Compute Engine IAM roles and permissions
When you add a new member to your project, you can use anIdentity and Access Management (IAM) policy to give that member one ormore IAM roles. Each IAM role contains permissionsthat grant the member access to specific resources.
Compute Engine has a set ofpredefined IAM roles that are described onthis page. You can alsocreate custom rolesthat contain subsets of permissions that map directly to your needs.
To learn which permissions are required for each method, see theCompute Engine API reference documentation:
For information about granting access, see the following pages.
- To set IAM policies at a project level, seeManage access to projects, folders, and organizationsin the IAM documentation.
- To set policies on specific Compute Engine resources, readGranting access to Compute Engine resources.
- To assign roles to a Compute Engine service account, readCreate a VM that uses a user-managed service account.
What is IAM?
Google Cloud offersIAM,which lets you give more granular access to specificGoogle Cloud resources and prevents unwanted access to other resources.IAM lets you adopt thesecurity principle of least privilege,so you grant only the necessary access to your resources.
IAM lets you controlwho (identity) haswhat (roles) permission towhich resources by settingIAM policies. IAM policies grant specific rolesto a project member, giving that identity certain permissions. For example, fora given resource, such as a project, you can assign theCompute Network Admin role (roles/compute.networkAdmin)to a user account (a Google Account or an account from anexternal identity provider)and that account can control network-related resources in the project, butcannot manage other resources, like instances and disks. You can also useIAM to manage theGoogle Cloud console legacy rolesgranted to project team members.
The serviceAccountUser role
When granted together with theCompute Instance Admin (v1) role(roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1),theService Account User role(roles/iam.serviceAccountUser) gives members the ability to createand manage instances that use a service account. Specifically,grantingroles/iam.serviceAccountUser androles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1together gives members permission to do the following:
- Create an instance that runs as aservice account.
- Attach a persistent disk to an instance that runs as a service account.
- Set instance metadata on an instance that runs as a service account.
- Use SSH to connect to an instance that runs as a service account.
- Reconfigure an instance to run as a service account.
You can grant the Service Account User role (roles/iam.serviceAccountUser) inone of two ways:
Recommended. Grant the role to a member on aspecific service account.This gives a member access to the service account for which they are an
iam.serviceAccountUserbut prevents access to other service accounts forwhich the member is not aniam.serviceAccountUser.Grant the role to a member on theproject level. The member has access to allservice accounts in the project, including service accounts that are createdin the future.
If you aren't familiar with service accounts,learn more about service accounts.
Google Cloud console permission
To use theGoogle Cloud console to access Compute Engine resources, youmust have a role that contains the following permission on the project:
compute.projects.getConnecting to an instance as an instanceAdmin
After you grant a project member theroles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1 role, theycan connect to virtual machine (VM) instances by using standard Google Cloudtools, like thegcloud CLI orSSH-in-browser.
When a member uses the gcloud CLI or SSH-in-browser, thetools automatically generate a public/private key pair and add the publickey to the project metadata. If the member does not have permissions to editproject metadata, the tool adds the member's public key to the instancemetadata instead.
If the member has an existing key pair they want to use, theycan manually add their public key to the instance's metadata.Learn more about adding SSH keys to an instance.
IAM with service accounts
Create new custom service accounts and grant IAM roles to serviceaccounts to limit the access of your instances. Use IAM roleswith custom service accounts to:
- Limit the access your instances have to Google Cloud APIs using granularIAM roles.
- Give each instance, or set of instances, a unique identity.
- Limit the access of your default service account.
Learn more about service accounts.
Managed instance groups and IAM
Managed instance groups (MIGs) are resourcesthat perform actions on your behalf without direct user interaction. Forexample, the MIG can add and remove VMs from the group.
All of the operations performed by Compute Engine as part of the MIG areperformed by theGoogle APIs Service Agentfor your project, which has an email address like the following:PROJECT_ID@cloudservices.gserviceaccount.com
By default, the Google APIs Service Agent is granted theEditor role (roles/editor) at the project level, which gives enough privilegesto create resources based on the MIG's configuration. If you're customizingaccess for the Google APIs Service Agent, then grant the Compute Instance Admin (v1) role(roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1) and, optionally, the Service Account User role(roles/iam.serviceAccountUser). The Service Account User role is requiredonly if the MIG creates VMs that can run as a service account.
Note that the Google APIs Service Agent is also used by other processes,includingDeployment Manager.
When you create a MIG or update its instance template, Compute Enginevalidates that the Google APIs Service Agent has the following role and permissions:
- Service Account User role, which is important if you plan to create instancesthat can run as a service account
- Permissions to all the resources referenced from instance templates, suchas images, disks, VPC networks, and subnets
Predefined Compute Engine IAM roles
With IAM, every API method in Compute Engine API requiresthat the identitymaking the API request has the appropriate permissions to use the resource.Permissions are granted by setting policies that grantroles to amember (user, group, or service account) of your project.
In addition to basic roles(viewer, editor, owner)andcustom roles,you can assign the following Compute Engine predefined roles to themembers of your project.
You can grant multiple roles to a project member on the same resource. Forexample, if your networking team also manages firewall rules, you can grant bothroles/compute.networkAdmin androles/compute.securityAdmin to the networkingteam'sGoogle group.
