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Overview

Rebooting an instance restarts the guest operating system without terminating the instance or releasing its network addresses. Xloud Compute supports two reboot types: a soft reboot that cooperates with the guest OS, and a hard reboot that forcibly power-cycles the virtual machine.
Prerequisites
  • An instance in ACTIVE status
  • member or admin role in the project
  • CLI users: Xloud CLI configured and credentials sourced

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Soft vs Hard Reboot

AttributeSoft RebootHard Reboot
Signal sentACPI shutdown signalImmediate power-cycle (equivalent to reset button)
Guest OS involvementOS performs clean shutdown and restartOS receives no signal — forcibly stopped
Data integrityIn-flight writes flushed before restartRisk of in-flight data loss if OS had pending writes
Use caseNormal restarts, applying kernel or service updatesOS is unresponsive, soft reboot did not complete
DurationLonger — OS shutdown sequence runsFaster — bypasses OS shutdown
CLI flag(default)--hard
Always attempt a soft reboot first. Use a hard reboot only if the instance is completely unresponsive and a soft reboot does not complete within 60–90 seconds.

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Reboot an Instance

Navigate to the instance

Log in to the Xloud Dashboard (https://connect.<your-domain>) and navigate to Project → Compute → Instances.

Select reboot type

In the instance row, open the Actions dropdown:
  • Select Soft Reboot Instance to send an ACPI shutdown signal to the guest OS.
  • Select Hard Reboot Instance to forcibly power-cycle the instance.

Confirm

Click Soft Reboot Instance or Hard Reboot Instance in the confirmation dialog.
The instance transitions briefly to Reboot status and returns to Active once the guest OS has restarted.

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When to Use Each Reboot Type

Use a soft reboot to apply a newly installed kernel or system package that requires a restart. The OS will complete any pending write operations and shut down cleanly before restarting.
Use a soft reboot when restarting system services (e.g., network, SSH, firewall) via a reboot is more reliable than individual service restarts.
If the guest OS is frozen and the console shows no activity, use a hard reboot to force a power cycle. Check the console log after the hard reboot to diagnose the root cause of the freeze.
View console log after hard reboot
openstack console log show my-instance | tail -50
If a soft reboot leaves the instance in REBOOT status for more than 90 seconds without returning to ACTIVE, escalate to a hard reboot.
Hard reboot when soft reboot stalls
openstack server reboot --hard my-instance

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Next Steps

Rescue an Instance

Boot from a rescue image to recover from OS failures that survive a reboot

Resize an Instance

Change the instance flavor to adjust vCPU and RAM allocation

Launch an Instance

Create new instances with the correct configuration to minimize reboots

Compute User Guide

Overview of all compute operations and instance lifecycle management