GCP Compute Engine SSH setup

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1. Generate SSH key pair locally
   ssh-keygen -t rsa -f <path/keyname> -C <username>
2. Enable OS Login functionality
   • Go to the metadata page for the instance
   • Click Edit and add a metadata entry where the key is enable-oslogin and value is TRUE
   • Click Save to apply the changes
3. Grant the following necessary IAM roles to the user account
   • roles/iam.serviceAccountUser
   • roles/compute.osLogin or roles/compute.osAdminLogin
4. Add the SSH public key to the Compute Engine instance
   • Go to GCP console and click on Compute Engine > VM instances
   • Click on the VM instance and click on Edit on top of the VM instance details page
   • Scroll down to find the section SSH Keys
   • Click Add item
   • Paste the contents of the public key generated and click Save

-> DONE

SSH into the GCP Compute Engine instance with the following command:
ssh -i <path_to_private_key> <gcp_user_name>@<external_ip_address>

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If it still doesn't work, then add the contents of the public key into the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

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Correct way of doing it:

Go to the Metadata tab on the Compute Engine menu, and add the public SSH key in the SSH Keys section. SSH log-in with the username specified by the SSH key.