Lock a node

Locking a node blocks the actions that could change or remove it, keeping it exactly as it is until you reverse the lock. Use it to protect a node from changes made by mistake, yours or a teammate’s.

If all you want is to stop the node from being deleted or reinstalled, Enable Accidental Protection does exactly that and leaves everything else open. Lock the node when you want to hold everything about it in place. That covers its plan, its committed settings, its SSH keys, and its IP addresses.

Lock the node

In MyAccount, open Compute and then Nodes. Next to the node, open Actions and click Lock Node. A confirmation dialog opens; check its box, then confirm.

Once the lock takes effect, the same menu entry reads Unlock Node; that is how you can tell the node is locked, and how you reverse it.

What a lock blocks and what still works

A lock blocks these until you remove it:

• saving an image, starting, powering off, deleting, rebooting, or reinstalling the node
• moving it to another project
• changing its plan, its committed settings, or its IPv6 addresses
• adding or removing an SSH key
• attaching or detaching any IP

Scheduled snapshots for the node or its volumes are skipped while it is locked.

How you reach the node stays the same. SSH and VNC through Access Console work exactly as before, and anything the node is already serving to the internet stays reachable.

Unlock the node

Open Actions on the node and click Unlock Node. Every action that the lock blocked is available again immediately.

You can lock several nodes at once, or take their locks off, too: select them on the node list and choose Lock or Unlock from Bulk Actions; see Run an action on several nodes at once.

Still greyed out after removing the lock? Troubleshooting node actions and lifecycle covers the usual causes.