Creates 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")

Arguments

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 predefined_type, the number of CPUs

memory

If not defining predefined_type, amount of memory

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 "none" for no external access.

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

Value

A zone operation, or if the name already exists the VM object from gce_get_instance

Details

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

Preemptible VMS

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.

GPUs

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.

See also