VM Lifecycle

This document describes the lifecycle of a virtual machine (VM) instance, starting from its creation through its potential deletion.

A VM instance can transition through many states as part of its lifecycle.

  1. When you create a VM, the UI sending a request to alocate resource and start the VM.
  2. Next, the VM moves into creating, where it prepares for first boot.
  3. After that, a VM is considered running.
  4. During its lifetime, a running VM can be repeatedly stopped and restarted.

A VM can be in one of the following states:

  • CHECKING: the UI is checking the VM status to the API.
  • CREATING: resources are allocated for the VM and prepares for the first boot. The VM is not running yet.
  • RUNNING: the VM is running.
  • RESTARTING: the VM is being restarted since you requested to restart a running VM.
  • UPGRADING: the VM is being upgraded. You requested to resize. This is a temporary status until the VM is running again.
  • STOPPING: the VM is being stopped. You requested a stop. This is a temporary status after which the VM enters the STOPPED status.
  • STOPPED: the VM is stopped or turned off. Either you requested a stop, or a failure occurred. When it is stopped, the VM is unusable. You are only billed for the disk usage.
  • STARTING: the VM is being started because you requested to start a stopped VM. This is a temporary status until the VM is running again.
  • FAILED: the VM is failed processing your request.
  • ERROR: the VM is in the error state.

Restarting a VM

You can restart a VM only if the VM is in the RUNNING state.

Restarting a VM doesn’t change any of its VM properties. The VM retains its public IPs, internal IPs, persistent disks, local SSD disks (if any), and machine type.

To restart a VM, perform these actions:

  1. Go to the Compute page from Compute >> VMs menu
  2. Click on the action menu of the VM you want to stop, then choose Restart; or click on the VM name to see its detail then click on the refresh icon
  3. Click Yes button to confirm your action

Stopping a VM

Stopping a VM causes the system sending shutdown signal to the VM.

You might want to stop a VM for several reasons:

  • You no longer need the VM but want the resources that are attached to the VM—such as its IPs, and persistent disk.
  • You don’t need to preserve the guest OS memory, device state, or application state.
  • You want to change certain properties of the VM that require you to first stop the VM.
  • You can start a terminated VM when you need to use it again.

To stop a running VM, you can perform these actions:

  1. Go to the Compute page from Compute >> VMs menu
  2. Click on the action menu of the VM you want to stop, then choose Update Status; or click on the VM name to see its detail then click on the setting icon
  3. Click on the status switch until the label is changed to STOPPED
  4. Click Save button

Additionally, if you attached any resources to the VM, those resources remain attached until you manually detach them or you delete the VM.