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Set and remove custom metadata | Compute Engine Documentation

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Each metadata entry is stored on the metadata server as key-value pairs. Metadata keys are case sensitive. Your keys can be either predefined or custom metadata keys.

Custom metadata enables you to create and use your own metadata key-value pairs on an individual VM or a project. You can add new custom metadata keys, update the values of your existing keys, and remove any custom metadata entries when you don't need them. Setting custom metadata is useful for passing in arbitrary values to VMs in a project. It is also useful for creating startup and shutdown scripts.

This document provides information about how to do the following:

• Add or update custom metadata on VMs
• Remove custom metadata from VMs

• Review the basics of how VM metadata for Compute Engine is defined, categorized, and arranged. For more information, see About VM metadata.
• 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. After installation, initialize the Google Cloud CLI by running the following command:

     gcloud init

     If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

     Note: If you installed the gcloud CLI previously, make sure you have the latest version by running gcloud components update.
  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. After installation, initialize the Google Cloud CLI by running the following command:

  gcloud init

  If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

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

To get the permissions that you need to set or remove custom metadata on VMs, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles:

• Compute Instance Admin (v1) (roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1) on the VM or project
• If your VMs use service accounts: Service Account User (roles/iam.serviceAccountUser) on the service account or project

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

These predefined roles contain the permissions required to set or remove custom metadata on VMs. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

The following permissions are required to set or remove custom metadata on VMs:

• If your VMs use service accounts: iam.serviceAccounts.actAs on the service accounts or project
• To add, update, or remove custom project metadata:
  • compute.projects.get on the project
  • compute.projects.setCommonInstanceMetadata on the project
• To add, update, or remove custom zonal metadata:
  • compute.instanceSettings.get on the instance settings in the required zone in the project
  • compute.instanceSettings.update on the instance settings in the required zone in the project
• To add, update, or remove custom instance metadata:
  • compute.instances.get on the VM
  • compute.instances.setMetadata on the VM

You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

VM metadata entries have the following limitations.

Compute Engine enforces a combined total limit of 512 KB for all metadata entries. Maximum size limits are also applied to each key and value in the following way:

• Each metadata key has a maximum limit of 128 bytes.
• Each metadata value has a maximum limit of 256 KB.

For example, SSH keys are stored as custom metadata under the ssh-keys key. If your metadata content or value for this key exceeds the 256 KB limit, you won't be able to add more SSH keys. If you run into this limit, consider removing unused keys to free up metadata space for new keys.

Also, if you provide the startup or shutdown script contents directly, then the contents of these startup and shutdown script contents might also be stored as custom metadata and count toward these size limitations. To avoid this, store your startup or shutdown script as a file hosted at an external location, such as Cloud Storage, and provide the startup script URL when creating a VM. This way, these files are downloaded onto the VM, rather than stored in the metadata server.

• Each metadata key is case sensitive.

• Each metadata value is case sensitive except for boolean values.

• You can set and remove zonal metadata only by using the gcloud CLI or REST.

• You can't create two separate metadata keys with the same string, even if the keys are written in different cases. For example, if a custom metadata key named zonal-metadata-key already exists for zonal metadata within a specific zone, then you can't create new zonal metadata keys that are variations of the same string, such as Zonal-Metadata-Key or ZONAL-METADATA-KEY.

• You can't set zonal metadata values for SSH keys, which are stored as custom metadata under the ssh-keys key.

For fields that accept boolean values, TRUE or FALSE, the following values can also be used:

Boolean values are not case-sensitive. For example, you can use False, false, or FALSE to disable a feature.

This section explains how to add new custom metadata, or update existing custom metadata values, for your Compute Engine VMs in one of the following ways:

• Set custom project metadata to add or update custom project metadata for all VMs in your project.
• Set custom zonal metadata to add or update custom metadata with a zonal scope for VMs within the project.
• Set custom instance metadata to add or update custom instance metadata for a specific VM.

