How do I automatically restart a preemptible Google Compute Engine instance? I only have one instance that doesn't need 100% uptime but that I would like to restart once the data center becomes unloaded again. The instance/server that I'm trying to automatically restart has its own boot disk that I'd like to use each time it restarts.
You could try using Instance Group Manager to set up a pool of size 1. It will then try to re-create instances after they are preempted.
You should be aware that there is no guarantee that there is going to be capacity for your instance. As the docs say:
Preemptible instances are available from a finite amount of Compute Engine resources, and might not always be available.
You could create a f1-micro instance which is free for one instance per month in several data centers and create a cron job
*/10 * * * * /snap/bin/gcloud beta compute instances start --zone "yourzone" "yourinstance" --project "yourproject"
after you ran gcloud auth login once.
This will restart your instance every 10 minutes. Of course you can set this also to an hour or more. With a bit more scripting also things like exponential back off can be done.
If you'd like to restart it less frequently, you can use Instance schedules that's built in to the Google Cloud Dashboard.
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/schedule-instance-start-stop
Related
I have an application running on Container-Optimized OS based Compute Engine.
My application runs every 20min, fetches and writes data to a local file, then deletes the file after some processing. Note that each file is less than 100KB.
My boot disk size is the default 10GB.
I run into "no space left on device" error every month or so while attempting to write the file locally.
How can I track disk usage?
I manually checked the size of the folders and it seems that the bulk of the space is taken by /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/overlay2.
my-vm / # sudo du -sh /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/*
20K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/builder
72K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/buildkit
208K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/containers
4.4M /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/image
52K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/network
1.6G /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/overlay2
20K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/plugins
4.0K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/runtimes
4.0K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/swarm
4.0K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/tmp
4.0K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/trust
28K /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/volumes
TL;DR: Use Stackdriver Monitoring and create an alert for DISK usage.
Since you are using COS images, you can enable Stackdriver Monitoring agent by simply adding the “google-monitoring-enabled” label set to “true” on GCE Instance metadata. To do so, run the command:
gcloud compute instances add-metadata instance-name --metadata=google-monitoring-enabled=true
Replace instance-name with the name of your instance. Remember to restart your instance to get the change done. You don't need to install the Stackdriver Monitoring agent since is already installed by default in COS images.
Then, you can use disk usage metric to get the usage of your disk.
You can create an alert to get a notification each time the usage of the partition reaches a certain threshold.
Since you are in a cloud, it is always the best idea to use the Cloud resources to solve Cloud issues.
Docker uses /var/lib/docker to store your images, containers, and local named volumes. Deleting this can result in data loss and possibly stop the engine from running. The overlay2 subdirectory specifically contains the various filesystem layers for images and containers.
To cleanup unused containers and images via command:
docker system prune.
Monitor it via command "watch"
sudo watch "du -sh /mnt/stateful_partition/var/lib/docker/*"
I created a snapshot of a VM instance via cloud console. I would like to know how I can restore an instance using a snapshot. The documentation for compute engine is not very helpful. The instance runs on Ubuntu. Thanks.
To restore an instance from a snapshot without deleting/re-creating the instance:
Shut down the instance and detach the boot disk: gcloud beta compute instances detach-disk INSTANCE_NAME --disk BOOT_DISK_NAME
Create a new disk from the snapshot: gcloud compute disks create DISK_NAME --source-snapshot SNAPSHOT_NAME
Attach the disk created from step 2 as the boot disk: gcloud beta compute instances attach-disk INSTANCE_NAME --disk DISK_NAME --boot
Restoring the instance without deleting/re-creating the instance means that after restore, the instance will keep its IP address and other properties like tags, labels, etc.
In Console, you can go to VM Instances from Compute Engine tab.
There you click on '+Create Instance'
and there in section of boot-disk, you can navigate to 'snapshots' tab and select the snapshot you took.
Like this from console, you can Restore your instance.
Let me know, if this doesn't work for you!
Try using:
gcloud compute disks \
create <NEW_INSTANCE_NAME> \
--source-snapshot <SNAPSHOT_NAME> \
--type pd-ssd \
--zone <ZONE>
You could find useful instruction here.
If you want to do it in the web interface, it's pretty easy. Edit your VM instance. Scroll down to your boot disk and click "x" next to the boot volume, then click create button. In the next window give your new volume a meaningful name, set up your snapshot schedule, and then under "source type" select "Snapshot". Choose your snapshot from the dropdown. If you have a customer managed/supplied key (not recommended) select it, otherwise leave it as google-managed key. Click create. Depending on disk size it might take a while. Be patient and let it finish the setup and then start your instance once it is al complete.
