---
title: "Run an action on several nodes at once"
description: "Power off, start, reboot, lock, or unlock up to 10 nodes together instead of one at a time."
content_type: "how-to"
product: "node"
platform: "MyAccount"
url: "/myaccount/node/how-to/run-an-action-on-several-nodes/"
topic: ["power-and-lifecycle"]
---

# Run an action on several nodes at once

Running the same action on many nodes one at a time, from each node's own **Actions** menu,
adds up. **Bulk Actions**, from your nodes list under **Compute > Nodes**, runs it on all of
them together instead, up to 10 nodes in one go.

Select the checkbox next to each node you want to act on, then open **Bulk Actions** and choose
one:

- **Power Off**, to switch the group off without deleting anything on them.
- **Start**, to bring several powered-off nodes back up together.
- **Reboot**, to restart a group of nodes at once, such as after a shared configuration change.
- **Lock**, to block changes to several nodes at the same time; see
  [Lock a node](/myaccount/node/how-to/lock-a-node/) for what locking blocks.
- **Unlock**, to reverse that on the group.

A confirmation dialog opens with two lists. The first shows the nodes the action will run on. The
second shows any selected nodes it will skip, each with the reason beside it, such as its status, a
lock, or recovery mode. Tick **I agree**, then confirm, and
the action runs on the first list. If it can run on none of the nodes you picked, the dialog offers
only **Ok**; change the selection and try again.

Bulk Actions covers only these five. For anything else, such as a plan upgrade or a delete, run the
action on each node one at a time from its own **Actions** menu.

Each node you acted on shows its new state in the node list once the action finishes. If an
action does not run on a node, see [Troubleshooting node actions and lifecycle](/myaccount/node/troubleshooting/actions-and-lifecycle/). To run an action on several nodes through the API instead of the portal, see the
[bulk-action operation](/api/myaccount/operations/bulk-action/) in the API reference.