Create VMs with multiple network interfaces

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Create an instance page.

   Go to Create an instance

2. In the Machine configuration pane, do the following:

   1. In the Name field, enter a name for the instance.
   2. In the Region field, select a region.
   3. In the Zone field, select a zone.

3. In the navigation menu, click Networking to view the Networking pane.

4. In the Network interfaces section, expand the network interface to edit it.

   1. For Network and Subnetwork, select the network and subnetwork that you want to use.

      If you want to configure IPv6 addresses on the interface, select a subnet that has an /64 IPv6 address range configured. The IPv6 access type of the subnet determines whether the instance receives an internal /96 IPv6 address range or an external /96 IPv6 address range.

   2. Select one of the following options for the IP stack type for the interface:

      • IPv4 (single-stack)
      • IPv4 and IPv6 (dual-stack)
      • IPv6 (single-stack)

   3. For interfaces with IPv4 addresses, do the following:

      1. For Primary internal IPv4 address, select one of the following:

         • Ephemeral (Automatic) to automatically assign a new ephemeral IPv4 address
         • Ephemeral (Custom) to manually specify a new ephemeral IPv4 address
         • A reserved static internal IPv4 address from the list
         • Reserve static internal IPv4 address to reserve and assign a new static internal IPv4 address

      2. For External IPv4 address, select one of the following:

         • Ephemeral to assign a new ephemeral IPv4 address
         • None to not assign an external IPv4 address
         • A reserved static IPv4 address from the list
         • Reserve static external IP address to reserve and assign a new static external IPv4 address

      3. You can optionally assign one or more alias IP ranges to the network interface. To assign an alias IP range, do the following:

         1. In Alias IP ranges, click addAdd IP range.
         2. In Subnet range, select a subnet primary IPv4 address range or a subnet secondary IPv4 address range to use.
         3. For Alias IP range, enter an IP range in CIDR notation. This range must be an unused range of the subnet IP range that you selected.

         For more information about assigning alias IP ranges to VM network interfaces, see Configure alias IP ranges.

   4. For interfaces with IPv6 addresses, do the following, depending on the access type of the connected subnet:

      1. For Primary internal IPv6 address, select one of the following:
         • Ephemeral (Automatic) to automatically assign a new ephemeral internal IPv6 address range
         • Ephemeral (Custom) to manually specify a new ephemeral internal IPv6 address range
         • A reserved static internal IPv6 address range from the list
         • Reserve static internal IPv6 address to reserve and assign a new static internal IPv6 address range
      2. For External IPv6 address, select one of the following:
         • Ephemeral (Automatic) to automatically assign a new ephemeral external IPv6 address range
         • Ephemeral (Custom) to manually specify a new ephemeral external IPv6 address range
         • A reserved static external IPv6 address range from the list
         • Reserve static external IPv6 address to reserve and assign a new static external IPv6 address range

   5. To finish modifying the network interface, click Done.

5. To add another network interface:

   1. To add a vNIC, click Add a network interface and complete the form by entering the details of the vNIC.

   2. To add a Dynamic NIC, click Add a Dynamic Network Interface and do the following:

      1. In the Parent network interface field, select the parent vNIC for which to create the Dynamic NIC.
      2. In the VLAN ID field, enter the VLAN ID of the Dynamic NIC.
      3. Complete the form by entering the remaining details of the Dynamic NIC.

6. Continue with the instance creation process.

7. Click Create.

gcloud

To create network interfaces on a new instance, use the gcloud compute instances create command.

Include the --network-interface flag for each interface, followed by any appropriate networking keys, such as network, subnet, private-network-ip, address, external-ipv6-address and vlan.

Including the vlan key creates a Dynamic NIC. If you create a Dynamic NIC, you must also follow the steps for configuring the guest OS for Dynamic NICs after you create the instance.

To view examples of how to create instances with multiple interfaces, see example configurations.

This snippet only illustrates the --network-interface flag, one of many possible parameters that you can specify when creating an instance.

 gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME \ --zone ZONE \ --network-interface \ network=NETWORK_A,subnet=SUBNET_A, \ stack-type=STACK_TYPE, \ private-network-ip=INTERNAL_IPV4_ADDRESS, \ address=EXTERNAL_IPV4_ADDRESS | no-address, \ internal-ipv6-address=INTERNAL_IPV6_ADDRESS \ ... --network-interface \ network=NETWORK_B,subnet=SUBNET_B, \ stack-type=STACK_TYPE, \ external-ipv6-address=EXTERNAL_IPV6_ADDRESS, \ external-ipv6-prefix-length=96, \ ipv6-network-tier=PREMIUM, \ vlan=VLAN_ID \ ... 

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_NAME: the name of the instance to create.
• ZONE: the zone where the instance is created.
• NETWORK_A, NETWORK_B: the network where the interface attaches.
• SUBNET_A, SUBNET_B: the subnet where the interface attaches.

• STACK_TYPE: the stack type for the interface.

  The default value is IPV4_ONLY. Specify IPV4_IPV6 to configure a dual-stack interface, or IPV6_ONLY to configure an IPv6-only interface.

• Values for interfaces with IPv4 addresses:

  • INTERNAL_IPV4_ADDRESS: the internal IPv4 address that you want the interface to have in the target subnet. Omit if you just want any valid address assigned.

  • EXTERNAL_IPV4_ADDRESS: the external IPv4 address of the interface.

