Dashboard User Guide

Overview

The Xloud Dashboard User Guide covers all day-to-day operations a project member performs through the browser interface — from launching instances and attaching storage to configuring networks and managing access credentials. Every operation in this guide can also be performed via the CLI or API.

Prerequisites

Active account in an Xloud project with member role or higher
Access to the Dashboard at https://connect.<your-domain>
Supported browser: Chrome 88+, Firefox 90+, Edge 88+, Safari 14+

In This Guide

Instances

Launch, manage, resize, snapshot, and control compute instances

Volumes

Create, attach, extend, snapshot, and back up block storage volumes

Networks

Configure virtual networks, subnets, routers, and floating IPs

Images

Upload OS images, manage instance snapshots, and share images

Object Containers

Browse, upload, and manage objects in Swift containers

Access & Security

Key pairs, security groups, and application credentials

Getting Started

Log in to the Dashboard

Navigate to https://connect.<your-domain> in your browser.Enter your Username, Password, and select your Domain (usually Default). Click Sign In.

If your organization uses LDAP or SAML federation, your login credentials are the same as your corporate directory credentials. Contact your administrator if you are unsure which domain to use. Your administrator can configure this through XDeploy.

Select your project

After login, the top navigation bar shows your active Project and Region. Use the project dropdown to switch between projects you have access to.All resources (instances, volumes, networks) are scoped to the active project.

Navigate the sidebar

The left sidebar organizes resources into sections:

Section	Resources
Project → Compute	Instances, Key Pairs, Server Groups
Project → Volumes	Volumes, Snapshots, Backups, Volume Types
Project → Network	Networks, Routers, Floating IPs, Security Groups
Project → Object Store	Containers, Objects
Project → Orchestration	Stacks, Resource Types
Identity	Projects, Users (if admin)
Monitoring	Grafana, Logs, Security Alerts

Global Search

Xloud Feature The Xloud Dashboard includes a Global Search bar in the top navigation — a cross-resource search built by the Xloud engineering team. It searches across all resource types in your active project simultaneously. How to use:

Click the search icon in the top navigation bar, or press the keyboard shortcut
Type any resource name, ID, IP address, or metadata value
Results appear grouped by resource type — Instances, Volumes, Networks, Floating IPs, Images, etc.
Click any result to navigate directly to that resource’s detail page

What it searches:

Resource Type	Searchable Fields
Instances	Name, ID, IP address, metadata properties, tags
Volumes	Name, ID, attached instance, volume type
Networks	Name, ID, subnet CIDR
Floating IPs	IP address, associated instance
Images	Name, ID, tags, properties
Security Groups	Name, description

Search by IP address to quickly find which instance owns a floating IP or which network contains a specific CIDR — without navigating through each resource list.

Monitoring & Logging

Xloud Feature The Xloud Dashboard integrates monitoring, log analytics, and security alerting directly into the interface — no need to open separate tools. Navigate to Monitoring in the left sidebar.

Infrastructure Monitoring
Log Analytics
Security Alerts (Wazuh)
Alerting

The Monitoring → Dashboards panel embeds Grafana, providing real-time metrics for your entire private cloud infrastructure.Pre-built dashboards include:

Dashboard	Metrics
Compute Overview	Instance count, vCPU/RAM utilization per host, migration activity
Block Storage	Volume IOPS, throughput, latency per backend
Network	Bandwidth, packet rates, floating IP usage
Ceph Storage	Storage device (OSD) status, pool utilization, replication health
Host Health	Node CPU, memory, disk, network per hypervisor
xloud-filefs	Snapshot browser handle usage, cache hit rates, download throughput

Click any panel to drill down to instance-level or host-level detail. Time range selector in the top-right lets you view the last 1h, 6h, 24h, 7d, or custom range.

The Monitoring → Logs panel embeds OpenSearch Dashboards — a full-text log search and analytics interface backed by OpenSearch.Log sources collected:

Source	Description
Nova	Instance lifecycle events, scheduler decisions, API calls
Neutron	Network agent logs, DHCP, L3 routing events
Cinder	Volume creation, attachment, and error events
Keystone	Authentication attempts, token issuance, RBAC denials
System	Kernel logs, systemd unit failures, hardware errors
Audit	All API calls with user, project, resource, and result

Search examples:

instance_id:"abc-12345" AND level:ERROR
user.name:"john.doe" AND action:"create"
host:"compute-01" AND service:"nova-compute"

Use the Discover view for ad-hoc log queries and the Dashboards view for pre-built log analysis panels. Save frequent queries as Saved Searches for one-click access.

The Monitoring → Security panel integrates Wazuh — an open-source security information and event management (SIEM) platform — directly into the Dashboard.What Wazuh monitors:

Category	Examples
Intrusion Detection	SSH brute force, port scans, rootkit detection
File Integrity	Changes to `/etc/passwd`, `/etc/ssh/sshd_config`, system binaries
Policy Compliance	CIS benchmark checks, PCI-DSS controls, HIPAA rules
Vulnerability Detection	CVE matches against installed packages
Anomaly Detection	Unusual process behavior, unexpected network connections

Alerts are routed through Alertmanager for notification delivery (email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhook) based on configurable routing rules. See Alerting Configuration to set up notification channels.

Alerts flow from Prometheus (infrastructure metrics) and Wazuh (security events) through Alertmanager for routing and deduplication.Alert severity levels:

Level	Color	Example Trigger
Critical	Red	Host down, storage device failure, storage full
Warning	Yellow	High CPU for 15 min, disk 80% full
Info	Blue	Instance migration completed, backup finished

View active alerts: Navigate to Monitoring → Alerts to see all firing alerts across your deployment, grouped by severity and service.

