Ensure oslogin is enabled for a Project

Using Google Cloud Console

1. Go to the VM compute metadata page using https://console.cloud.google.com/compute/metadata
2. Click EDIT
3. Add a metadata entry where the key is enable-oslogin and the value is TRUE
4. Click SAVE to apply the changes
5. For every instance that overrides the project setting, go to the VM Instances page at https://console.cloud.google.com/compute/instances.
6. Click the name of the instance from which you want to remove the metadata value
7. At the top of the instance details page, click EDIT to edit the instance settings
8. Under Custom metadata, remove any entry with the key enable-oslogin and the value FALSE
9. At the bottom of the instance details page, click SAVE to apply your changes to the instance

Using Google Cloud CLI

1. Configure oslogin on the project:

gcloud compute project-info add-metadata --metadata enable-oslogin=TRUE

1. Remove instance metadata that overrides the project setting:

gcloud compute instances remove-metadata <instanceName> --keys=enable-oslogin

Optionally, you can enable two factor authentication for OS login. For more information, see: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/oslogin/setup-two-factor-authentication.

Default Value

By default, the parameter enable-oslogin is not set, which is equivalent to setting it to FALSE.

References

1. https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/managing-instance-access
2. https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/managing-instance-access#enable_oslogin
3. https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/compute/instances/remove-metadata
4. https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/oslogin/setup-two-factor-authentication

Notes

1. In order to use osLogin, instances using Custom Images must have the latest version of the Linux Guest Environment installed. The following image families do not yet support OS Login:

Project cos-cloud (Container-Optimized OS) image family cos-stable
All project coreos-cloud (CoreOS) image families
Project suse-cloud (SLES) image family sles-11
All Windows Server and SQL Server image families

1. Project enable-oslogin can be overridden by setting the enable-oslogin parameter to an instance metadata individually.

Service-wide remediation

Recommended when many resources are affected: fix the platform baseline first so new resources inherit the secure setting, then remediate the existing flagged resources in batches.

Google Cloud

Use organization or folder policies where available, shared project templates, logs and alerting baselines, and IaC modules so new resources inherit the secure setting.

Operational rollout

1. Fix the baseline first at the account, subscription, project, cluster, or tenant scope that owns this control.
2. Remediate the currently affected resources in batches, starting with internet-exposed and production assets.
3. Re-scan and track approved exceptions with an owner and expiry date.