GCP Command Line Interface (CLI) Cheatsheet

This cheatsheet provides a quick reference for essential Google Cloud Platform (GCP) commands using the gcloud and gsutil tools. Master these commands to efficiently manage your cloud resources.

GCP Basics and Initialization

• Check Version and Settings: gcloud version, gcloud info, gcloud components list
• Initialize GCP SDK Profile: gcloud init (This command will guide you through setting up your project and authentication.)
• List all available zones: gcloud compute zones list
• Upgrade local SDK components: gcloud components update, or specify a version: gcloud components update --version 219.0.1

Cloud Storage (GCS) Bucket Operations

• List buckets and files: gsutil ls, or for detailed listing: gsutil ls -lh gs://<bucket-name>
• Download a file from a bucket: gsutil cp gs://<bucket-name>/<dir-path>/package-1.1.tgz .
• Upload a file to a bucket: gsutil cp <filename> gs://<bucket-name>/<directory>/
• View file content: gsutil cat gs://<bucket-name>/<filepath>/
• Delete a file from a bucket: gsutil rm gs://<bucket-name>/<filepath>
• Move or rename a file/object: gsutil mv <src-filepath> gs://<bucket-name>/<directory>/<dest-filepath>
• Copy an entire folder recursively: gsutil cp -r ./conf gs://<bucket-name>/
• Show disk usage for a bucket/directory: gsutil du -h gs://<bucket-name>/<directory>/
• Create a new bucket: gsutil mb gs://<bucket-name>
• Calculate file SHA1 checksum: gsha1sum <filename>, or shasum <filename>
• Access gsutil help documentation: gsutil help, gsutil help cp, gsutil help options

GCP Project Management

• List current project configuration: gcloud config list, or specifically for project: gcloud config list project
• Show project information: gcloud compute project-info describe
• Switch to a different project: gcloud config set project <project-id>

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Operations

• Display a list of authenticated accounts: gcloud auth list
• Set the active account for gcloud: gcloud config set account <ACCOUNT>
• Configure kubectl context for a GKE cluster: gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster-name>
• Change the default compute region: gcloud config set compute/region us-west
• Change the default compute zone: gcloud config set compute/zone us-west1-b
• List all GKE container clusters: gcloud container clusters list

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

• Authenticate using a service account key file: gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file <key-file>
• Display a list of credentialed accounts: gcloud auth list
• Set the active account for gcloud: gcloud config set account <ACCOUNT>
• Configure Docker authentication for GCP Container Registry: gcloud auth configure-docker
• Print the access token for the active account: gcloud auth print-access-token, or refresh token: gcloud auth print-refresh-token
• Revoke previously generated credentials: gcloud auth application-default revoke

Cloud Storage Bucket Security

• Make all files in a bucket publicly readable: gsutil -m acl set -R -a public-read gs://<bucket-name>/
• Configure gsutil authentication: gsutil config -a
• Grant specific IAM roles to a user for a bucket: gsutil iam ch user:denny@gmail.com:objectCreator,objectViewer gs://<bucket-name>
• Remove IAM roles from a user for a bucket: gsutil iam ch -d user:denny@gmail.com:objectCreator,objectViewer gs://<bucket-name>

Compute Engine Virtual Machines (VMs)

• List all VM instances: gcloud compute instances list, or instance templates: gcloud compute instance-templates list
• Show detailed information about a VM instance: gcloud compute instances describe "<instance-name>" --project "<project-name>" --zone "us-west2-a"
• Stop a VM instance: gcloud compute instances stop instance-2
• Start a VM instance: gcloud compute instances start instance-2
• Create a new VM instance: gcloud compute instances create vm1 --image image-1 --tags test --zone "<zone>" --machine-type f1-micro
• SSH into a VM instance: gcloud compute ssh --project "<project-name>" --zone "<zone-name>" "<instance-name>"
• Download files from a VM instance: gcloud compute copy-files example-instance:~/REMOTE-DIR ~/LOCAL-DIR --zone us-central1-a
• Upload files to a VM instance: gcloud compute copy-files ~/LOCAL-FILE-1 example-instance:~/REMOTE-DIR --zone us-central1-a

Compute Engine Disks and Volumes

• List all persistent disks: gcloud compute disks list
• List all available disk types: gcloud compute disk-types list
• List all disk snapshots: gcloud compute snapshots list
• Create a snapshot of a disk: gcloud compute disks snapshot <diskname> --snapshotname <name1> --zone $zone

VPC Network Management

• List all VPC networks: gcloud compute networks list
• Get detailed information about a network: gcloud compute networks describe <network-name> --format json
• Create a new VPC network: gcloud compute networks create <network-name>
• Create a subnet within a network: gcloud compute networks subnets create subnet1 --network net1 --range 10.5.4.0/24
• Reserve a static external IP address: gcloud compute addresses create --region us-west2-a vpn-1-static-ip
• List all reserved IP addresses: gcloud compute addresses list
• Describe a specific IP address resource: gcloud compute addresses describe <ip-name> --region us-central1
• List all network routes: gcloud compute routes list

Cloud DNS Operations

• List all record-sets in a managed zone: gcloud dns record-sets list --zone my_zone
• List the first 10 DNS records in a zone: gcloud dns record-sets list --zone my_zone --limit=10

Firewall Rule Management

• List all firewall rules: gcloud compute firewall-rules list
• List all forwarding rules: gcloud compute forwarding-rules list
• Describe a specific firewall rule: gcloud compute firewall-rules describe <rule-name>
• Create a new firewall rule: gcloud compute firewall-rules create my-rule --network default --allow tcp:9200 tcp:3306
• Update an existing firewall rule: gcloud compute firewall-rules update default --network default --allow tcp:9200 tcp:9300

Images and Containers

• List all available images: gcloud compute images list
• List all GKE container clusters: gcloud container clusters list
• Set kubectl context for a GKE cluster: gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster-name>

Cloud SQL Instances

• List all Cloud SQL instances: gcloud sql instances list

Load Balancing and Services

• List all backend services: gcloud compute backend-services list
• List all health check endpoints: gcloud compute http-health-checks list
• List all URL maps: gcloud compute url-maps list

For more detailed information and advanced usage, refer to the official gcloud CLI documentation and gsutil documentation.