Alert routing rules (who gets notified for which alerts) are configured by administrators. See Alert Channels.

Xloud Feature The Xloud Dashboard allows you to set login credentials for VM guest operating systems directly from the browser console — no SSH connection or external access required. This is available from the instance Console tab.

Linux VMs
Windows VMs

Open the VNC Console

Navigate to the instance detail page → Console tab. The browser-based VNC console opens showing the guest OS terminal.

Set login credentials

From the Dashboard’s console toolbar, use the Set Credentials action to configure:

Field	Description
Username	Linux username (e.g., `ubuntu`, `ec2-user`, `root`)
Password	New password for the specified user

The Dashboard injects the credential change via the XAVS Guest Agent (must be running inside the instance) or via console input simulation. The XAVS Guest Agent includes a VSS provider for Windows application-consistent snapshots.

Verify login

Switch to the console tab and log in with the new credentials.

For SSH access, add your public key via Access & Security → Key Pairs instead of password auth — passwords are less secure than key-based authentication.

Open the VNC Console

Navigate to the instance detail page → Console tab.

Set Administrator password

From the Dashboard console toolbar, use Set Credentials to set or reset the Windows Administrator password:

Field	Description
Username	`Administrator` (or any local user account)
Password	New Windows password

The credential change is applied via the XAVS Guest Agent running inside the Windows VM. cloudbase-init must be installed and configured in the image. The XAVS Guest Agent includes a VSS provider for application-consistent snapshots on Windows.

RDP access

After setting the password, connect via RDP using the instance’s floating IP:

mstsc /v:<floating-ip>
Username: Administrator
Password: <password-set-above>

Windows VMs require cloudbase-init and the XAVS Guest Agent Windows service to be installed in the image for credential injection to work. The XAVS Guest Agent includes a VSS provider for application-consistent snapshots. See Image Requirements for details.

Activity Reporting

Xloud Feature The Dashboard includes an Activity panel that provides a chronological audit trail of all operations performed on resources in your project. Navigate to Project → Activity (or Admin → Activity for the cross-project admin view). What is recorded:

Event Type	Examples
Instance events	Launch, reboot, snapshot, resize, live scaling, delete
Volume events	Create, attach, extend, backup, restore, delete
Network events	Create network/router, allocate/associate floating IP
Identity events	Role assignment, project membership change, credential creation
Admin events	Flavor create/delete, quota change, host aggregate modification

Each activity record shows:

Timestamp (UTC)
User who performed the action
Project scope
Resource type and ID
Action performed
Result (success or error)
Source IP address

Activity reporting in the current Dashboard provides project-scoped action history. Cross-project audit logs and advanced analytics (time-series activity reports, per-user action heatmaps, export to SIEM) are coming in XCONNECT.

Xloud-Exclusive Features

Xloud-Developed — This capability is developed by Xloud and ships with XAVS / XPCI.

The following features are built by the Xloud engineering team and are not available in upstream Dashboard distributions.

Global Notification Bell

Multi-source alert aggregation in the top navbar. Audio notifications for critical alerts. Browser notification API integration. Extensible to multiple alert sources. Requires XAVS.

Global Search

Press Ctrl+K to search across 22 resource types: instances, volumes, images, networks, security groups, floating IPs, routers, snapshots, key pairs, backups, flavors, hypervisors, host aggregates, availability zones, volume types, services, agents, users, projects, domains, groups, roles. Admin-gated results. Requires XPCI.

Right-Click Context Menu

Right-click any table row to access instance, volume, and network actions. Preserves all original action handlers. Requires XPCI.

Snapshot File Browser

Browse files inside VM snapshots without restoring. Partition detection, directory navigation, single file download, multi-file ZIP archive. No in-VM agent required (agentless). Requires XAVS.

Next Steps

Launch an Instance

Create your first compute instance through the Dashboard

Dashboard Admin Guide

Configure and customize the Dashboard for your organization

Identity & Access

Manage users, projects, and roles for Dashboard access

CLI Setup

Use the Xloud CLI as an alternative to the Dashboard

Core Services

Other Services

Dashboard User Guide

Overview

In This Guide

Instances

Volumes

Networks

Images

Object Containers

Access & Security

Getting Started

Log in to the Dashboard

Select your project

Navigate the sidebar

Global Search

Monitoring & Logging

Open the VNC Console

Set login credentials

Verify login

Open the VNC Console

Set Administrator password

RDP access

Activity Reporting

Xloud-Exclusive Features

Global Notification Bell

Global Search

Right-Click Context Menu

Snapshot File Browser

Next Steps

Launch an Instance

Dashboard Admin Guide

Identity & Access

CLI Setup

Core Services

Other Services

​Overview

​In This Guide

Instances

Volumes

Networks

Images

Object Containers

Access & Security

​Getting Started

Log in to the Dashboard

Select your project

Navigate the sidebar

​Global Search

​Monitoring & Logging

​Linux & Windows VM Console Login

Open the VNC Console

Set login credentials

Verify login

Open the VNC Console

Set Administrator password

RDP access

​Activity Reporting

​Xloud-Exclusive Features

Global Notification Bell

Global Search

Right-Click Context Menu

Snapshot File Browser

​Next Steps

Launch an Instance

Dashboard Admin Guide

Identity & Access

CLI Setup

Overview

In This Guide

Getting Started

Global Search

Monitoring & Logging

Linux & Windows VM Console Login

Activity Reporting

Xloud-Exclusive Features

Next Steps