f1-micro + Jellyfin - free media server

A simple guide to set up the media server Jellyfin on a Google f1-micro instance

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Create a GCP Account

First, you need a GCP (Google Cloud Platform) account. Start here:

https://cloud.google.com

GCloud

Creating a f1-micro instance can be done in two ways, using the console or gcloud. Using gcloud allows you to copy the following commands and it is the easiest and fastest way. The way to install gcloud depends on your operating system. Information can be found here:

https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install

Create a f1-micro instance

The next step is to create a VPS (Virtual Private Server). It is important to make the right choices here to get a free one. This a free GCP VPS:

f1-micro in one of the following regions: Oregon, Iowa or South Carolina
30 GB disk, not SSD

Copy the following command into your terminal to create one:

# time required, 15 s
gcloud compute instances create myinstance \
--zone=us-east1-c  --machine-type=f1-micro \
--image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud --image-family=ubuntu-minimal-2004-lts \
--boot-disk-type=pd-standard…