Since Google Cloud Datalab Notebook is running as a docker container within the provisioned Google Compute Engine (GCE) instance, we will need to copy the file into the container itself.
1/ Copying the large file from local to GCS bucket:
[Local machine prompt] gsutil cp <my_file> gs://<my_bucket>
2/ SSH into the Datalab GCE instance from Cloud Shell:
[Cloud Shell prompt] gcloud compute ssh <instance name>
3/ Find the id of the Cloud Datalab container:
[GCE Instance prompt] docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND
0aa745853b54 gcr.io/cloud-datalab/datalab:latest "/datalab/run.sh"
4/ Exec into the container with the id just found:
[GCE instance prompt] docker exec -it 0aa745853b54 /bin/sh
5/ In the container's new prompt, copy the file into the notebook location:
[Container prompt] gsutil cp gs://<my_bucket>/<my_file> /content/datalab
6/ Confirm the file is copied:
[Container prompt] ls -l /content/datalab
7/ Exit the container by holding Ctrl + p + q
The my_file should also be visible from the Web GUI of Notebook.