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Google Cloud

Cloud Shell now GA, and still free

August 2, 2016
Cody Bratt

Product Manager

Google Cloud Shell is a command line interface that allows you to manage your Google Cloud Platform infrastructure from any computer with an internet connection. Last year we extended the free beta period through the end of 2016 so you could try it out longer. Now, we’re excited to announce that Cloud Shell is generally available and free to use.

For those of you who haven’t tried it yet, Cloud Shell offers quick access to a temporary VM that's hosted and managed by Google and includes all the popular tools that you need to manage your GCP environment. For example, you can use the Cloud SDK to manage Cloud Storage data or run and deploy an App Engine application. You can keep files between sessions using a personal 5GB of storage space.

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Cloud Shell provides a resizable window inside of the Cloud Console (click to enlarge)

To open Cloud Shell from the Cloud Console, simply click on the Cloud Shell icon in the top-right corner.

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The Cloud Shell documentation has a variety of tutorials to help you get started. In addition, here are a few pro-tips:

  • To switch to a light theme, look under the gear icon
  • Cloud Shell supports the terminal multiplexer tmux. Toggle it on or off from Cloud Shell to use different options in various Cloud Console tabs.
  • To pop out the entire console window, click the pop out icon
As always, send us feedback using the "Send Feedback" link in the top right of the Cloud Console or within Cloud Shell under the gear icon. We’re excited to see how you use Cloud Shell and how we can make it even more useful.

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