The following tables describe the predefined Compute EngineIAM roles,as well as the permissions contained within each role. Each role contains a setof permissions that is suitable for a specific task. For example, the InstanceAdmin roles grant permissions to manage instances, the network-related rolesinclude permissions to manage network-related resources, and the security roleincludes permissions to manage security-related resources, like firewalls andSSL certificates. When working on Compute Engine, you might also needroles for other services such as Cloud DNS and IAMservice accounts. For a full list of IAM roles, see theIAM role reference documentation.
| Role | Permissions |
|---|---|
Compute Admin( Full control of all Compute Engine resources. If the user will be managing virtual machine instances that are configuredto run as a service account, you must also grant the Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Future Reservation AdminBeta( |
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Compute Future Reservation UserBeta( |
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Compute Future Reservation ViewerBeta( |
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Compute Image User( Permission to list and read images without having other permissions on the image. Granting this roleat the project level gives users the ability to list all images in the project and create resources,such as instances and persistent disks, based on images in the project. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Instance Admin (beta)( Permissions to create, modify, and delete virtual machine instances.This includes permissions to create, modify, and delete disks, and also toconfigureShielded VMsettings. If the user will be managing virtual machine instances that are configuredto run as a service account, you must also grant the For example, if your company has someone who manages groups of virtualmachine instances but does not manage network or security settings anddoes not manage instances that run as service accounts, you can grant thisrole on the organization, folder, or project that contains the instances,or you can grant it on individual instances. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
|
|
Compute Instance Admin (v1)( Full control of Compute Engine instances, instance groups, disks, snapshots, and images.Read access to all Compute Engine networking resources. If you grant a user this role only at an instance level, then that user cannot create new instances. |
|
Instance Group Manager Service Agent( Role containing all permissions required by Managed Instance Groups to create and manage instances. Warning: Do not grant service agent roles to any principals exceptservice agents. |
|
Interconnect Attachment Group Analyzer( Analyze Interconnect Attachment Groups via their GetOperationalStatus method. |
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Interconnect Group Analyzer( Analyze Interconnect Groups via their GetOperationalStatus method. |
|
Compute Load Balancer Admin( Permissions to create, modify, and delete load balancers and associateresources. For example, if your company has a load balancing team that manages loadbalancers, SSL certificates for load balancers, SSL policies, and otherload balancing resources, and a separate networking team that managesthe rest of the networking resources, then grant this role to the loadbalancing team's group. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Load Balancer Services User( Permissions to use services from a load balancer in other projects. |
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Compute Network Admin( Permissions to create, modify, and delete networking resources,except for firewall rules and SSL certificates. The network admin roleallows read-only access to firewall rules, SSL certificates, and instances(to view their ephemeral IP addresses). The network admin role does notallow a user to create, start, stop, or delete instances. For example, if your company has a security team that manages firewallsand SSL certificates and a networking team that manages the rest of thenetworking resources, then grant this role to the networking team's group.Or, if you have a combined team that manages both security and networking,then grant this role as well as the Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Network User( Provides access to a shared VPC network Once granted, service owners can use VPC networks and subnets that belongto the host project. For example, a network user can create a VM instancethat belongs to a host project network but they cannot delete or createnew networks in the host project. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Network Viewer( Read-only access to all networking resources For example, if you have software that inspects your networkconfiguration, you could grant this role to that software'sservice account. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Organization Firewall Policy Admin( Full control of Compute Engine Organization Firewall Policies. |
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Compute Organization Firewall Policy User( View or use Compute Engine Firewall Policies to associate with the organization or folders. |
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Compute Organization Security Policy Admin( Full control of Compute Engine Organization Security Policies. |
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Compute Organization Security Policy User( View or use Compute Engine Security Policies to associate with the organization or folders. |
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Compute Organization Resource Admin( Full control of Compute Engine Firewall Policy associations to the organization or folders. |
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Compute OS Admin Login( Access to log in to a Compute Engine instance as an administratoruser. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute OS Login( Access to log in to a Compute Engine instance as a standard user. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute OS Login External User( Available only at the organization level. Access for an external user to set OS Login information associated withthis organization. This role does not grant access to instances. Externalusers must be granted one of the requiredOS Login rolesin order to allow access to instances using SSH. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute packet mirroring admin( Specify resources to be mirrored. |
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Compute packet mirroring user( Use Compute Engine packet mirrorings. |
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Compute Peer Subnet Migration Admin( Use subnetwork whose PURPOSE is "PEER_MIGRATION" |
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Compute Public IP Admin( Full control of public IP address management for Compute Engine. |
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Compute Security Admin( Permissions to create, modify, and delete firewall rules and SSLcertificates, and also toconfigureShielded VMsettings. For example, if your company has a security team that manages firewallsand SSL certificates and a networking team that manages the rest of thenetworking resources, then grant this role to the security team's group. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Engine Service Agent( Gives Compute Engine Service Account access to assert service account authority. Includes access to service accounts. Warning: Do not grant service agent roles to any principals exceptservice agents. |
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Compute Sole Tenant Viewer( Permissions to view sole tenancy node groups |
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Compute Storage Admin( Permissions to create, modify, and delete disks, images, and snapshots. For example, if your company has someone who manages project images andyou don't want them to have the editor role on the project, then grantthis role to their account on the project. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute Viewer( Read-only access to get and list Compute Engine resources, withoutbeing able to read the data stored on them. For example, an account with this role could inventory all of the disks ina project, but it could not read any of the data on those disks. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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Compute VM extension policy adminBeta( Administer zone/global VM extension policies. |
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Compute VM extension policy viewerBeta( View zone/global VM extension policies. |
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Compute Shared VPC Admin( Permissions to administershared VPC host projects,specifically enabling the host projects and associating shared VPC service projects to the hostproject's network. At the organization level, this role can only be granted by an organization admin. Google Cloud recommends that the Shared VPC Admin be the owner of the shared VPC host project. TheShared VPC Admin is responsible for granting the Compute Network User role( Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role:
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What's next
- Learn more about IAM
- Create and manage custom IAM roles
- Grant IAM roles to project users
- Grant IAM roles for specific Compute Engine resources
- Grant IAM roles to service accounts
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Last updated 2025-12-16 UTC.