Managed Virtual Machine Service (MVMS)¶

The Managed Virtual Machine Service (MVMS) allows you to deploy and manage standalone virtual machine instances on your registered infrastructure. MVMS provides a simple way to run legacy applications, custom workloads, or services that require dedicated virtual hardware.

Key Features¶

On-Demand Provisioning: Quickly deploy VM instances with your choice of operating system and hardware configuration.
Power Management: Control the power state of your instances (On/Off) directly from the platform.
Flexible Networking: Attach instances to multiple networks and apply custom firewall rules per interface.
Security Integration: Inject SSH keys for secure access and apply security groups (Firewalls) to control traffic.
Cloud-Init Support: Use cloud-init scripts to automate the initialization and configuration of your instances.
Console Access: View boot logs and access interactive remote console for troubleshooting.

MVMS Instances¶

An MVMS Instance is the core resource representing a virtual machine. When creating an instance, you configure its hardware, software, and connectivity.

Instance Configuration¶

Flavor: Defines the compute resources (CPU, RAM, Disk) allocated to the instance.
Image: The operating system or base image used to boot the instance.
SSH Key: An optional SSH key injected into the instance to allow secure remote access.
Cloud-Init: An optional configuration applied on the instance's first boot (see below).

Flavors, images and SSH keys come from curated lists

The Flavor and Image options come from the infrastructure's Catalog — only entries an administrator has enabled are available, and each shows its specs (vCPUs / RAM / disk for flavors, minimum RAM / disk for images). The SSH Key is optional and limited to one key, chosen from the keys registered for the selected infrastructure.

Cloud-Init¶

Cloud-init lets you configure users, packages, files and start-up commands automatically the first time the VM boots. It is provided at creation time and runs once, on first boot.

You can supply it in two ways from the create form:

Editor: Write or paste the cloud-init configuration inline. A Load Example button drops in a working starting point.
Upload File: Upload a YAML, YML or TXT file (up to 16 KB) by clicking or dragging it in. The uploaded contents are shown in a read-only preview.

Power Management¶

You can manage the power state of your instances after they are created. MVMS tracks both the Desired Power Status (what you want) and the Actual Power Status (what the infrastructure reports).

Power On: Starts the instance if it is currently off.
Power Off: Safely shuts down the instance.

The platform continuously monitors the instance and ensures that the actual state matches your desired state.

Monitoring and Remote Access¶

MVMS provides tools to monitor your instance's boot process and interact with it directly when SSH access is unavailable.

Console Logs¶

The Console Logs panel shows your instance's console output — useful for troubleshooting boot-up issues or checking the progress of cloud-init scripts. From the panel you can:

Choose how many of the most recent lines to show (35, 50, 100, 200 or 500; 50 by default, or a custom value), and Refresh to pull the latest output.
Copy the logs to your clipboard.
Download them as a vm-<id>-logs.txt file.

The view auto-scrolls to the newest output as it loads.

Remote Console¶

For direct interaction, open a web-based remote console with the Open Console action. It opens a VNC or Serial interface to the instance in your browser, letting you log in and manage the system even when networking or SSH is not yet configured.

Networking and Security¶

MVMS provides fine-grained control over how your instances connect to the network.

Network Attachments¶

Every instance must have at least one Network Attachment, and the first one cannot be removed. Each attachment connects the instance to a specific Network and assigns it an IP address automatically — you cannot set a fixed IP per interface, and the order of attachments does not matter. The networks and firewall rulesets you can choose are limited to those in the same project and infrastructure as the VM.

Firewalls (Security Groups)¶

You can apply one or more Firewall Rulesets to each network attachment. This allows you to control inbound and outbound traffic for each interface independently, providing a robust security layer for your applications.

Editing an instance¶

After an instance is created, most of its definition is fixed:

Editable: name and description.
Fixed for the life of the instance: flavor, image, SSH key and cloud-init.
Network attachments can be changed separately (add or remove attachments), but an existing attachment's network cannot be switched — remove the attachment and add a new one to point it at a different network.

Lifecycle States¶

MVMS instances follow a standard lifecycle:

Pending: The instance is being prepared for creation.
Creating: The infrastructure is provisioning the virtual machine.
Active: The instance is running and available.
Updating: Configuration changes (like network attachments) are being applied.
Degraded: An update operation failed. The instance is still running but may not reflect the requested configuration. This state is typically recoverable.
Deleting: The instance and its associated resources are being removed.
Error: An operation failed, and the instance requires attention.

Getting Started¶

To deploy your first virtual machine, navigate to the Compute & Network > Virtual Machines section in the platform dashboard. You will need to select an infrastructure, a project, and define your instance's properties.

Ensure you have created the necessary Networks and SSH Keys before starting the deployment.