You can add or update the custom metadata for all instances in a project by using the Google Cloud console, the Google Cloud CLI, or REST.

Use these instructions to apply metadata settings to all VMs in the project. For example, if you define a project metadata pair of baz=bat, that metadata pair is automatically applied to all VMs in the project.

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Metadata page.

   Go to the Custom metadata page

2. Click edit Edit at the top of the page.

3. To add new custom project metadata entries, do the following:

   1. Navigate to the bottom of the page and click add_box Add item.
   2. In the Key field, enter the name of your custom metadata key.
   3. In the Value field, enter the custom project metadata value.
   4. Optional. To add more custom project metadata entries, repeat the preceding steps for each metadata entry that you want to add.
   5. To finish adding your custom project metadata entries, click Save.

4. To edit existing custom project metadata entries, do the following:

   1. Navigate to that metadata entry that you want to edit.
   2. To update the name of a specific custom metadata key, in the Key field for that entry, enter the new name.
   3. To update the value of a custom project metadata entry, in the Value field for that entry, enter the new value.
   4. Optional. To remove a specific custom project metadata entry, click the delete delete icon next to the metadata entry.
   5. To edit multiple custom project metadata entries, repeat the preceding steps for each metadata entry that you want to edit.
   6. To finish editing your custom project metadata entries, click Save.

Use the project-info add-metadata command.

gcloud compute project-info add-metadata \
    --metadata=KEY=VALUE

Replace the following:

• KEY: the name of your metadata key
• VALUE: the value stored for this key

Example

For example to set two new entries foo=bar and baz=bat on a project, run the following command:

gcloud compute project-info add-metadata \
    --metadata=foo=bar,baz=bat

You can optionally specify one or more files from which to read metadata by using the --metadata-from-file flag.

1. Optional. To perform optimistic locking, you can provide a fingerprint.

   A fingerprint is a random string of characters generated by Compute Engine. The fingerprint changes after each request, and if you provide a mismatched fingerprint, your request is rejected.

   If you don't provide a fingerprint, no check for consistency is performed, and the projects().setCommonInstanceMetadata request succeeds. This behaviour is different from instances().setMetadata and instanceSettings().patch methods, where a fingerprint is always required.

   To get the current fingerprint of a project, call the project().get method.

   GET https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID
   

   The output is similar to the following:

   {
     "name": "myproject",
     "commonInstanceMetadata": {
       "kind": "compute#metadata",
       "fingerprint": "FikclA7UBC0=",
       ...
     }
   }
   

2. Make a request to the projects().setCommonInstanceMetadata method and set your custom metadata key-value pairs:

   POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/setCommonInstanceMetadata
   
   {
     "fingerprint": "FikclA7UBC0=",
     "items": [
       {
       "key": "foo",
       "value": "bar"
       }
     ]
   }
   

Replace PROJECT_ID with your your project ID.

When you set custom zonal metadata, you add or update the zonal metadata entries for your VMs in a specific zone in a project. You can do the following by setting custom zonal metadata:

• Create new custom metadata keys for a specific zone in a project and set metadata for all VMs in that zone in that project.
• Update the values of existing custom zonal metadata entries for all VMs in a specific zone in a project.
• For existing custom metadata keys that have project metadata values, override those project metadata values in specific zones and instead set zonal metadata. After you set zonal metadata for those keys in a specific zone, all VMs in that zone in that project use the zonal metadata values for those keys.

Project and zonal metadata entries are stored in the same project/ directory. If you set different values for the same custom metadata keys for VMs on a project level and on a zonal level, then the zonal metadata values for those keys take precedence over the project metadata values in the respective zones.

• If you add a zonal metadata value for a metadata key that already has a project metadata value, then Compute Engine overrides the project metadata value for the VMs in this specified zone and updates the /project directory with the zonal value.
• If you add a new project metadata value for a metadata key that already has a zonal metadata value, then nothing changes. Compute Engine retains the zonal metadata value in the /project directory in the specific zone.
• If you don't specify a zonal metadata value for a custom metadata key in a specific zone, but the key has a project metadata value, then your VMs continue to have the project metadata values in those zones.

