Development Box on Google Cloud

Quick setup an Open Source Cloud IDE on Google Cloud Platform with Debian Jessie and Codebox!

Quick start

Install the Google Cloud SDK (https://cloud.google.com/sdk) on your computer
Run the following command

    gcloud compute instances create \
        --no-boot-disk-auto-delete \
        --metadata-from-file startup-script=startup.sh \
        --metadata codebox-password=PASSWORD \
        --tags http-server,devbox \
        --image beta-debian-8-jessie-v20150710 \
        --image-project debian-cloud \
        --zone ZONE \
        INSTANCE

Replacing:

PASSWORD with your own password to login in the IDE
INSTANCE with the name of the instance that will be created
ZONE with the compute engine Zone you want your box to run

Wait for a few minutes until the box is ready. You can check the instance is ready using the command:

    gcloud compute instances get-serial-port-output \
        --zone ZONE INSTANCE

If all commands were executed you should see a message saying that the box is ready. If you forgot to specify a password with the metadata key codebox-password a random password is generated for you, and is available at the console output.

Tips and Tricks

Separate data disk for $HOME

It is desirable to have a separated data disk attached to your box to keep your files safe. The startup script is prepared to recognize a metadata entry with key codebox-datadisk, containing the name of a Persistent Disk attached to your instance. When this entry is detected, and the disk is attached to the instance during boot, the script will mount the disk as the home partition.

To create a new SSD disk to host your partition you can run the commands:

    gcloud compute disks create \
        --zone ZONE \
        --type pd-ssd \
        --size 30 \
        DISK_NAME

Replacing:

ZONE: with the same compute engine Zone where your instance runs
DISK_NAME: with the name of your disk

In the sample bellow, we are creating an SSD disk, but you can also create a standard disk with lower performance and costs by using the value pd-standard for the --type parameter.

After you create the disk, you can now launch yor box with the following command to use the disk to store your data:

    gcloud compute instances create \
        --disk name=DISK_NAME,device-name=DISK_NAME \
        --metadata-from-file startup-script=startup.sh \
        --metadata codebox-password=PASSWORD,codebox-datadisk=DISK_NAME \
        --tags http-server,devbox \
        --image beta-debian-8-jessie-v20150710 \
        --image-project debian-cloud \
        --zone ZONE \
        INSTANCE

This is essentially the same command as before, but with the parameters --disks name=DISK_NAME device-name=DISK_NAME and --metadata codebox-datadisk=DISK_NAME added to the gcloud options.

Manage costs

The first thing to do is to take into account the Instance Type. The instance launched by default is the n1-standard-1 which is a good balance of cost, memory and CPU allocated. If your development workload is very low, you can lower that to f1-micro and g1-small to make more savings. You can also choose a high memory or high CPU instance types if you need one of those items more than the other.

Google Compute Engine offers the Sustained Usage Discount pricing advantage, so if you want to keep your instance aways up you will be billed by a lower hourly rate. However, if you use your box less than 50% of the montly time, it is better to turn it off when you're done, and boot it up again to get back to work. This way you can save the ammount not in use per month. The sustained discount usage maximum discount is around 30%, so if you use your VM for, say, 70% of the month, just leave it up all time and you will take advantage of that.

Security

Choose a strong password and keep an eye on the security updates from Debian and Codebox. Codebox is a Node app and currently is not package as part of Debian, so it is important to keep an eye on their updates.

Also, you can change the startup script nginx template to use an SSL certificate to encrypt your connection, either by purchasing an SSL for your domain or using a self-signed certificate.

filipenos / devbox