freundcloud

Logging in and Deploying to GCP from the Command Line (Linux)

This guide explains how to authenticate to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and deploy resources using both the gcloud CLI and Terraform on Linux. Real-life examples are provided for each method.

1. Authenticating to GCP with gcloud CLI

Install gcloud CLI

# On Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates gnupg

# Add the Cloud SDK distribution URI as a package source
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg] https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list

# Import the Google Cloud public key
curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

# Update and install
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y google-cloud-sdk

Authenticate with your Google account

gcloud auth login
  • This opens a browser window for authentication. If running headless, use: 
    gcloud auth login --no-launch-browser

Set your default project and region

gcloud config set project <PROJECT_ID>
gcloud config set compute/region <REGION>
gcloud config set compute/zone <ZONE>

Authenticate for Terraform (Application Default Credentials)

gcloud auth application-default login
  • This command is required for Terraform to use your credentials.

2. Deploying Resources with gcloud CLI

Example: Deploy a Compute Engine VM

gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --machine-type=e2-micro \
  --image-family=debian-11 \
  --image-project=debian-cloud \
  --tags=http-server,https-server

Example: Deploy a GKE (Kubernetes) Cluster

gcloud container clusters create my-gke-cluster \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --num-nodes=2

3. Deploying Resources with Terraform

Example: Deploy a Compute Engine VM

main.tf

provider "google" {
  project = var.project
  region  = var.region
  zone    = var.zone
}

resource "google_compute_instance" "default" {
  name         = "tf-vm"
  machine_type = "e2-micro"
  zone         = var.zone

  boot_disk {
    initialize_params {
      image = "debian-cloud/debian-11"
    }
  }

  network_interface {
    network = "default"
    access_config {}
  }
}

variables.tf

variable "project" {}
variable "region" {}
variable "zone" {}

terraform.tfvars

project = "your-gcp-project-id"
region  = "us-central1"
zone    = "us-central1-a"

Deploy with Terraform

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

Example: Deploy a GKE (Kubernetes) Cluster

main.tf

provider "google" {
  project = var.project
  region  = var.region
  zone    = var.zone
}

resource "google_container_cluster" "primary" {
  name     = "tf-gke-cluster"
  location = var.zone

  initial_node_count = 2

  node_config {
    machine_type = "e2-medium"
  }
}

variables.tf

variable "project" {}
variable "region" {}
variable "zone" {}

terraform.tfvars

project = "your-gcp-project-id"
region  = "us-central1"
zone    = "us-central1-a"

Deploy with Terraform

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

References