gce_vm_create.RdCreates an instance resource in the specified project using the data included in the request.
gce_vm_create(name, predefined_type = "f1-micro", image_project = "debian-cloud", image_family = "debian-8", cpus = NULL, memory = NULL, image = "", disk_source = NULL, network = "default", externalIP = NULL, canIpForward = NULL, description = NULL, metadata = NULL, scheduling = NULL, serviceAccounts = NULL, tags = NULL, minCpuPlatform = NULL, project = gce_get_global_project(), zone = gce_get_global_zone(), dry_run = FALSE, disk_size_gb = NULL, use_beta = FALSE, acceleratorCount = NULL, acceleratorType = "nvidia-tesla-p4")
| name | The name of the resource, provided by the client when initially creating the resource |
|---|---|
| predefined_type | A predefined machine type from gce_list_machinetype |
| image_project | Project ID of where the image lies |
| image_family | Name of the image family to search for |
| cpus | If not defining |
| memory | If not defining |
| image | Name of the image resource to return |
| disk_source | Specifies a valid URL to an existing Persistent Disk resource. |
| network | The name of the network interface |
| externalIP | An external IP you have previously reserved, leave NULL to have one assigned or |
| canIpForward | Allows this instance to send and receive packets with non-matching destination or source IPs |
| description | An optional description of this resource |
| metadata | A named list of metadata key/value pairs assigned to this instance |
| scheduling | Scheduling options for this instance, such as preemptible instances |
| serviceAccounts | A list of service accounts, with their specified scopes, authorized for this instance |
| tags | A list of tags to apply to this instance |
| minCpuPlatform | Specify a minimum CPU platform as per https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/specify-min-cpu-platform |
| project | Project ID for this request |
| zone | The name of the zone for this request |
| dry_run | whether to just create the request JSON |
| disk_size_gb | If not NULL, override default size of the boot disk (size in GB) |
| use_beta | If set to TRUE will use the beta version of the API. Should not be used for production purposes. |
| acceleratorCount | Number of GPUs to add to instance. If using this, you may want to instead use gce_vm_gpu which sets some defaults for GPU instances. |
| acceleratorType | Name of GPU to add, see gce_list_gpus |
A zone operation, or if the name already exists the VM object from gce_get_instance
Authentication scopes used by this function are:
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute
cpus must be in multiples of 2 up to 32
memory must be in multiples of 256
One of image or image_family must be supplied
To create an instance you need to specify:
Name
Project [if not default]
Zone [if not default]
Machine type - either a predefined type or custom CPU and memory
Network - usually default, specifies open ports etc.
Image - a source image containing the operating system
You can add metadata to the server such as startup-script and shutdown-script. Details available here: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/storing-retrieving-metadata
If you want to not have an external IP then modify the instance afterwards
You can set preemptible VMs by passing this in the scheduling arguments scheduling = list(preemptible = TRUE)
This creates a VM that may be shut down prematurely by Google - you will need to sort out how to save state if that happens in a shutdown script etc. However, these are much cheaper.
Some defaults for launching GPU enabled VMs are available at gce_vm_gpu
You can add GPUs to your instance, but they must be present in the zone you have specified - use gce_list_gpus to see which are available. Refer to this link for a list of current GPUs per zone.