如何限制Qwiklabs等实验平台用户的资源使用与访问权限？

Great questions about Qwiklabs' resource and permission controls—let me break this down clearly for you:

1. Core Quota-Based Blocking for Unauthorized Resource Usage #

Qwiklabs relies on project-level resource quotas to prevent users from creating excessive or off-step resources. When you launch an experiment, the underlying temporary Google Cloud project comes pre-configured with strict, experiment-specific quotas:

• Limits on VM count, CPU cores, persistent storage capacity, and network bandwidth
• Restrictions on API call volumes for services like Cloud Storage, BigQuery, or Cloud Functions

If you try to create resources beyond these quotas (e.g., spinning up 10 VMs when the experiment only requires 2), you'll immediately hit a "quota exceeded" error, blocking the action entirely.

2. Can Users Modify These Quotas? #

Short answer: No, regular Qwiklabs users cannot modify quotas in their temporary experiment projects.

3. How Quota Modification is Prohibited #

Qwiklabs uses a combination of IAM restrictions and template locking to block quota changes:

• Restricted IAM Roles: Users are assigned limited-privilege roles (often custom-built for Qwiklabs) that exclude permissions like compute.quotas.update or serviceusage.quotas.update. Even if you try to navigate to the GCP Console's quota page, you won't have the permissions to edit any values.
• Template-Locked Quota Configurations: Each experiment's quota settings are baked into the experiment template. When the temporary project is provisioned, these quotas are automatically applied and cannot be altered by end users—there’s no user-facing interface or API endpoint to modify them.
• Backend Enforcement: Qwiklabs’ backend systems actively monitor for quota modification attempts. Any unauthorized request to change quotas is rejected immediately, and repeated attempts may result in your experiment session being terminated.

4. How Temporary Credentials Prevent Unauthorized Actions #

The temporary credentials provided by Qwiklabs are designed to limit risk in multiple ways:

• Time-Bound Validity: Credentials only work for the duration of your experiment (typically 1–2 hours). Once the session ends, they expire automatically, so you can’t retain access to the project to perform unauthorized actions later.
• Scoped Permissions: The credentials are tied to IAM roles that only allow actions required to complete the experiment steps. For example, you might have permission to create a specific type of VM but not delete the entire project, or to write to a Cloud Storage bucket but not access sensitive services like Cloud Identity.
• Isolated Temporary Projects: Each experiment runs in a dedicated, isolated GCP project that’s completely separate from your personal GCP account (if you have one). Any actions you take are contained within this project, so you can’t impact other users’ experiments or Qwiklabs’ core infrastructure. Plus, the project is automatically deleted after the experiment ends, wiping all resources you created.
• Real-Time Activity Monitoring: Qwiklabs tracks user actions during experiments. If it detects abnormal behavior—like mass-creating resources, attempting to access restricted APIs, or modifying experiment-critical configurations—it can issue warnings or terminate your session instantly.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Michael W.