Disable graceful shutdown in a Compute Engine instance

This document explains how to disable graceful shutdown in an existing Compute Engine instance. To learn more about graceful shutdown, including how to skip graceful shutdown for individual stop or delete operations, see Graceful shutdown overview.

If you've enabled graceful shutdown in an instance, then you can disable it to do the following:

  • Speed up stop or delete operations to avoid unnecessary charges.

  • Update instance properties that require a restart.

Before you begin

  • If you haven't already, then set up authentication. Authentication is the process by which your identity is verified for access to Google Cloud services and APIs. To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:

    Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:

    Console

    When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.

    gcloud

    1. Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command: 

      gcloud init
    2. Set a default region and zone.

    REST

    To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.

      Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command: 

      gcloud init

    For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

Required roles

To get the permission that you need to disable graceful shutdown in a compute instance, ask your administrator to grant you the Compute Instance Admin (v1) (roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1) IAM role on your project. For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

This predefined role contains the compute.instances.update on the instance permission, which is required to disable graceful shutdown in a compute instance.

You might also be able to get this permission with custom roles or other predefined roles.

Disable graceful shutdown in an instance

You can disable graceful shutdown in a compute instance without restarting the instance. However, you can't disable graceful shutdown while the instance is in the process of gracefully shutting down (PENDING_STOP).

To disable graceful shutdown in an instance, select one of the following options:

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.

    Go to VM instances

  2. In the Name column, click the instance name to view its details.

    The details page of the instance opens and Details tab is selected.

  3. Click Edit.

  4. In the Management section, clear the Gracefully shut down the VM checkbox.

  5. Click Save.

gcloud

To disable graceful shutdown in an instance, use the gcloud beta compute instances update command with the --no-graceful-shutdown flag:

gcloud beta compute instances update INSTANCE_NAME \
    --no-graceful-shutdown \
    --zone=ZONE

Replace the following:

  • INSTANCE_NAME: the name of the instance.

  • ZONE: the zone where the instance is located.

REST

  1. Create an empty JSON file.

  2. To view the properties of an existing instance, make a GET request to the beta instances.get method:

    GET https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/INSTANCE_NAME

    Replace the following:

    • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project where the instance is located.

    • ZONE: the zone where the instance is located.

    • INSTANCE_NAME: the name of an existing instance.

  3. In the empty JSON file that you created in the previous steps, do the following:

    1. Enter the instance properties from the GET request output.

    2. Locate the gracefulShutdown.enabled field, and then change its value to false:

      {
  ...
  "scheduling": {
    ...
    "gracefulShutdown": {
      "enabled": false
    }
  },
  ...
}

  4. To update the instance, make a PUT request to the beta instances.update method. Include the following:

    • In the request URL, include the mostDisruptiveAllowedAction query parameter.

    • In the request body, include the instance properties from the JSON file that you created and updated in the previous steps.

    The PUT request to update the instance is similar to the following:

    PUT https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/INSTANCE_NAME?mostDisruptiveAllowedAction=ALLOWED_ACTION

{
  ...
  "scheduling": {
    ...
    "gracefulShutdown": {
      "enabled": false
    }
  },
  ...
}

    Replace ALLOWED_ACTION with one of the following values:

    • NO_EFFECT: the request checks if your update request is valid and if the resources are available, but it doesn't update the instance.

    • REFRESH: if the modified instance properties don't require the instance to restart, then Compute Engine updates the instance.

For more information about updating the properties of an instance, see Update instance properties.

What's next