Power off and start a node

Powering off a node shuts it down while leaving its plan, storage, IPs, and configuration in place. Start it again whenever you need it. Do this when you want to pause a node.

Open the node’s Actions menu and click Power Off. It is available only while the node is Running. The confirmation dialog asks you to check a box acknowledging the risk of data loss or corruption before you can confirm. Anything the node was writing to disk does not get a clean shutdown. The node moves to Powered off.

You keep paying for a powered off node until you delete it, the same as for a running one. What it buys you is a fast restart: a powered off node keeps its resources reserved instead of releasing them.

Start a node

Open the node’s Actions menu and click Start. Start is available from Powered off for every series. The confirmation dialog is titled Start Node (Start Firewall for a FortiGate node). The node moves back to Running.

E1-series nodes have a second way to pause them, Stop, which frees their resources instead of reserving them. That is why starting a stopped node takes longer than starting one you powered off. See Stop a node.

A greyed-out Power Off or Start usually means the node is locked or busy; Troubleshooting node actions and lifecycle lists every cause. To power off or start a node through the API instead of the portal, see the node-action operation in the API reference.