Web Server Virtual Machine Instance on GCE

In this tutorial, we’ll use JavaScript to deploy a simple webserver Virtual Machine instance to Google Compute Engine. The code for this tutorial is available on GitHub.

Prerequisites

1. Install Pulumi
2. Configure GCP credentials

Create a Virtual Machine with SSH access

1. In a new folder webserver, create an empty project with pulumi new. Choose a Google Cloud project you have access to create Virtual Machines within.

   $ mkdir webserver && cd webserver
   $ pulumi new gcp-javascript
   ...
   gcp:project: The Google Cloud project to deploy into: <your project>
   

2. Open index.js and replace the contents with the following:

   const gcp = require("@pulumi/gcp");
   
   // Create a network
   const network = new gcp.compute.Network("network");
   const computeFirewall = new gcp.compute.Firewall("firewall", {
       network: network.id,
       allows: [{
           protocol: "tcp",
           ports: [ "22" ],
       }],
   });
   
   // Create a Virtual Machine Instance
   const computeInstance = new gcp.compute.Instance("instance", {
       machineType: "f1-micro",
       zone: "us-central1-a",
       bootDisk: { initializeParams: { image: "debian-cloud/debian-9" } },
       networkInterfaces: [{
           network: network.id,
           // accessConfigs must include a single empty config to request an ephemeral IP
           accessConfigs: [{}],
       }],
   });
   
   // Export the name and IP address of the Instance
   exports.instanceName = computeInstance.name;
   exports.instanceIP = computeInstance.networkInterfaces.apply(ni => ni[0].accessConfigs[0].natIp);
   

   This example uses the @pulumi/gcp package to create and manage three Google Cloud resources: a gcp.compute.Network in which the virtual machine will run, a gcp.compute.Firewall which allows access for incoming SSH access, and a gcp.compute.Instance which is created inside the network from the Debian 9 base image.

3. To preview and deploy changes, run pulumi up. The command shows a preview of the resources that will be created and prompts on whether to proceed with the deployment. Note that the stack itself is counted as a resource, though it does not correspond to a physical cloud resource.

    $ pulumi up
    Previewing update (webservergcp-dev):
   
        Type                     Name                           Plan
        pulumi:pulumi:Stack      webservergcp-webservergcp-dev
    +   ├─ gcp:compute:Network   network                        create
    +   ├─ gcp:compute:Firewall  firewall                       create
    +   └─ gcp:compute:Instance  instance                       create
   
    Resources:
        + 3 to create
        1 unchanged
   

4. Now, proceed with the deployment, which will take around a minute to complete.

    Do you want to perform this update? yes
    Updating (webservergcp-dev):
   
        Type                     Name                           Status
        pulumi:pulumi:Stack      webservergcp-webservergcp-dev
    +   ├─ gcp:compute:Network   network                        created
    +   ├─ gcp:compute:Instance  instance                       created
    +   └─ gcp:compute:Firewall  firewall                       created
   
    Outputs:
    + instanceIP  : "173.255.117.131"
    + instanceName: "instance-bf0ab1f"
   
    Resources:
        + 3 created
        1 unchanged
   
    Duration: 1m20s
   
    Permalink: https://app.pulumi.com/lukehoban/webservergcp-dev/updates/1
   

   To see the full details of the deployment and the resources that are now part of the stack, open the update permalink in a browser.

5. To view the provisioned resources on the command line, run pulumi stack. You’ll also see two stack outputs corresponding to the IP and full-qualified host name of the virtual machine instance we’ve created.

   $ pulumi stack
   ...
   Current stack resources (5):
       TYPE                                             NAME
       pulumi:pulumi:Stack                              webservergcp-webservergcp-dev
       pulumi:providers:gcp                             default
       gcp:compute/network:Network                      network
       gcp:compute/firewall:Firewall                    firewall
       gcp:compute/instance:Instance                    instance
   
   Current stack outputs (2):
       OUTPUT                                           VALUE
       instanceIP                                       173.255.117.131
       instanceName                                     instance-bf0ab1f
   

Updating the Pulumi program

Now that we have an instance of our Pulumi program deployed, we may want to make changes. We do this by updating our Pulumi program to define the new state we want our infrastructure to be in, then and running pulumi up to commit the changes.

