I wonder if it’s my unfamiliarity with GCP or whether SSHing into GCP VMs is really significantly more complicated than on AWS. On AWS, I can go to the Security Group, enable SSH (and easily select only my computer) and I can SSH from my laptop using the private key from the public key set in the VM while creating it.
With GCP, there are significant more steps involved.
1. Create the instance without the public key
2. For every instance, run gcloud compute ssh
3. Setup firewall rules for SSH with tags on the instance. I’m not sure how I find my current IP address on the console.
Do this for every single VM you create in the instance group.
In Firefox, I have been unable to click on the SSH button on any instance. I have to use Cloud Shell. Cloud Shell is an impressive technical achievement. But I find it extremely cumbersome to use compared to MobaXterm. Middle mouse button does not work for paste. The repeat rate is annoyingly slow. aliases have to be reset every single time on every single instance. etc. etc.
I’m sure that some of these things can be alleviated, but I think just conceptually, AWS nailed it with NACLS and Security Groups.