Guide: Instance Action Menu

Instance Action Menu (Dashboard Guide)

Once an instance is running, you can manage it using the dropdown menu located on the far right of the instance list (Compute → Instances). This menu provides various options for network, storage, power state, and instance lifecycle management.

Below is an explanation of all available actions, grouped by their function.

💾 Core Action: Snapshots

• Create Snapshot: This is typically the default button next to the dropdown menu. It creates a complete, point-in-time image of the instance's current disk state. This snapshot can be used as a backup or as a template to launch new instances with the exact same configuration.

🌐 Network Configuration

These options manage how your instance communicates internally and externally.

• Associate / Disassociate Floating IP: Assigns a public IP address to your instance, making it accessible from the internet (e.g., for SSH or web servers). Use Disassociate to remove the public IP and free it up for other resources.
• Attach / Detach Interface: Adds or removes a virtual Network Interface Card (NIC). This is useful if your instance needs to connect to multiple separate private networks simultaneously.
• Edit Security Groups: Allows you to attach or detach Security Groups (virtual firewalls). These groups define which incoming (ingress) and outgoing (egress) traffic is permitted for the instance.
• Edit Port Security Groups: Manages security rules directly on the network port level, offering more granular control than instance-level security groups.

💽 Storage Management

• Attach / Detach Volume: Connects or disconnects persistent block storage (Cinder Volumes) to your instance. Volumes are ideal for storing data that must persist even if the instance is deleted or rebuilt.

⚙️ Administration & Diagnostics

• Edit Instance: Allows you to change basic metadata, such as the instance's display name.
• Update Meta Add or edit key-value tags associated with the instance. This can be used for organizational purposes or to trigger specific cloud-init scripts during boot.
• Console: Opens an interactive, web-based terminal directly in your browser (VNC/SPICE). This is crucial for troubleshooting if you lose SSH access due to network misconfiguration or firewall issues.
• View Log: Displays the console output and boot logs of the instance. This is the first place to look if an instance fails to boot properly.
• Rescue Instance: Reboots the instance using a temporary, minimal rescue operating system. Your original root disk is attached as a secondary drive, allowing you to fix broken file systems or recover a lost password.
• Lock / Unlock Instance: Prevents accidental changes, state modifications, or deletion of the instance by other users within the same project.

⏸️ Power States & Resource Management

These options allow you to temporarily halt an instance.

• Pause / Unpause Instance: Freezes the instance. The state is kept in RAM, allowing for an immediate resume. However, it still consumes compute resources on the host.
• Suspend / Resume Instance: Saves the current RAM state to disk and halts the instance. This frees up hypervisor resources, but resuming takes slightly longer than unpausing.
• Shelve / Unshelve Instance: Shuts down the instance and moves it off the compute node into image storage. This completely frees up your allocated CPU and RAM quota. Unshelving restores the instance to a new compute node.

⚠️ Critical System Actions

These actions severely impact the instance lifecycle and are often marked in red in the dashboard to prevent accidental clicks.

• Resize Instance: Changes the instance's flavor (e.g., upgrading from m1.small to m1.medium). This requires the instance to be restarted and the resize action to be explicitly confirmed afterwards.
• Soft Reboot Instance: Sends a graceful shutdown signal to the guest operating system, allowing it to close processes safely before rebooting (similar to typing sudo reboot).
• Hard Reboot Instance: Forces an immediate restart at the hypervisor level (similar to pressing the physical reset button on a server). Use this only if the instance is unresponsive.
• Shut Off Instance: Forcibly powers down the instance (virtual power plug pull).
• Rebuild Instance: Re-installs the operating system from a selected image. Warning: All data on the local ephemeral root disk will be permanently destroyed. The instance retains its IP address and ID.
• Delete Instance: Permanently destroys the instance and all ephemeral data. Attached volumes and Floating IPs will be detached but not deleted.

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Step-by-Step Example: Associating a Floating IP

If you need your instance to be reachable from the outside world (e.g., for an SSH connection), you must assign it a Floating IP.

1. Navigate to Compute → Instances.
2. Locate your running instance in the list.
3. Open the dropdown menu on the right side and select Associate Floating IP.
4. A new window will appear:
   • IP Address: Select an available IP from the list. If the list is empty, click the + (Plus) button to allocate a new IP from the public pool.
   • Port to be associated: Select the network interface of your instance that should receive the IP (usually, there is only one).
5. Click Associate. The Floating IP will now be displayed next to your internal IP in the instance list.