1. Replace the creation of the two firewall and instance with the following. This exposes an additional port and adds a startup script to run a simple HTTP server at startup.

   ...
   
   const computeFirewall = new gcp.compute.Firewall("firewall", {
       network: computeNetwork.id,
       allows: [{
           protocol: "tcp",
           ports: [ "22", "80" ], // <-- ADD "80" HERE
       }],
   });
   
   // v-- ADD THIS DEFINITION
   const startupScript = `#!/bin/bash
   echo "Hello, World!" > index.html
   nohup python -m SimpleHTTPServer 80 &`;
   
   const computeInstance = new gcp.compute.Instance("instance", {
       machineType: "f1-micro",
       zone: "us-central1-a",
       metadataStartupScript: startupScript, // <-- ADD THIS LINE
       bootDisk: { initializeParams: { image: "debian-cloud/debian-9" } },
       networkInterfaces: [{
           network: network.id,
           // accessConfigus must include a single empty config to request an ephemeral IP
           accessConfigs: [{}],
       }],
   });
   
   ...
   

   Note that we defined the metadataStartupScript script inline in a string. Because we are using JavaScript, we could also read this from a file, construct this string programmatically, or even build up a string that depends on other resources defined in our program. We’ll see in later sections how we can deploy and version the application code of our program in a variety of different ways using Pulumi.

2. Run pulumi up to preview and deploy the changes. You’ll see two changes: the allows property of the Firewall will be updated in-place. Second, the Instance will be replaced with a new virtual machine Instance which will run the new script on startup. Pulumi understands which changes to a given cloud resource can be made in-place, and which require replacement, and computes the minimally disruptive change to achieve the desired state.

   $ pulumi up
   Previewing update (webservergcp-dev):
   ...
   
   Updating (webservergcp-dev):
   
       Type                     Name                           Status       Info
       pulumi:pulumi:Stack      webservergcp-webservergcp-dev
   ~   ├─ gcp:compute:Firewall  firewall                       updated      [diff: ~allows]
   +-  └─ gcp:compute:Instance  instance                       replaced     [diff: +metadataStartupScript~name]
   
   Outputs:
   ~ instanceIP  : "173.255.117.131" => "35.202.30.129"
   ~ instanceName: "instance-bf0ab1f" => "instance-31bbd12"
   
   Resources:
       ~ 1 updated
       +-1 replaced
       2 changes. 2 unchanged
   
   Duration: 2m41s
   
   Permalink: https://app.pulumi.com/lukehoban/webservergcp-dev/updates/2
   

3. We can use pulumi stack output to get the value of stack outputs from the CLI. So we can curl the virtual machine instance to see the HTTP server running there. Stack outputs can also be viewed on the Pulumi Cloud.

   $ curl $(pulumi stack output instanceIP)
   Hello, World!
   

Clean up

Before moving on, let’s tear down the resources that are part of our stack.

1. Run pulumi destroy to tear down all resources. You’ll be prompted to make sure you really want to delete these resources. This takes about 60 seconds; Pulumi waits for the virtual machine instance to shutdown and for the compute network to be removed before it considers the destroy operation to be complete.

2. To delete the stack itself, run pulumi stack rm. Note that this command deletes all deployment history from the Pulumi Cloud.

Summary

In this tutorial, we saw how to use Pulumi programs to create and manage cloud resources in Google Cloud, using regular JavaScript and NPM packages. To preview and update infrastructure, use pulumi up. To clean up resources, run pulumi destroy.

For a similar example in other languages and clouds, see the Web Server examples collection.