Skip to main content

Managing Virtual Machines

This page covers day-to-day VM management — power controls, live migration, settings, and deletion.

Power Controls​

Power controls are available in the VM's header bar and from the virtual machines list.

  • Start — boot a stopped virtual machine.
  • Stop — gracefully shut down the VM by sending an ACPI shutdown signal to the guest operating system.
  • Restart — gracefully reboot the VM.
  • Force Stop — immediately power off the VM without a graceful shutdown. Use this when the VM is unresponsive to a normal stop.
warning

Force stop is equivalent to pulling the power cord. The guest operating system does not get a chance to shut down cleanly, which may cause filesystem corruption or data loss. Only use this when the VM is unresponsive.

Live Migration​

Live migration moves a running virtual machine from one server to another with no downtime. Use it to evacuate a server before maintenance, rebalance workloads across the cluster, or move a VM closer to its storage.

  1. Navigate to the VM's detail page and select the Actions tab.
  2. Click Migrate.
  3. Select the destination server, or leave the default to let the cluster choose automatically.
  4. Confirm the migration.

The VM continues running throughout the migration. Once complete, the Dashboard tab updates to show the new server.

Settings​

Name and Description​

  1. Navigate to the VM's detail page and select the Settings tab.
  2. In the Metadata section, update the Name or Description.
  3. Save your changes.

High Availability​

High availability controls what happens when a VM's server goes offline unexpectedly.

  1. Navigate to the VM's detail page and select the Settings tab.
  2. In the Availability section, choose a mode:
    • Disabled — take no action upon failure.
    • Automatically Recover — restart the VM on another server in the cluster if its current server goes offline.
  3. Confirm the change.

Preferred Hypervisor​

The preferred hypervisor setting specifies which server a VM should run on when possible. The cluster will attempt to place the VM on the preferred server when it starts or after a migration.

  1. Navigate to the VM's detail page and select the Settings tab.
  2. In the Preferred Hypervisor section, select a server from the dropdown, or choose No Preference to let the cluster decide.
  3. Confirm the change.
info

The preferred hypervisor is a preference, not a guarantee. If the preferred server is offline or lacks available resources, the VM will run on another server.

Delete a Virtual Machine​

  1. Navigate to the VM's detail page and select the Actions tab.
  2. Click Delete.
  3. The confirmation dialog lists the virtual disks attached to the VM. Select which disks to delete along with the VM, or uncheck disks you want to keep.
  4. Confirm the deletion.
warning

Deleted virtual disks cannot be recovered. If you want to keep a disk for use with another VM, uncheck it in the deletion dialog or detach it before deleting the VM.