I am trying to migrate a couple of compute engine instances from Europe to Asia.
I need to do this because most of the users for those servers are in Asia and they get faster access to servers in their region. I am trying following command.
gcloud compute instances move asiawindows1 --zone europe-west1-d --destination-zone asia-east1-c
I get following error when I try this
Instances belonging to subnetworks cannot be moved interregionally.
What is the best way to move these servers without manually setting them up in the Asia zone?
Follow steps below in Google Cloud Platform
Create snapshot of your VM instance
Create disk with this snapshot
Create image with disk created
Create a new instance using the image created in steps above and change your zone
The command you are using is for moving across zones of same region and not across regions.
You can create an image of your instance and use the image to create a new instance in different region.
If the auto move is not happening, you can try the manual move of vm instance. First list all the disk to choose the right disk to take snapshot.
gcloud compute disks list
Identify the name of disk from the list and create a snapshot of that one
gcloud compute disks snapshot <disk_name> --snapshot-names <snapshot_disk_name> --zone <current_zone>
Now you can delete your instance in you are trying to move.
gcloud compute instances delete <instance_name> --zone <instance_zone>
Next step is to create a disk from the snapshot you have created in the new zone where you want to create the instance.
gcloud compute disks create <disk_name> --source-snapshot <snapshot_disk_name> --zone <new_zone_name>
Now, you have to create an instance with the disk you have just created mounted on it. Please choose the right machine type for your need, here am going to create an instance with f1-micro.
gcloud compute instances create <instance_name> --machine-type f1-micro --zone <new_zone>
--disk name=<disk_name>,boot=yes,mode=rw
That's it.
Now if you want you can delete the snapshot
gcloud compute snapshots delete <snapshot_name>
GCP Guide says Snapshot the root disk, create an image, and use the image for the new VM root disk.
I have gone over the pricing and documentation so many times but still do not understand pricing...
I picked a bare minimum server setup (CPU, RAM, etc). I am using this server as a development server (eventually) so it will be actively used about 6-8 hours a day, 5 days per week...when I entered these values in their "cost calculator" the result was a few bucks a month...perfect!
However I have been up and running for less than a week and already the price is $0.65 with a usage of 2,880.00 Minutes?!?!?!
So I am not being billed only for activity but for server uptime, entirely??? So even if the server sits idle, I am getting charged? Is there a way I can disable the instance during non-work hours? Re-enabling it when I arrive in the morning?
EDIT | how to stop compute engine instance without terminating the instance?
This may have answered my questions...
As the other question answered, you are billed by the minute while your server is running, whether or not it is actively using the CPU.
At the moment, there's no way to leave a server shut down and restart it later; you can use a persistent boot disk to store your development state and create/delete an instance (with the same name) each day that you want to use your server.
To use a persistent boot disk like this, you'll want to make sure that the "Delete boot disk when instance is deleted" checkbox is UNCHECKED -- you want your boot disk to stick around after the instance is deleted. The next time you create your instance, select "Use existing disk", and select the same disk.
You'll still pay $0.04/GB/month for the disk storage all the time, but you'll only pay for the instance running when you need it.
You can add a cron job that checks every 10 minutes to see if the load on the machine is less than 0.05 and no one is logged in and then runs "shutdown -p now" to shut down the machine if you're concerned about forgetting to shut down the machine.
I have created a Google Compute Engine instance with CentOS and added some stuff there, such as Apache, Webmin, ActiveCollab, Gitolite etc.. etc.
The problem is that the VM is always running out of memory because the RAM is too low.
How do I change the assigned RAM in Google Compute Engine?
Should I have to copy the VM to another with bigger RAM? If so will it copy all the contents from my CentOS installation?
Can anyone give me some advises on how to get more RAM without having to reinstall everything.
Thanks
The recommended approach for manually managed instances is to boot from a Persistent root Disk. When your instance has been booted from Persistent Disk, you can delete the instance and immediately create a new instance from the same disk with a larger machine type. This is similar to shutting down a physical machine, installing faster processors and more RAM, and starting it back up again. This doesn't work with scratch disks because they come and go with the instance.
Using Persistent Disks also enables snapshots, which allow you to take a point-in-time snapshot of the exact state of the disk and create new disks from it. You can use them as backups. Snapshots are also global resources, so you can use them to create Persistent Disks in any zone. This makes it easy to migrate your instance between zones (to prepare for a maintenance window in your current zone, for example).
Never store state on scratch disks. If the instance stops for any reason, you've lost that data. For manually configured instances, boot them from a Persistent Disk. For application data, store it on Persistent Disk, or consider using a managed service for state, like Google Cloud SQL or Google Cloud Datastore.