# AlmaLinux OS on Google Cloud Platform

AlmaLinux OS is a fully supported operating system on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and is available as a default offering in both the gcloud CLI and the Google Cloud Console GUI. Images are published by the AlmaLinux OS Foundation under the almalinux-cloud project and are completely free of license fees — you pay only for the underlying Compute Engine resources.

Google Cloud publishes official details for AlmaLinux as a supported operating system in the Compute Engine OS details (opens new window) documentation.

# Supported versions

The following AlmaLinux OS releases are Generally Available on Compute Engine:

Version	x86_64 image family	ARM64 image family	End of Support
AlmaLinux 10	`almalinux-10`	`almalinux-10-arm64`	May 2035
AlmaLinux 9	`almalinux-9`	`almalinux-9-arm64`	May 2032
AlmaLinux 8	`almalinux-8`	`almalinux-8-arm64`	May 2029

All image families live in the almalinux-cloud project.

# Image features

AlmaLinux images on Google Cloud are built by the AlmaLinux OS Foundation and are preconfigured for Compute Engine. Each image includes:

The Google Cloud guest environment (opens new window) and the gcloud CLI pre-installed
OS Login (opens new window) support
The OS Config agent for VM Manager (opens new window) — OS inventory, OS policies, patch management, and vulnerability reporting
Automatic security updates via dnf-automatic (within the same major version)
10 GB default boot disk with a GPT partition table and EFI support
Grub boot timeout set to 0 for faster startup
SSH password authentication and root login disabled by default

# Platform and hardware support

Disks: SCSI and NVMe
Networking: gVNIC, IDPF, multiple NICs, Tier 1 networking up to 200 Gbps, jumbo frames
Security: Shielded VM, Confidential VM (AMD SEV and SEV-SNP), and Intel TDX (x86 only)
GPUs: NVIDIA H200, H100, A100, L4, and T4/V100/P100/P4 on N1 machine types
Lifecycle: Suspend/resume supported

# Image update cadence

The AlmaLinux OS Foundation publishes refreshed images to the almalinux-cloud project on the second Tuesday of each month, incorporating the latest security and package updates. Because image families always resolve to the most recent image, new VMs created via --image-family=almalinux-N automatically pick up the new build without any change to your tooling. Existing VMs continue to receive in-place security updates via dnf-automatic between image refreshes.

# Google Cloud Console

When creating a new VM instance in the Cloud Console (opens new window), choose Boot disk → Change, then select AlmaLinux from the Operating system drop-down. You can then pick the desired version (8, 9, or 10) and architecture (x86_64 or ARM64).

# gcloud CLI

# Listing available images

List all AlmaLinux images published in the almalinux-cloud project:

gcloud compute images list --project almalinux-cloud --no-standard-images

To get the most recent image for a specific family:

gcloud compute images describe-from-family almalinux-9 --project almalinux-cloud

# Creating VM instances

Reference an image family with --image-family and --image-project so new instances always use the latest published image.

# AlmaLinux OS 10 (x86_64)

gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --image-family=almalinux-10 \
  --image-project=almalinux-cloud

# AlmaLinux OS 9 (x86_64)

gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --image-family=almalinux-9 \
  --image-project=almalinux-cloud

# AlmaLinux OS 8 (x86_64)

gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --image-family=almalinux-8 \
  --image-project=almalinux-cloud

# ARM64 (AArch64)

For ARM64 instances, use the -arm64 image family along with an ARM-capable machine type such as the t2a series:

gcloud compute instances create my-arm-vm \
  --image-family=almalinux-9-arm64 \
  --image-project=almalinux-cloud \
  --machine-type=t2a-standard-1

See the gcloud compute instances create reference (opens new window) for the full set of options.

# Importing and migrating

AlmaLinux is a supported target for importing virtual disks, virtual appliances, and machine images (opens new window) into Compute Engine, and for Migrate to Virtual Machines (opens new window).

# Further reading

← Azure Oracle Cloud Infrastructure →