You can add or update the custom zonal metadata in a specific zone in a project by using the Google Cloud CLI or REST.

• To add or update custom zonal metadata, use the gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata add command.

  gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata add \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --project=PROJECT_ID  \
    --metadata=KEY1=VALUE1,KEY2=VALUE2,...

  Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: your project ID
  • ZONE: the zone where you want to add or update zonal metadata.
  • KEY1, KEY2...: the custom metadata keys for which you want to add or update zonal metadata values.

  • VALUE1, VALUE2...: the zonal metadata values that you want to set for your existing and new custom metadata keys. Depending on your custom metadata key and value, one of the following happens:

  • If the corresponding custom metadata key is an existing key that has project metadata, then, in the specified zone, Compute Engine overrides the key's project metadata value with your specified zonal metadata value. All VMs in the specified zone in the project inherit this newly specified zonal metadata for that key and VMs in other zones continue to retain their prevailing project or zonal metadata values. If you make any future updates to the project metadata value for this key, then VMs in this zone in the project remain unaffected and continue to use the zonal metadata value for this key.

  • If the corresponding custom metadata key is a new metadata key that is not used for existing project or zonal metadata, then Compute Engine creates the custom metadata key and sets this value as the zonal metadata in the specified zone.

  • If the corresponding custom metadata key is an existing metadata key with a zonal metadata value in the specified zone:

    • If the specified metadata value is a different from the existing value, then Compute Engine updates the zonal metadata entry with the new value.
    • If the specified metadata value is same as the existing value, then the zonal metadata entry remains unchanged.

For example, consider a project called my-project with the following custom metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"value-1" and "key-2":"value-2"

To add "key-4":"value-4" as a new custom zonal metadata pair in the us-central1-a zone, run the following command

gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata add \
    --metadata=key-4=value-4 \
    --project=my-project \
    --zone=us-central1-a

Consider the same example project my-project, which now has the following custom metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"value-1", "key-2":"value-2", and "key-4":"value-4"

To update the zonal metadata values of key-1 and key-4 in us-cerntral1-a zone with new values, run the following command.

gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata add \
    --metadata=key-1=new-value-1,key-4=new-value-4 \
    --project=my-project \
    --zone=us-central1-a

Consider the same example project my-project, which now has the following custom metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"new-value-1", "key-2":"value-2", and "key-4":"new-value-4"

In this example project, consider key-3, which has a project metadata value of value-c. Suppose you want to set a zonal metadata value value-3 for this key for all VMs in the us-central1-a zone. When you perform the operation, for all the VMs in the us-central1-a zone, Compute Engine overrides the project metadata values and uses the zonal metadata values. VMs in all other zones of the project retain their prevailing project or zonal metadata values for key-3.

To override the project metadata value for key-3 and set a zonal metadata value, run the following command:

gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata add \
    --metadata=key-3=value-3 \
    --project=my-project \
    --zone=us-central1-a

1. Get the current fingerprint and view any existing key-value pairs for the project in that zone.

   To perform optimistic locking, you must provide a fingerprint. A fingerprint is a random string of characters generated by Compute Engine. The fingerprint changes every time you make a request to add, update, or remove zonal metadata, and if you provide a mismatched fingerprint, Compute Engine rejects your request.

   If you don't provide a fingerprint, a check for consistency is performed and your update request doesn't succeed. This works so that only one request can be made at a time, preventing collisions. This behavior matches instances().setMetadata, where a fingerprint is always required.

   To get the current fingerprint of the zonal metadata, make a GET request to the instanceSettings().get method.

   GET https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instanceSettings
   

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: your project ID
   • ZONE: the zone where you want to set the zonal metadata.

