (the zone where your project will reside; not entirely important which one you choose, but it makes things easier if you consistently keep everything in the same zone)
us-east1-b
- Machine type (how many CPUs andhow much RAM do you want your virtual machine to have.  For starting out and/or troubleshooting, it's best to choose the smallest Machine type, which is micro (1 shared vCPU + 0.6 GB memory) as running this for an entire month only costs ~$4.49)
micro (1 shared vCPU) 0.6 GB memory
- Boot disk (this is where you choose the Linux operating system that your VM instance will run.  You can either use a preconfigured system image like "Ubuntu 14.04 LTS" or a customimage on the "Your image" tab.  You can also specify the Boot disk type and the Size (GB) of the boot disk.  The defaults for this (Boot disk type: Standard persistent disk & Size (GB): 10 or 30 GB are perfectly fine for our application)
cmb551-2015-module-v3-ubuntu-image
- 30 GB Standard persistent disk
- Firewall (essentially whether you want to allow access to your Virtual Machine via the Internet; almost always we do, so check both boxes)
- Allow HTTP traffic: Yes
- Allow HTTPS traffic: Yes
- Name (the name of your instance)
- Click on the blue box Create to initialize the your VM.  This process will take about a minute.  If successful, you should see the following:Â
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