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Managing a Virtual Machine

When you click on a virtual machine under Infrastructure → Virtual Machines, the VM management sidebar opens. This sidebar is the primary interface for viewing, configuring, and controlling your virtual machine. Every section below corresponds to a panel in the sidebar, listed top to bottom.

The top of the sidebar displays the server hostname with a status indicator (green = running). Below the hostname you can view and manage tags assigned to the server.

The header toolbar provides quick-access icons:

  • Help — opens a support ticket for this server
  • API — links to the API documentation
  • Recent Jobs (lightning bolt icon) — shows recently processed actions against this server
  • Close — closes the sidebar

Settings​

Click the gear icon to the right of the hostname to open the settings panel. Click Save Changes at the bottom after making any modifications.

Automatic System Rescue​

Enabled by default on all servers. This is a watchdog process that monitors whether the server is powered on or off. If the server is powered off for any reason, the watchdog automatically powers it back on.

The watchdog does not check whether the server is responding to pings or requests — it only checks the power state.

Note: If you want to stop a server and have it stay off, you must disable Automatic System Rescue in settings first. Otherwise the server will boot itself back up.

Hostname and Description​

You can change the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the server and add a description. The FQDN controls how the server appears in the portal.

Note: Changing the hostname here does not change the hostname inside the server's operating system. You must update that independently within the OS.

The description field lets you enter free-text notes about the server, useful when multiple team members manage the same account.

vCPU Allocation​

Displays the number of virtual CPUs assigned to the server. If your plan includes more vCPUs than you need, you can reduce the number available to the server here.

Boot Type and Kernel​

Controls the boot type and kernel used by the server. This is an advanced setting that is optimized by default for the OS image you deployed. Options include various KVM boot types (Q35, VirtIO, SCSI), direct disk boot, full virtualization, BSD-specific options, legacy PV-GRUB, and cloud kernels.

⚠️ Changing the boot type or kernel can cause the server to enter an error state or become unbootable, potentially requiring support intervention to correct. Leave this at the default unless you have a specific reason to change it.

Boot Method​

Select whether the server boots from Hard Disk or CD-ROM. This changes the boot order. If a CD-ROM is attached to the server (for example, a rescue CD), you can switch to CD-ROM boot, then switch back to hard disk when you are done.

Power Controls​

The power controls appear as icons just below the header. Your options depend on the current server state:

  • Stop — gracefully shuts down the server. A Force Shutdown toggle is available for a hard power-off.
  • Start — powers on a stopped server.
  • Reboot — performs a soft reboot. A Force Reboot toggle is available for a hard reset.

Note: If Automatic System Rescue is enabled (the default), the server will automatically boot itself back up shortly after being stopped. Disable it in Settings first if you need the server to stay off.

Console​

Opens a VNC console directly to the server in a new browser window. This is an out-of-band connection — you can access the server console even if the network is misconfigured or SSH is unavailable.

Note: SSH keys do not work over the VNC console. You must have a password set on the server to log in via VNC.

Scale​

Live-scale the server's CPU and RAM without redeploying.

  • Scaling up CPU or RAM is applied immediately without requiring a reboot.
  • Scaling down RAM requires restarting the virtual server to safely apply changes.

Select the new CPU count and RAM allocation, then click Confirm Scaling Change.

Note: Running processes inside the server may need to be restarted to take advantage of hot-added CPU and memory resources.

Destroy Options​

Click the destroy icon to access destructive lifecycle actions.

Reinstall Server​

Deletes the current installation and lets you reinstall the operating system. The server remains linked to its current location, which means it keeps its public IPv4 and IPv6 management addresses.

When you deploy a virtual server, the platform creates a resource record and links it to a location. This link guarantees IP address consistency across reinstalls. Because the server is still linked, you are not prompted to select a hardware pool or location during reinstall — only the OS and configuration steps.

⚠️ Reinstalling destroys all data on the server. This action requires your account password to confirm.

Available after a server has been deleted but is still linked to a location. Unlinking resets the package back to its generic state, allowing it to be deployed to any other location. The previously assigned IP addresses are released.

Cancel Service​

Submits a cancellation request for the server, which stops billing and deletes the server.

