Connect a GCP Project to the Multicloud Defense Controller from the Multicloud Defense Dashboard

Updated: July 8, 2026

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Connect a prepared Google Cloud project to Cisco Multicloud Defense from the dashboard with the Google Cloud Shell onboarding script.

Once you prepared the GCP project as described in the previous sections, you can link it to the Multicloud Defense Controller.

Before you begin

You must already have a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project created and have permissions to create VPCs, subnets, and a service account.

Procedure

	1.	In the left pane of Security Cloud Control, click Multicloud Defense.
	2.	Click the Multicloud Defense Controller button.
	3.	In the Cloud Accounts pane, click Add Account.
	4.	On the General Information page, select GCP from the Account Type list box.
	5.	Login to the Multicloud Defense Dashboard.
	6.	Click Manage and then Accounts.
	7.	Click Add Account.
	8.	In step 1, click the link to open the Google Cloud Platform Cloud Shell.
	9.	In step 2, click the Copy button.
	10.	Run the bash script in the Google Cloud Platform Cloud Shell.
	11.	Type a name for this GCP account. You can choose to name this the same as your GCP project name. This name is visible on the Multicloud Defense Controller only.
	12.	(Optional) Enter a description.
	13.	Enter the Project ID for the GCP project.
	14.	Enter the Client Email for the service account created for Multicloud Defense Controller.
	15.	Enter the Private key of the service account.
	16.	Click Save & Continue.

What to do next

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Roles Created by Multicloud Defense

GCP IAM Roles

This document explains the details of the service accountes created by the CloudFormation template used in the previous section.

The CloudFormation template creates the following accounts:

ciscomcd-controller service account - This account is used by the Multicloud Defense Controller to access your GCP project to create resources (Multicloud Defense Gateway), load balancers for gateways, and read information about the VPCs, subnets, security group tags, and more. See Overview of Creating a GCP Controller Service Account for more information.
ciscomcd-firewall service account - This account is assigned to the Multicloud Defense Gateway (compute VM instances). The account provides access to the secret manager (private keys for TLS decryption) and storage. Also, the gateways many need permissions to send logs from Multicloud Defense Gatewayto the GCP logging instance (if configured by the user). See Create a GCP Firewall Service Account for more information.

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