    You must have previously reserved an external IPv4 address. If you don't want the interface to have an external IP address, specify "no-address" instead of address=EXTERNAL_IPV4_ADDRESS. If you want the interface to receive an ephemeral external IP address, specify address=''.

• Values for interfaces with IPv6 addresses:

  • INTERNAL_IPV6_ADDRESS: the internal IPv6 address range that you want the interface to have in the target subnet. If not specified, Google Cloud automatically assigns an internal IPv6 address range from the subnet.
  • EXTERNAL_IPV6_ADDRESS: the external IPv6 address range that you want the interface to have in the target subnet. If not specified, Google Cloud automatically assigns an external IPv6 address range from the subnet.

• VLAN_ID: a VLAN ID. Specifying a VLAN ID configures the network interface as a Dynamic NIC. You must place a Dynamic NIC after its parent vNIC in the command.

API

Use the instances.insert method to create an instance with multiple network interfaces.

Including the vlan field creates a Dynamic NIC. If you create a Dynamic NIC, you must also follow the steps for configuring the guest OS for Dynamic NICs after you create the instance.

See the following examples:

• To create an instance with only internal IPv4 addresses, do the following:

   POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances { .... "networkInterfaces": [ { "networkIP": "IPV4_ADDRESS_A", "subnetwork": "regions/REGION/subnetworks/SUBNET_A" }, { "networkIP": "IPV4_ADDRESS_B", "subnetwork": "regions/REGION/subnetworks/SUBNET_B", "vlan": "VLAN_ID" }, for each interface, specify a network... ], other instance settings... } 

  Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project that contains the instance.
  • ZONE: the zone that contains the instance.
  • IPV4_ADDRESS_A, IPV4_ADDRESS_B: the internal IPv4 addresses that you want to assign to each network interface.
  • REGION: the region that contains the instance.
  • SUBNET_A, SUBNET_B: the subnets where each network interface is located.
  • VLAN_ID: a VLAN ID. Specifying a VLAN ID configures the network interface as a Dynamic NIC. You must place a Dynamic NIC after its parent vNIC the request.

• To create an instance with both internal IPv4 and internal IPv6 addresses, do the following:

   POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances { .... "networkInterfaces": [ { "subnetwork": "regions/REGION/subnetworks/SUBNET_A", "ipv6Address": "IPV6_ADDRESS_A", "internalIpv6PrefixLength": 96, "stackType": IPV4_IPV6, "ipv6AccessType": INTERNAL }, { "subnetwork": "regions/REGION/subnetworks/SUBNET_B", "ipv6Address": "IPV6_ADDRESS_B", "internalIpv6PrefixLength": 96, "stackType": IPV4_IPV6, "ipv6AccessType": INTERNAL, "vlan": "VLAN_ID" }, for each interface, specify a network... ], other instance settings... } 

  Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project that contains the instance.
  • ZONE: the zone that contains the instance.
  • REGION: the region that contains the instance.
  • SUBNET_A, SUBNET_B: the subnets where each network interface is located.
  • IPV6_ADDRESS_A, IPV6_ADDRESS_B: the internal IPv6 address range that you want the interface to have in the target subnet. If not specified, Google Cloud automatically assigns an internal IPv6 address range from the subnet.
  • VLAN_ID: a VLAN ID. Specifying a VLAN ID configures the network interface as a Dynamic NIC. You must place a Dynamic NIC after its parent vNIC.

• To create an instance with only internal IPv6 addresses, do the following:

   POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances { .... "networkInterfaces": [ { "subnetwork": "regions/REGION/subnetworks/SUBNET_A", "ipv6Address": "IPV6_ADDRESS_A", "internalIpv6PrefixLength": 96, "stackType": IPV6_ONLY, "ipv6AccessType": INTERNAL }, { "subnetwork": "regions/REGION/subnetworks/SUBNET_B", "ipv6Address": "IPV6_ADDRESS_B", "internalIpv6PrefixLength": 96, "stackType": IPV6_ONLY, "ipv6AccessType": INTERNAL, "vlan": "VLAN_ID" }, for each interface, specify a network... ], other instance settings... } 

  Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project that contains the instance.
  • ZONE: the zone that contains the instance.
  • REGION: the region that contains the instance.
  • SUBNET_A, SUBNET_B: the subnets where each network interface is located.
  • IPV6_ADDRESS_A, IPV6_ADDRESS_B: the internal IPv6 address range that you want the interface to have in the target subnet. If not specified, Google Cloud automatically assigns an internal IPv6 address range from the subnet.
  • VLAN_ID: a VLAN ID. Specifying a VLAN ID configures the network interface as a Dynamic NIC. You must place a Dynamic NIC after its parent vNIC.

Terraform

You can use a Terraform resource to create an instance with multiple network interfaces.

The Terraform arguments have example values that you can change.

resource "google_compute_instance" "default" { project = var.project_id # Replace with your project ID in quotes zone = "us-central1-b" name = "backend-instance" machine_type = "e2-medium" boot_disk { initialize_params { image = "debian-cloud/debian-9" } } network_interface { subnetwork = var.subnet_1 # Replace with self link to a subnetwork in quotes network_ip = "10.0.0.14" } network_interface { subnetwork = var.subnet_2 # Replace with self link to a subnetwork in quotes network_ip = "10.10.20.14" } }

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.