   The following is an example output for this request:

       {
         "fingerprint": "VlRIl8dx9vk=",
         "metadata": {
           ...
         }
       }
   

2. To add or update the zonal metadata, make a PATCH request to the instanceSettings().patch method. You must provide the following with your request:

   • An update mask. Use the update_mask query parameter. The update mask must contain the metadata keys for the following:

     • The new custom zonal metadata that you want to add
     • The existing custom zonal metadata for which you want to update values

     You must add the string metadata.items. as a prefix for each key—for example, metadata.items.key1,metadata.items.key3.

     Important: The update mask must be in lower case.

   • In the request body, provide the following:

     • The metadata keys and values for the new custom zonal metadata that you want to add
     • The metadata keys and values for the existing custom zonal metadata that you want to update
     • The current fingerprint value
   Caution: If you specify any existing custom zonal metadata keys in the update mask but don't include them in the request body, then Compute Engine removes those zonal metadata entries. For more information, see Remove custom zonal metadata.

   PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instanceSettings?update_mask=PREFIXED_METADATA_KEYS
   {
     "fingerprint": "FINGER_PRINT",
     "metadata": {
       "items": {
         "KEY1": "VALUE1",
         "KEY2": "VALUE2",
         ...
       }
     }
   }
   

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project.
   • ZONE: the zone where you want to set the zonal metadata.

   • PREFIXED_METADATA_KEYS: the list of metadata keys for the following, where each key is prefixed with the string metadata.items. :

     • The new custom zonal metadata that you want to add
     • The existing custom zonal metadata for which you want to update values

     For example, suppose your current zonal metadata keys in a specific zone are key-1 and key-2. If you want to add a new key, key-3, for zonal metadata in that zone and also update the zonal metadata for one of the existing keys, key-1, then your update mask must have the following string:

     metadata.items.key1,metadata.items.key3

   • FINGER_PRINT: the current fingerprint value.

   • KEY1, KEY2...: the custom zonal metadata keys for which you want to add or update values. Specify all the custom zonal metadata keys that you specified in the update mask.

     Caution: If you specify any existing custom zonal metadata keys in the update mask but don't include them in the request body, then Compute Engine removes those zonal metadata entries. For more information, see Remove custom zonal metadata.

   • VALUE1, VALUE2...: the zonal metadata values that you want to set for your existing and new custom metadata keys. Depending on your custom metadata key and value, one of the following happens:

     • If the corresponding custom metadata key is an existing key that has project metadata, then, in the specified zone, Compute Engine overrides the key's project metadata value with your specified zonal metadata value. All VMs in the specified zone in the project inherit this newly specified zonal metadata for that key and VMs in other zones continue to retain their prevailing project or zonal metadata values. If you make any future updates to the project metadata value for this key, then VMs in this zone in the project remain unaffected and continue to use the zonal metadata value for this key.
     • If the corresponding custom metadata key is a new metadata key that is not used for existing project or zonal metadata, then Compute Engine creates the custom metadata key and sets this value as the zonal metadata in the specified zone.

     • If the corresponding custom metadata key is an existing metadata key with a zonal metadata value in the specified zone:

     • If the specified metadata value is a different from the existing value, then Compute Engine updates the zonal metadata entry with the new value.

     • If the specified metadata value is same as the existing value, then the zonal metadata entry remains unchanged.

For example, consider a project called my-project with the following custom metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"value-1" and "key-2":"value-2"

To add "key-4":"value-4" as a new custom zonal metadata pair in the us-central1-a zone, make the following PATCH request:

PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instanceSettings?update_mask=metadata.items.key-4
{
  "fingerprint": "VlRIl8dx9vk=",
  "metadata": {
  "items": {
    "key-4": "value-4"
    }
  }
}

Consider the same example project my-project, which now has the following custom metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"value-1", "key-2":"value-2", and "key-4":"value-4"

To update the zonal metadata values of key-1 and key-4 in us-cerntral1-a zone with new values, make the following PATCH request:

PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instanceSettings?update_mask=metadata.items.key-1,metadata.items.key-4
{
  "fingerprint": "VlRIl8dx9vk=",
  "metadata": {
  "items": {
    "key-1": "new-value-1",
    "key-4": "new-value-4"
    }
  }
}

Consider the same example project my-project, which now has the following custom metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"new-value-1", "key-2":"value-2", and "key-4":"new-value-4"

In this example project, consider key-3, which has a project metadata value of value-c. Suppose you want to set a zonal metadata value value-3 for this key for all VMs in the us-central1-a zone. When you perform the operation, for all the VMs in the us-central1-a zone, Compute Engine overrides the project metadata values and uses the zonal metadata values. VMs in all other zones of the project retain their prevailing project or zonal metadata values for key-3.

To override the project metadata value for key-3 and use the zonal metadata value value-3 instead, make the following PATCH request:

PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instanceSettings?update_mask=metadata.items.key-3
{
  "fingerprint": "VlRIl8dx9vk=",
  "metadata": {
  "items": {
    "key-3": "value-3"
    }
  }
}

You can add or update the custom metadata for a single VM instance by using the Google Cloud console, the Google Cloud CLI, or REST.

You can set custom instance metadata in one of the following ways:

• For new VMs, you can add custom metadata when the VM is being created.
• For existing VMs, you can add or update custom metadata when the VM is running.

Use these instructions to add metadata on a specific VM instance at the time of its creation.

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

   Go to Create an instance

2. Specify the VM details.

3. Expand the Advanced options section, and do the following:

   1. Expand the Management section.
   2. To add multiple key-value pairs for your custom metadata, in the Metadata section, click Add item.

4. To create the VM, click Create.

To set custom metadata, use the gcloud compute instances create command with the --metadata flag.

gcloud compute instances create VM_NAME \
--zone=ZONE \
--image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
IMAGE_FLAG \
--metadata=KEY=VALUE

Replace the following:

• VM_NAME: the name of your VM
• ZONE: the zone to create the VM in
• IMAGE_PROJECT: the project containing the image to use for the VM

• IMAGE_FLAG: specify one of the following:

  • Use the --image IMAGE_NAME flag to specify a specific version of a public image.

    For example, --image debian-12-bookworm-v20241112.

  • Use the --image-family IMAGE_FAMILY_NAME flag to specify an image family.

    This creates the VM from the most recent non-deprecated OS image in the image family. For example, if you specify --image-family debian-12, Compute Engine uses the latest version of the OS image in the Debian 12 image family.

• KEY: the name of your metadata key

• VALUE: the value stored for this key

Example

For example to set a new key env that has a value test on a VM named example-instance, run the following command:

 gcloud compute instances create example-instance \
   --zone=us-central1-a --image-project=debian-cloud \
   --image-family=debian-12 \
   --metadata=env=test

Use the instances.insert method and provide the custom metadata as part of the metadata property in your request:

POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances

{
  "machineType": "zones/MACHINE_TYPE_ZONE/machineTypes/MACHINE_TYPE",
  "name": "VM_NAME",
  "...": [
    {
    }
    ],
  "metadata": {
    "items": [
      {
        "key": "KEY",
        "value": "VALUE"
      }
    ]
  },
  ..
}

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: your project ID
• ZONE: zone to create the VM in
• MACHINE_TYPE: machine type, predefined or custom, for the new VM
• VM_NAME: name of the new VM
• KEY: the name of your metadata key
• VALUE: the value stored for this key

Use these instructions to update metadata on a specific VM instance that already exists.

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

   Go to the VM instances page

2. Click the instance for which you want to update metadata.
3. Click the Edit button at the top of the page.
4. Under Custom metadata, click Add item or edit the existing metadata entries.
5. Save your changes.

Updating VM metadata with the gcloud CLI is an additive action. Specify only the metadata keys that you want to add or change. If a key that you provided already exists, the value for that key is updated with the new value.

