Google cloud platform: Getting started with GCP virtual machine and run an application in VM instance

In this post we will start with creating an GCP Virtual machine instance and create an express.js web application.

Prerequisite: Have a GCP account with billing enabled. Please refer how to get started with Google Cloud Platform account setup.

Lets open GCP console and create a VM instance. (If you are creating very first time then Google will enforce to enable Compute engine). It will take few seconds to complete and

Configure all the details to define your virtual machine: Click "Create Instance" and provide a valid name for VM. I have used "instance-express-learn". There are multiple ways to create VM(using predefined template, create custom template, etc), I am going ahead with default options of machine configuration.

Click "CREATE" or Copy command from "EQUIVALENT COMMAND LINE" (run command in Cloud shell) to create VM.

What is Google Cloud shell and Where you can find google Cloud shell?

Ephemeral VM which offers a terminal on the browser.
Click on Activate Cloud Shell ">". It will open session for executing commands.

Verify VM is running/listing of your VM instances:

Green tick indicates that VM is successfully created and running.

From cloud shell, run following command and list of all VM's running.When you connect to VMs using the Cloud Console, Compute Engine creates an ephemeral SSH key for you

n0r0082@m-c02z31rnlvdt ~ % gcloud compute instances list
NAME                    ZONE           MACHINE_TYPE  PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP     STATUS
instance-express-learn  us-central1-a  e2-medium                  10.128.0.2   34.123.1xx.2xx  RUNNING

We have a running virtual machine with adequate infrastructure spawned with just few clicks/commands. This summarize beautifully why Cloud is a buzzword :)

How to access GCP VM from local terminal

Please refer Install the Google Cloud CLI / Cloud SDKs by language to setup gcloud locally.

Once gcloud has been setup, we can login to GCP from terminal. First authenticate terminal session using following command.

n0r0082@m-c02z31rnlvdt ~ % gcloud auth login
Your browser has been opened to visit:

    https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?response_type=code
           &client_id=VERY_BIG_STRING.....


You are now logged in as [nikhil*******@gmail.com].
Your current project is [None].  You can change this setting by running:
  $ gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID


Updates are available for some Cloud SDK components.  To install them,
please run:
  $ gcloud components update

On prompt, click Allow and It will open web browser and enforce to login with an emailId (Use emailId which has been used to create GCP account)

Once authenticated, close web browser or you can go to console.

Set PROJET_ID as recommended by above command and Run command to list VM's and we will get same result as command ran from Cloud shell.

n0r0082@m-c02z31rnlvdt ~ % gcloud config set project named-magnet-342122
Updated property [core/project].
n0r0082@m-c02z31rnlvdt ~ %
n0r0082@m-c02z31rnlvdt ~ %
n0r0082@m-c02z31rnlvdt ~ % gcloud compute instances list
NAME                    ZONE           MACHINE_TYPE  PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP     STATUS
instance-express-learn  us-central1-a  e2-medium                  10.128.0.2   34.123.124.191  RUNNING

What is PROJECT_ID value? - Fetch PROJECT_ID value from GCP Console. ID value is PROJECT_ID value.

Create express.js web-application in VM:

Install node.js and update with latest versio{by default node is installed in VM}

nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~ (named-magnet-342122)$ node --version
v12.14.1

>>>Update node version with latest
nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~ (named-magnet-342122)$ nvm install stable
Downloading and installing node v17.6.0...
Downloading https://nodejs.org/dist/v17.6.0/node-v17.6.0-linux-x64.tar.xz...
###############################################.... 100.0%
Computing checksum with sha256sum
Checksums matched!
Now using node v17.6.0 (npm v8.5.1)
nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~ (named-magnet-342122)$ node --version 
v17.6.0

Set default to latest version

nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~ (named-magnet-342122)$ nvm alias default stable
default -> stable (-> v17.6.0)

Install exress-generator and then using exress-generator create an app named "client-app"

nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~ (named-magnet-342122)$ npm install -g express-generator
nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~ (named-magnet-342122)$ npm audit fix --force
nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~ (named-magnet-342122)$ npm install -g express-generator

create : client-app/
   create : client-app/public/
   create : client-app/public/javascripts/
   create : client-app/public/images/
   create : client-app/public/stylesheets/
   create : client-app/public/stylesheets/style.css
   create : client-app/routes/
   create : client-app/routes/index.js
   create : client-app/routes/users.js
   create : client-app/views/
   create : client-app/views/error.jade
   create : client-app/views/index.jade
   create : client-app/views/layout.jade
   create : client-app/app.js
   create : client-app/package.json
   create : client-app/bin/
   create : client-app/bin/www

   change directory:
     $ cd client-app

   install dependencies:
     $ npm install

   run the app:
     $ DEBUG=client-app:* npm start

Start app using following command

nikhilranjan2712@cloudshell:~/client-app (named-magnet-342122)$ DEBUG=client-app:* npm start   

> client-app@0.0.0 start
> node ./bin/www

  client-app:server Listening on port 3000 +0ms

Access application http://localhost:3000. Open a new console and access app using curl command.

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Google cloud platform: Getting started with GCP virtual machine and run an application in VM instance

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