Stop, start, and restart a VM

Stop an hourly TIR Virtual Machine when you are done with it for now. Its compute charge ends, and its disk and files wait for you. Start it again to use the same disk and files, or restart it to reboot it in one step. A VM that is waiting for capacity has its own way out, Revoke Request.

Before you begin

• A VM in a TIR project. See Create a VM.
• Permission to update VMs in the project. See TIR Access Control.
• To start a VM on a prepaid account, credit for the plan in your balance.

Each action is in the Actions menu of the VM’s row in Manage VMs. On the VM’s details page, Start and Stop are at the top, and Restart VM is under More Actions. Which actions you can take depends on the VM’s status, its plan, and your role.

Action	Offered when the VM is	Takes about
Stop VM	Running, Waiting, Pending, or in Error	15 seconds
Start VM	Stopped, and shown while Stopping	45 seconds
Restart VM	Any status except Stopped, Stopping, or Pending	50 seconds

The disk keeps its files across a stop, a start, and a restart.

Stop a VM

You can stop an hourly VM or a VM on a private cluster. A VM on a committed plan runs for its whole term, so you can restart it but not stop it.

1. On the list, open Actions on the VM’s row and choose Stop VM. On the details page, select Stop.
2. Read the warnings, tick the box that reads “I understand and want to stop the VM” followed by the VM’s name, and select Stop.

The VM goes from Stopping to Stopped. The plan charge of an hourly VM ends when it stops. The disk above 30 GB is still billed until you delete the VM.

When the VM starts again, a floating public IP can come back as a different address. To keep the same address, attach a reserved IP before you stop the VM.

Start a VM

1. Once the VM shows Stopped, open Actions on its row and choose Start VM, or select Start on its details page.
2. Confirm with Start.

The VM is back in about 45 seconds and turns Running. The plan charge of an hourly VM starts again when the VM is ready, and your startup scripts run again, because they run on every boot.

A start needs free capacity for the plan. If the plan is short of capacity, see Inventory temporarily unavailable.

Restart a VM

A restart interrupts everything running on the VM, so save your work first. The disk keeps its files. Restart a VM to apply a change that needs one, such as a change to a startup script.

1. Open Actions on the VM’s row, or More Actions on its details page, and choose Restart VM.
2. Confirm with Restart.

The VM is back in about 50 seconds. The time an hourly VM is down during a restart is not billed.

Withdraw a VM that is waiting for capacity

A VM that shows Pending is waiting for compute capacity, and it starts by itself as soon as capacity frees up. To give up the wait, open Actions on its row in Manage VMs, choose Revoke Request, and select Revoke. A VM that has yet to run is deleted. A VM that has run before is stopped, and you can start it later or delete it.

See the new status

After a stop, the VM’s status is Stopped; after a start or a restart, it is Running. A failed action reports “Unable to start VM”, “Unable to stop VM”, or “Unable to restart VM”, or the reason TIR gives. For what to do next, see Troubleshooting TIR Virtual Machines.

To sign in to a VM that is running again, see Connect to a VM over SSH. To end the VM’s own charges, see Delete a VM.