Use the instances add-metadata command:

gcloud compute instances add-metadata VM_NAME \
    --metadata=KEY=VALUE,KEY=VALUE

Replace the following:

• VM_NAME: the name of your VM
• KEY: the name of your metadata key
• VALUE: the value stored for this key

Examples

If you want to add the foo=bar entry, use:

gcloud compute instances add-metadata VM_NAME \
    --metadata=foo=bar

If you want to change the foo=bar entry to foo=bat, use:

gcloud compute instances add-metadata VM_NAME \
    --metadata=foo=bat

1. Get the current fingerprint and view any existing key-value pairs for the VM. To do this, call the instances().get method.

   A fingerprint is a random string of characters generated by Compute Engine and is used to perform optimistic locking. To update the VM, you need to provide the matching fingerprint value. The fingerprint changes after each request, and if you provide a mismatched fingerprint, your request is rejected. This works so that only one update can be made at a time, preventing collisions.

   GET https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME
   

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: your project ID
   • ZONE: the zone where your VM is located
   • VM_NAME: name of your VM

   The output is similar to the following:

   {
     ...
     "name": "example-instance",
     "metadata": {
       "kind": "compute#metadata",
       "fingerprint": "zhma6O1w2l8="
       "items": [
         {
           "key": "foo",
           "value": "bar"
         }
       ]
       },
     ...
   }
   

2. Make a request to the instances().setMetadata method. Provide a list of the new metadata values and the current fingerprint value.

   If the VM has existing key-value pairs that you want to keep, you must include them in this request with the new key-value pairs.

   Example

   POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME/setMetadata
   
   {
   "fingerprint": "zhma6O1w2l8=",
   "items": [
     {
       "key": "foo",
       "value": "bar"
     },
     {
       "key": "baz",
       "value": "bat"
     }
   ]
   }
   

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: your project ID
   • ZONE: the zone where your VM is located
   • VM_NAME: name of your VM

This section provides information about how to remove custom metadata entries for your Compute Engine VMs in one of the following ways:

• Remove custom project metadata, to remove custom metadata that was set for all VMs in a project.
• Remove custom zonal metadata to remove custom metadata that was set for all VMs in a specific zone in a project.
• Remove custom instance metadata to remove VM metadata that was set for a specific VM.

You can remove custom project metadata by using the Google Cloud console or the Google Cloud CLI.

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Metadata page.

   Go to the Metadata page

2. Click edit Edit at the top of the page.

3. Navigate to the metadata entry that you want to remove and click the delete delete button next to that entry.

   Repeat this step for each metadata entry that you want to remove.

4. To finish removing the custom project metadata entries, click Save.

To remove custom project metadata, use the gcloud compute project-info remove-metadata command.

• If you want to remove the custom metadata entries for specific keys, specify those keys by using the --keys flag, and exclude the values of those keys.

gcloud compute project-info remove-metadata \
    --keys=KEY1,KEY2,...

• If you want to remove all custom metadata for the VM, specify the --all flag.

gcloud compute project-info remove-metadata \
    --all

Replace the following:

• KEY1, KEY2...: the custom instance metadata keys that you want to remove.

You can remove custom zonal metadata by using the Google Cloud CLI or REST.

To remove custom zonal metadata, use the gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata remove command and specify all the metadata keys that you want to remove by using the --keys flag.

gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata remove \
    --project=PROJECT_ID  \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --keys=KEY1,KEY2,...

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: your project ID
• ZONE: the zone where you want to remove the zonal metadata.
• KEY1, KEY2...: the custom zonal metadata keys that you want to remove.

After you run the command, if any of the specified keys have project metadata values available, then the VMs in the specified zone inherit those project metadata values. If the metadata entry was set only at a zonal level and there isn't a corresponding project metadata value for that key, then VMs in that zone lose that metadata information.

