A tour of the console
Updated
The console is the whole product. Everything Virtainer Free can do is reachable from the sidebar, and everything it shows is this host’s own state.
Dashboard
Section titled “Dashboard”The landing page: host health, capacity, and what is running right now. Start here after a reboot or when something looks wrong.
Instances
Section titled “Instances”Instances sits directly under Dashboard, with no group heading of its own. The table holds every machine on the host, classic VMs and AppVMs together, with the actions that apply to each. See Create a VM, Lifecycle and console, and Logs, exec, and redeploy.
A template is a saved set of create-form parameters, not a machine you clone. Creating from one fills the form in; it does not link the machine to the template afterwards.
A classic VM can also take snapshots, and machines of either kind can be given PCI devices. Before importing an OCI image, Will my image run? is worth two minutes, and Runtime options covers overriding what the image declares.
Virtual machines
Section titled “Virtual machines”The images and templates classic VMs are built from.
| Page | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Images | The Linux cloud images this host can boot: the catalogue, what is on disk, and downloads. See Images and templates |
| Templates | Saved create-form settings for classic VMs |
AppVMs
Section titled “AppVMs”The images and templates AppVMs are built from.
| Page | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Images | OCI and Docker images imported or built into bootable templates. See Run a Docker image |
| Templates | Saved create-form settings for AppVMs |
The resources your machines are built from.
| Page | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Networks | The networks machines attach to. See Networks |
| Interfaces | Every interface on the host, attached to a machine or sitting in the pool, and where you reattach or delete one |
| Storage | The storage pool, its disks, and their health. See Storage pools |
| Volumes | Disks that live independently of any machine. See Data volumes |
| Keys | Scoped keys for automation. See API keys |
System
Section titled “System”Operating the host itself.
| Page | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Operations | Long-running work the host is doing or has done, such as image conversion, publishing, and redeploys, with its log |
| Settings | Web account, port, SSH, VM autostart. See Settings |
| OS Updates | Switch the host to another image. See OS updates |
| Logs & Diagnostics | Logs, disk health, reports. See Logs and diagnostics |
| Danger Zone | Reboot or shut down the host, and factory reset. See Danger Zone |
Working with the list
Section titled “Working with the list”The Instances page is where you will spend most of your time, and it has more controls than a table needs. They are there because a host ends up holding a mix of machines with different purposes.
Search matches a name, an IP address or a hostname, which is usually faster than scanning: on a host that runs anything for a living, you know what you are looking for before you know where it is. The state filter and the type filter narrow to a shape of answer instead, such as everything that is not running, or only AppVMs.
Columns decides what the table shows. The default is deliberately small, so a column you add is a question you decided to ask regularly. The list polls the host every five seconds on its own, so it stays current while things start and stop; Refresh is there for when you want the state right now.
Compare takes the machines you have selected and transposes them, so the question becomes “what differs between these three” rather than “what does this one say”. It is the fastest way to spot the machine that drifted from its siblings.
Two more things worth knowing where they live. A machine’s own page has a boot timeline, which breaks the last boot into phases with a duration each, so a machine that takes ninety seconds to answer can be read as slow at a specific step rather than slow overall. And the header carries a Notifications control: it collects what the host thinks deserves attention, and acknowledging something there is recorded on the host, not in your browser, so it is acknowledged for the next person who signs in too.
Getting help
Section titled “Getting help”The console sidebar has a Support item that opens a Support form. You can attach a diagnostic report generated on this host, and nothing leaves the host until you press Send.