Google Cloud Platform for Architects

Startup scripts

We can run our own startup scripts from VM instances to perform automatic actions such as updating the system, and sending notifications and so on.

A startup script is specified using metadata keys through the metadata server and can be applied using the console or gcloud command line:

1. Once you have set the default region and zone for your instance, you can provide a startup script using the gcloud command line while creating an instance. The script is provided with a—metadata flag:

    gcloud compute instances create example-instance --tags http-server 
    --metadata startup-script='#! /bin/bash
    # Installs apache and a custom ...