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Managing Virtual Machines

This page covers day-to-day VM management — power controls, 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.

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 stops 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 if it fails unexpectedly.
  3. Confirm the change.

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.