Single Host Installation on GCP Compute Engine

This guide walks you through setting up a new Google Compute Engine virtual machine from scratch and installing SuperPlane using the single-host installer.

1. Create a Compute Engine VM

1. Sign in to the Google Cloud Console.
2. Select or create a project.
3. Go to Compute Engine → VM instances and click Create instance.
4. Configure your VM:
   • Choose a region and zone close to you.
   • Under Machine configuration, pick a machine type such as e2-medium (2 vCPUs, 4 GB memory).
   • Under Boot disk, select an Ubuntu LTS image (for example Ubuntu 22.04 LTS).
   • Under Firewall, check Allow HTTP traffic and Allow HTTPS traffic.
5. Click Create and note the external IP address of the VM.

At this point you have a Linux server that is reachable from the internet.

2. Point your domain to the VM

1. In your DNS provider (Cloud DNS or another provider), create an A record for your domain or subdomain (for example superplane.example.com).
2. Point the A record to the external IP of your VM.
3. Wait for DNS to propagate (usually a few minutes).

SuperPlane will use this domain to issue and maintain an SSL certificate.

3. Verify firewall rules

In the Google Cloud Console:

1. Go to VPC network → Firewall.
2. Ensure there are rules that allow:
   • TCP port 22 (SSH) to your VM.
   • TCP port 80 (HTTP) to your VM.
   • TCP port 443 (HTTPS) to your VM.

The Allow HTTP traffic and Allow HTTPS traffic options you selected when creating the VM typically create these rules automatically.

4. Install Docker and Docker Compose

SSH into your VM using the external IP or domain. For Ubuntu images, the default user is usually ubuntu:

gcloud compute ssh your-instance-name --zone your-zone

or using plain SSH:

ssh ubuntu@your-vm-external-ip-or-domain

On the VM, install Docker and Docker Compose. For example, on Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | \
  sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) \
  signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] \
  https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io \
  docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
sudo systemctl enable --now docker
sudo usermod -aG docker ubuntu
newgrp docker

You now have a Compute Engine VM with Docker and Docker Compose installed, reachable from the internet at your chosen domain.

5. Install SuperPlane

With Docker set up, install SuperPlane using the single-host installer. First, download and unpack the installer:

wget -q https://install.superplane.com/superplane-single-host.tar.gz
tar -xf superplane-single-host.tar.gz
cd superplane

Then run the installer:

./install.sh

This downloads the single-host bundle, extracts it, and runs the installer. The installer sets up the Docker Compose stack and starts SuperPlane on your VM.

SSL certificates and public access

Because SuperPlane needs to connect to external integrations and receive webhooks, your VM must be reachable from the public internet.

During installation, SuperPlane automatically:

• Issues an SSL certificate for your configured domain.
• Renews the certificate so HTTPS continues to work over time.

Ensure your firewall allows inbound traffic on ports 80 and 443 so certificate issuance and HTTPS access can succeed.

6. Enable disk snapshots

To protect your SuperPlane instance, create regular snapshots of the boot disk.

In the Google Cloud Console:

1. Go to Compute Engine → Disks.
2. Find the boot disk attached to your SuperPlane VM.
3. Click the disk name to open its details.
4. Click Create snapshot to create a snapshot of the disk.

You can use these snapshots to restore the disk, or create a new VM with the same data if something goes wrong.

Updating SuperPlane

1. Check the GitHub releases for the latest version tag.
2. Edit docker-compose.yml and update the image field with the new tag.
3. Restart the stack:

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d