Consider an example project my-project, which has the following custom project metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"new-value-1", "key-2":"value-2", "key-3":"value-3", and "key-4":"new-value-4"

To remove all the zonal metadata in the us-central1-a zone, run the following command.

gcloud compute project-zonal-metadata remove \
    --metadata=key-1,key-2,key-3,key-4 \
    --project=my-project \
    --zone=us-central1-a

After you run the command, VMs in the us-central1-a zone possess the following custom project metadata entries:

• "key-1":"value-a"
• "key-2":"value-b"
• "key-3":"value-c"

1. Get the current fingerprint and view any existing key-value pairs for the project in that zone.

   To perform optimistic locking, you must provide a fingerprint. A fingerprint is a random string of characters generated by Compute Engine. The fingerprint changes every time you make a request to add, update, or remove zonal metadata, and if you provide a mismatched fingerprint, Compute Engine rejects your request.

   If you don't provide a fingerprint, a check for consistency is performed and your deletion request doesn't succeed. This works so that only one request can be made at a time, preventing collisions. This behavior matches instances().setMetadata, where a fingerprint is always required.

   To get the current fingerprint of a project, make a call the instanceSettings().get method.

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

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: your project ID
   • ZONE: the zone where you want to remove the zonal metadata.

   The following is an example output for this request:

       {
         "fingerprint": "FikclA7UBC0=",
         "metadata": {
           ...
         }
       }
   

2. To remove custom zonal metadata, make a PATCH request to the instanceSettings().patch method by excluding the metadata keys, for which you want to remove the zonal metadata, from the request body. You must provide the following with your request:

   • An update mask. Use the update_mask query parameter. The update mask must contain all the existing custom metadata keys for which you want to remove the zonal metadata. You must add the string metadata.items. as a prefix for each key—for example, metadata.items.key1,metadata.items.key3.

     Important: The update mask must be in lower case.

   • In the request body, provide only the current fingerprint value. Exclude all the custom metadata keys that you specified in the update mask. If you include any of the metadata keys in both the update mask and the request body, then Compute Engine doesn't remove the zonal metadata for those keys.

   PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instanceSettings?update_mask=PREFIXED_METADATA_KEYS
   {
     "fingerprint": "FINGER_PRINT",
     "metadata": {
       "items": {
       }
     }
   }
   

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project.
   • ZONE: the zone where you want to remove the zonal metadata.

   • PREFIXED_METADATA_KEYS: the list of all the existing custom metadata keys for which you want to remove zonal metadata, where each key is prefixed with the string metadata.items. . To ensure that your deletion request is successful, exclude these metadata keys from the request body. If you include any of the metadata keys in both the update mask and the request body, then Compute Engine doesn't remove the zonal metadata for those keys.

     For example, suppose your current metadata keys with zonal metadata are key-1, key-2, key-3, and key-4, and you want to remove the zonal metadata entries for key-1 and key-2, then your update mask must have the following string:

     metadata.items.key1,metadata.items.key2

   • FINGER_PRINT: the current fingerprint value.

After you make the request, if any of the specified keys have project metadata values available, then the VMs in the specified zone inherit those project metadata values. If the metadata key was set only at a zonal level and there isn't a corresponding project metadata value for that key, then VMs in that zone lose that metadata information.

Consider an example project my-project, which has the following custom project metadata:

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a", "key-2":"value-b", and "key-3":"value-c"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-1":"new-value-1", "key-2":"value-2", "key-3":"value-3", and "key-4":"new-value-4"

To remove the zonal metadata for key-1 and key-2 in the us-central1-a zone, make the following PATCH request.

PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-a/instanceSettings?update_mask=metadata.items.key-1,metadata.items.key-2
{
  "fingerprint": "FikclA7UBC0=",
  "metadata": {
  "items": {
    }
  }
}

After this request goes through, VMs in the us-central1-a zone possess the following custom metadata. VMs inherit the project metadata values for key-1 and key-2, but retain the zonal metadata for key-3 and key-4.

• Project metadata: "key-1":"value-a" and "key-2":"value-b"
• Zonal metadata in us-central1-a zone: "key-3":"value-3" and "key-4":"new-value-4"

You can remove custom instance metadata by using the Google Cloud console, the Google Cloud CLI or REST.

