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Background and Goal

I have a Debian/Linux VM on GCP which I manually start every morning and after it runs, it shuts down by itself using a Linux command. I want to automate the start of the VM by using the Cloud Scheduler. The question asked in GCP auto shutdown and startup using Google Cloud Schedulers has several answers and I am interested in pursuing the answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/65062924/10322004) proposed by @nikelone because it seems to be simple and also it has been endorsed by @Damien and @RayFoss as being easy. I am a neophyte in these matters and I could not comprehend their replies fully. So this post was created to elicit more clear answers for a person like me.

What I have tried

I have gone to https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/reference/rest/v1/instances/start (call this page A) and tried the API and was able to successfully start my already stopped VM when I clicked on the execute button. I presume that this means that my entries were fine and can be used in conjunction with appropriate software like Cloud Scheduler to perform the start function on a predefined schedule. But the problem is that I do not know or understand how to proceed from here. I give below my questions.

My Questions

  1. On page A, the last three paragraphs are titled Authorization Scopes, IAM permissions, and Examples, and none of them say anything specific about what the user should do. Is it correct to assume that they have nothing to do with the Cloud Scheduler, but related to other methods to achieve the same goal? If this is not correct then my next question is what should I be doing to follow the statements in these three paragraphs?

  2. Assuming that the answer to question 1 is "yes", meaning I can now start scheduling with the Cloud Scheduler, I next looked at the quickstart for Cloud Scheduler at https://cloud.google.com/scheduler/docs/quickstart (call this page B). The list of items to do is quite large including installing Cloud SDK, running a quite a few commands on the console, enabling some features, set up Pub/Sub, create a job, run the job and verify the results in Pub/Sub. This looks like a daunting set of tasks and I could not understand why it is necessary to jump through the hoops to use something that has already been achieved with just a few keystrokes earlier. So are these steps all necessary? Or is there a way to use the Cloud Scheduler directly without going through so many intermediate steps?

  3. Now assume that the answer to question 2 is that I have to perform all steps stated on page B. If I run into some problem while accomplishing the tasks outlined on page B, my VM may get messed up irretrievably. Is there a way in which the Cloud Platform or its components can be used to reset my VM to its current state as of today, which is working fine? I really do not want to end up with something worse than what I have now.

McSquare
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  • Do not do this: "it shuts down by itself using a Linux command.". That will shut down the OS but in some cases, Google Cloud thinks the VM is still running. Use the Google Cloud CLI/API to stop the instance. – John Hanley Mar 21 '21 at 22:41
  • Thanks for the warning. Once I can get it to start automatically, it should be pretty easy for me to modify the method to do a clean stop automatically. – McSquare Mar 22 '21 at 17:16
  • @JohnHanley : You are absolutely right. A Linux command to shut down a virtual machine executed from within a shell script is erratic at best. So I have eliminated that step and implemented the Stop function using the Cloud Scheduler. And it is working. Thanks for your heads-up on this. – McSquare Mar 24 '21 at 12:36

1 Answers1

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To answer your questions:

  1. Auth Scopes and IAM permissions are required for you to call the Compute Engine API methods such as instance.start & instance.stop. You need to set the right scope and the right IAM permission on your job or else it will fail. They are indeed related to the method that you're interested to call so you must keep them in mind. What you see on the examples are the ways to call the {API} using different programming languages so you don't need to pay attention to them as you will create the job through the Cloud Console. To further address this part, see the full steps I included below.

  2. The answer that you're trying to follow uses HTTP target while the quickstart you've linked uses Pub/Sub and they are different with each other because they have separate use cases. This link shows a proper instruction how to create a scheduler job with an HTTP target. You can create this kind of job straight from the Cloud Console or a one-liner gcloud command. If your config is incorrect, the trigger will not execute the endpoint URL and you will see an error that you must fix.

  3. Addressed on answer #2

Basically, you just need to follow the instructions to the link you've sent. However, I'll post it here as well along with my explanation:

  1. Go to https://cloud.google.com/scheduler. Click on Go to Console. Click on Create Job. Fill up the required fields (those with red asterisks) when creating a Scheduler Job.
  2. Select HTTP as target type.
  3. Enter this as your URL (modify the capitalized words).
https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/INSTANCE_ZONE/instances/INSTANCE_NAME/start
  1. Choose HTTP method POST.
  2. Click show more and choose Auth Header "Add OAuth Token"
  3. Enter your service account. This is used to pass an OAuth Token when your scheduler job calls the Compute API. Make sure that the service account you will use have the "Compute Instance Admin" role because this role contains the permissions to start/stop your instance. See this instruction how to grant access on a service account. If you're not sure what service account to use, feel free to use the Compute Engine default service account.
  4. Add this on Scope:
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform

The description of this scope:

See, edit, configure, and delete your Google Cloud Platform data.

  1. Repeat for Stop instance job and change URL in #3.
McSquare
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Donnald Cucharo
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  • Thank you very much @DonaldCucharo for such a detailed and wonderful answer. I am going in for a surgery today and I will try your method as soon as I start feeling well. – McSquare Mar 22 '21 at 10:56
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    @DonaldCucharo : I am happy to report that the details you provided were right on the mark. I have now been able to start as well as stop my virtual machine on a schedule using Cloud Scheduler. Even though I cannot understand all the details of how these Google components fit together (too difficult for a 77 year old hobbyist), I am absolutely certain that it is working. Without your help, I could not have achieved this. So thanks again. – McSquare Mar 24 '21 at 12:32