A security group is a virtual firewall that controls network traffic to and from compute instances. Your project comes with a default security group, which cannot be deleted, and you can create additional security groups.
Security groups are made of security rules. You can add or modify security rules at any time. When you modify a security group, the new rules are automatically applied to all compute instances associated with it.
You can associate one or more security groups with your compute instances.
Note
While it is possible to assign many security groups to a compute instance, we recommend you consolidate your security groups and rules as much as possible.
The default behaviour of security groups is to deny all traffic. Rules added to security groups are all “allow” rules. To create your own security group rules you can follow the guide from the first instance section of the documentation.
Note
Failing to set up the appropriate security group rules is a common mistake that prevents users from reaching their compute instances, or compute instances from communicating with each other.