  • Immediately — cancels the server right away
  • End of month — cancels at the end of the current billing term

⚠️ Canceling a service is permanent. The server and all its data will be destroyed.

Overview Panel​

Displays a summary of the server's current state:

  • Status — running, stopped, or rebooting
  • Specifications — RAM, CPU count, disk size
  • Location — the data center where the server is deployed
  • IPv4 address — the public management address
  • Operating system — the deployed OS image

Click Show More to expand additional details:

  • Default login user — the default SSH user for the deployed OS (e.g., ubuntu for Ubuntu images, not always root)
  • IPv6 address — the management IPv6 address
  • Hypervisor — the hypervisor node the server is assigned to
  • Boot order — current boot device
  • Deploy date — when the server was created
  • Description — the description text from settings
  • CPU count — number of assigned vCPUs
  • Automatic Rescue — whether the watchdog is enabled
  • Uptime — server uptime
  • Contract ID — the contract the server is linked to

Click Hide Details to collapse back to the summary view.

Networking​

Expand the networking section to view and manage the server's network configuration.

NIC Tabs​

If the server has multiple network interfaces, each NIC appears as a separate tab. A default public cloud server has one NIC with a public management address.

For each NIC, you can see:

  • IP address
  • Netmask
  • Broadcast address
  • Gateway
  • MAC address

PTR / Reverse DNS​

Under Public IP Addresses, each assigned IP shows its current reverse DNS (PTR) record. Click Edit under Actions to change the PTR record. Updates apply instantly for both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

Additional Public IPs​

If additional IP addresses have been assigned to the server (floating IPs or IPs assigned by NetActuate), they appear in the public IP addresses list.

Additional Network Cards​

Shows any extra NICs attached to the server, including MAC address, VLAN, VLAN type, and attachment order. By default, there are no additional network cards on a standard deployment.

Allowed IPs / BCP38​

The allowed IP and subnet list controls which source IP addresses and subnets the server is permitted to originate traffic from. This is critical for BGP and anycast deployments where you may be sourcing traffic from prefixes assigned to you beyond the server's management addresses.

Allowed IPs can be assigned at different levels — account-wide, per BGP group, or per server. The list is always additive on top of the server's management IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

Note: If you are announcing prefixes via BGP or anycast and sourcing traffic from those prefixes, make sure they appear in the allowed IPs list. Traffic sourced from IPs not in this list may be filtered.

Accelerators​

If your VM has an accelerator card attached, the Accelerators section appears below Networking in the sidebar. Click to expand it.

Card Details​

The top of the panel shows information about the attached accelerator:

  • Model — the accelerator model (e.g., NETINT Quadra T1A)
  • Serial Number — unique hardware identifier
  • Assigned Date — when the card was bound to this VM
  • Price Per Month — the monthly cost of the accelerator
  • Attachment Type — Physical or Virtual Function
  • Current Firmware — the firmware version currently running on the card
  • Available Firmwares — other firmware versions you can upgrade or downgrade to

Real-Time Metrics​

Below the card details, real-time performance graphs display accelerator activity. Select a time window to adjust the view: 1 hour, 6 hours, 24 hours, or last week.

The following metric graphs are available:

  • Utilization — shows activity across the card's processing engines: AI, Decoder, Encoder, Scaler, and Uploader
  • Memory — current memory usage on the card
  • Instances — number of active processing instances
  • Temperature — card temperature over time
  • Shared Memory — shared memory consumption

All graphs update in real time as the card processes workloads.

Firmware Updates​

Click Update Firmware to open the firmware update dialog. From here you can:

  1. View the current firmware version.
  2. Select a new firmware version from the dropdown.
  3. Click the release notes icon to review changes for each available version.
  4. Click Update to apply the new firmware.

⚠️ Firmware updates require a brief interruption to the accelerator. Active encoding sessions will be affected. Schedule firmware updates during a maintenance window or when no encoding jobs are running.

Note: Additional accelerator types — including GPUs (NVIDIA) and DPUs — are supported on the NetActuate platform. Contact your account manager for availability at your preferred locations.

Reports​

Expand to view bandwidth usage reports for the server.

Note: Reports can take a few minutes up to an hour to start generating after a new server is deployed.

