SSH access and metadata in GCP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

SSH Access and Metadata Configuration on GCP

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a Google Cloud virtual machine (VM) to allow secure SSH access for a user. You will configure the VM's metadata to include the SSH public key for that user. This setup is common when you want to control who can connect to your VM securely.

🎯 Goal: Configure the SSH access by adding the correct SSH public key to the VM instance metadata on Google Cloud Platform.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a metadata dictionary with the SSH keys entry

Add a specific SSH public key string to the metadata

Assign the metadata to the VM instance configuration

Ensure the SSH key is correctly formatted in the metadata

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Setting SSH keys in VM metadata is a common way to control who can securely connect to cloud virtual machines without sharing passwords.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and system administrators often configure VM metadata to manage access and automate instance setup securely.

1

Create the initial metadata dictionary

Create a dictionary called metadata with a key "ssh-keys" and an empty string as its value.

GCP

# Create the metadata dictionary with ssh-keys key
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces to create a dictionary and set the value of "ssh-keys" to an empty string.

2

Add the SSH public key string to metadata

Add the SSH public key string "user:ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQC7examplekey [e-mail]" as the value for the "ssh-keys" key in the metadata dictionary.

GCP

metadata = {"ssh-keys": ""}
# Add the SSH public key string to the ssh-keys key
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Replace the empty string with the exact SSH public key string including the username and key.

3

Create the VM instance configuration dictionary

Create a dictionary called vm_instance with a key "metadata" and assign the metadata dictionary as its value.

GCP

metadata = {"ssh-keys": "user:ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQC7examplekey [e-mail]"}
# Create vm_instance dictionary with metadata key
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the metadata dictionary as the value for the metadata key inside vm_instance.

4

Add the final SSH access enable flag

Add a key "enable-ssh" with the value "true" to the metadata dictionary inside vm_instance to enable SSH access.

GCP

metadata = {"ssh-keys": "user:ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQC7examplekey [e-mail]"}
vm_instance = {"metadata": metadata}
# Add enable-ssh key with value true to metadata
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Add the enable-ssh key with the string value "true" inside the metadata dictionary.