Can I automate Google Cloud SDK gcloud init - interactive command

Question

Documentation on Google Cloud SDK https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/ directs one to run gcloud init after installing it.

Is there a way to automate this step given that gcloud init is an interactive command?

Answer 1

One does not need to run gcloud init. Main goal is to make sure credentials are configured and perhaps the project property is set. If you have service-account credentials, gcloud can be configured and ready to go via the following:

gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=credential_key.json
gcloud config set project my-project

For completeness gcloud init essentially runs the following steps:

1. Select configuration (one of the following)
   • gcloud config configurations create my_configuration
   • gcloud config configurations activate my_configuration
2. Set up credentials (one of the following)
   • (Interactive) gcloud auth login
   • gcloud config set account my_existing_credentials
   • gcloud auth activate-service-account
3. Set project
   • gcloud config set project my_project
     • List of accessible projects for set credentials can be seen via gcloud projects list
4. (Optional) Set default GCE zone (Compute API must be enabled)
   • gcloud config set compute/zone my_default_gce_zone
     • List of zones can be obtained via gcloud compute zones list
5. (Optional) Set default GCE region (Compute API must be enabled)
   • gcloud config set compute/region my_default_gce_region
     • List of regions can be obtained via gcloud compute regions list
6. (Optional) Create default config file for gsutil
   • gsutil config -n -o ~/.boto