Disks​

Shows the virtual disks attached to the server, including disk number, size, disk type, and disk name. Servers can have multiple disks — a common configuration is a primary OS disk and a secondary data disk.

Note: This section shows physical disks attached to the virtual server only. Block storage or other storage platform volumes connected to the server are not displayed here.

Anycast​

If you are using the NetActuate BGP/Anycast platform, you can create and manage anycast BGP sessions directly from the VM sidebar.

To create sessions, click Set Up Sessions for This Server. In the dialog:

  1. Select the server.
  2. Select the Anycast Group to join.
  3. Optionally select Build IPv6 Session for a dual-stack session.
  4. Optionally select Build Redundant Sessions for redundancy.
  5. Click Create Sessions.

Sessions are automatically assigned and appear in the anycast section. Click on a session to view its details:

  • Session state — up or down
  • BFD status — Bidirectional Forwarding Detection state
  • Group — the anycast group the session belongs to
  • Customer ASN — your ASN
  • Provider Peer ASN — the NetActuate peer ASN
  • Your IP / Peer IP — the IP addresses for each side of the session
  • Received routes — prefixes being received over BGP
  • Rejected routes — prefixes being sent but rejected by a filter
  • Prefix list — your configured prefix list

Each session has controls to start, stop, refresh status, or delete the session.

For the full anycast setup walkthrough, see the Anycast Configuration Guide.

BGP​

If you are using self-service BGP (Bring Your Own BGP), you can create BGP sessions here in the same way as anycast sessions. Both IPv4 and IPv6 sessions are available, as the NetActuate platform is fully dual-stack.

Logs​

Expand to view the job history for this server. Each entry shows a job that has run against the server, such as:

  • Build — the initial deployment job
  • Reconfigure — network or configuration changes
  • Rules — firewall or access rule applications

Tools​

The tools section provides maintenance and recovery utilities. Some actions duplicate the quick-access icons at the top of the sidebar for convenience.

Reconfigure Network​

Rewrites the network configuration files inside the server's file system. This is normally triggered when modifying the hostname or adding IPs, and works with OS images built on the NetActuate platform using the standard format.

⚠️ Reconfigure Network powers off the server, mounts the file system, overwrites the network configuration files, and boots the server again. Any custom network configuration you have made inside the OS will be overwritten. The server will be offline during this process.

VNC Console​

Opens a VNC console to the server in a new window. This is the same action available from the console icon at the top of the sidebar.

Reset Root Password​

Resets the root password on the server. Requires your current account password to confirm.

⚠️ This takes the server offline. The server is power-cycled, the file system is mounted, and the password and shadow files are modified. The server then boots back up. Use this only in emergencies.

Rescue Mode​

Boots the server to a Phoenix Live CD environment for emergency file system access. While rescue mode is active, certain portal actions become unavailable.

To use rescue mode:

  1. Click Start Rescue in the tools section.
  2. Connect to the server via VNC or SSH.
  3. Run fdisk -l to identify the server's primary disk.
  4. Mount the disk to access the file system.
  5. Make your repairs using standard Linux utilities.
  6. Return to the tools section and click Stop Rescue to unmount the CD and reboot the server normally.

For additional help with rescue operations, see Support.

Create OS Image​

Creates a custom OS image from the current server and adds it to your image library under Platform → OS Images. This is useful for creating gold master images pre-installed with your software stack, SSH keys, and configuration for use with Terraform, Ansible, or API-driven deployments.

⚠️ Creating an OS image performs an offline clone and takes the server down during the process. Use a dedicated gold master VM for image maintenance — never create images from a production server.

Reinstall Server​

Same as Destroy → Reinstall Server. Destroys the current installation and prompts you to reinstall the OS while keeping the server linked to its location and IP addresses.

⚠️ All data on the server will be destroyed.

Cancel Service​

Same as Destroy → Cancel Service. Submits a cancellation request — immediately or at the end of the billing term.

⚠️ Canceling a service is permanent and destroys the server and all its data.

Service Status​

Shows the operational health of the data center where the server is deployed, including:

  • Data center status — whether there are any facility-wide or network-related issues
  • Active maintenance — any maintenance currently in progress
  • Upcoming maintenance — scheduled future maintenance windows
  • View Past Maintenance — link to the maintenance history for this location