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

   Go to the VM instances page

2. In the Name column, click the name of the VM for which you want to remove metadata.
3. Click edit Edit at the top of the page.
4. In the Metadata section, click delete Delete item for each of the metadata entries that you want to remove.
5. To confirm your changes and remove the custom instance metadata, click Save.

To remove custom instance metadata, use the gcloud compute instances remove-metadata command.

• If you want to remove the custom metadata entries for specific keys, specify those keys by using the --keys flag, and exclude the values of those keys.

gcloud compute instances remove-metadata VM_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE  \
    --keys=KEY1,KEY2,...

• If you want to remove all custom metadata for the VM, specify the --all flag.

gcloud compute instances remove-metadata VM_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE  \
    --all

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: your project ID.
• ZONE: the zone of your VM.
• VM_NAME: name of your VM
• KEY1, KEY2...: the custom instance metadata keys that you want to remove.

1. Get the current fingerprint and view any existing key-value pairs for the VM. To do this, call the instances().get method.

   A fingerprint is a random string of characters generated by Compute Engine and is used to perform optimistic locking. To update the VM, you need to provide the matching fingerprint value. The fingerprint changes after each request, and if you provide a mismatched fingerprint, your request is rejected. This works so that only one update can be made at a time, preventing collisions.

   GET https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME
   

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: your project ID.
   • ZONE: the zone of your VM.
   • VM_NAME: name of your VM

   The output is similar to the following:

   {
     ...
     "name": "example-instance",
     "metadata": {
       "kind": "compute#metadata",
       "fingerprint": "zhma6O1w2l8="
       "items": [
       {
         "key": "key-1",
         "value": "value-1"
       }
       {
         "key": "key-2",
         "value": "value-2"
       }
       ]
     },
     ...
   }
   

2. Make a request to the instances().setMetadata method. You must include the current metadata fingerprint value for your request to succeed.

   • To remove all custom metadata key-value pairs from a VM, in the items property, exclude the metadata keys for which you want to remove metadata values.

     POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME/setMetadata
     
     {
     "fingerprint": "FINGER_PRINT"
     "items": [
       {
         "key": "KEY1"
         "value": "VALUE1"
       }
       {
         "key": "KEY2"
         "value": "VALUE2"
       }
       ...
     ]
     }
     

   • To remove all custom instance metadata on the VM, exclude the items property altogether.

     POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME/setMetadata
     
     {
     "fingerprint": FINGER_PRINT
     }
     

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: your project ID.
   • ZONE: the zone of your VM.
   • VM_NAME: name of your VM
   • FINGER_PRINT: the current fingerprint value.
   • KEY1, KEY2...: the custom instance metadata keys that you want to remove.
   • VALUE1, VALUE2...: the values of the custom instance metadata keys that you want to remove.

• Learn how to view and query metadata.
• Learn more about running startup scripts or shutdown scripts in the metadata server.

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Last updated 2025-08-07 UTC.

[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-07 UTC."],[[["Custom metadata in Google Cloud allows for the creation and use of key-value pairs on individual VMs or at a project level, enabling the setting of arbitrary values, startup scripts, and shutdown scripts."],["Metadata keys are case-sensitive with a maximum limit of 128 bytes, and each metadata value has a maximum size of 256 KB, with a combined total limit of 512 KB for all metadata entries."],["Custom metadata can be set at the project level, applying to all VMs in the project, at a zonal level for VMs in specific zones, or at the individual instance level, allowing for overrides and specific configurations."],["Setting custom zonal metadata allows for overriding project metadata values within specific zones, ensuring that VMs in those zones use the zonal values instead, and if zonal metadata is removed, VMs will inherit project metadata if there is one."],["Custom metadata can be managed via the Google Cloud console, the gcloud CLI, or REST API, and includes methods to add, update, and remove metadata at the project, zonal, and instance levels, including the ability to specify metadata during VM creation."]]],[]]

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