Virtual Machines

A virtual machine (VM) in Talos Director runs on a host, usually inside a cluster that decides where it is placed and moves it when a host fails or is put into maintenance. The Virtual Machines pages are where you create VMs, find them, and operate them day to day.

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The Virtual Machines view

Navigate to Compute > Virtual Machines > All VMs (/vms) to see every VM across all clusters in one table.

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Columns

The table shows the following columns by default. Select Columns to show more of the available columns.

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Controls

• Filter VMs…: filter the table with free text or query-style expressions, for example power_state:PoweredOn.
• Group: group the table’s rows.
• Export CSV: download the current view.
• Columns: choose which columns are visible.
• Refresh: reload VM data on demand.
• Create VM: create a new virtual machine. See Create a virtual machine.

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Row actions

The Actions menu on each row offers Power On, Shutdown (Graceful), Force Off, Reboot, Move to Folder, Clone VM, and View Details. Shutdown (Graceful) asks the guest operating system to shut down. Force Off cuts power immediately, the equivalent of pulling the plug, and can lose data the guest has not written to disk.

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Create a virtual machine

Select Create VM to open the Create Virtual Machine form. A VM Summary panel beside the form updates as you fill it in, and Equivalent CLI / API shows the same request in a form you can script.

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Basic configuration

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CPU and memory

Pick a preset size, from Micro (1 vCPU, 1 GB) to 2XL (32 vCPU, 64 GB), or choose Custom and set vCPUs and Memory (GB) yourself. Advanced CPU Topology and Scheduling & NUMA let you set sockets, cores, threads, and NUMA placement when a workload needs them.

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Storage

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Network interface

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Advanced options

• Firmware: BIOS (Legacy) or UEFI, with Enable Secure Boot available for UEFI.
• Enable VNC Console: adds a graphical console. A serial console is always available.
• Advanced VM Parameters: lower-level hypervisor settings.
• Guest customization: off by default, so the VM boots the image unchanged. Turn it on to set the hostname, network, SSH keys, and more through cloud-init (Linux) or cloudbase-init (Windows).

Select Create Virtual Machine to create the VM.

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The VM detail screen

Click a VM name to open its detail screen. The header shows the VM’s power state, with Power On and Shutdown buttons and an Actions menu that covers the rest of the VM’s operations, including opening the console, editing settings, renaming, migrating the VM or its storage to another host or pool, mounting an ISO, creating a template, and cloning.

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Overview

The VM’s system details (host, FQDN, IP address, cluster, guest status, disk size, and firmware), its CPU and memory allocation with shares, reservations, and limits, and its High Availability and Resource Scheduler settings. A live console preview sits beside them, with Open Full Console for a full-screen session. The tab also holds free-form Notes and the VM’s Tags, which security groups can use to select VMs.

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Drives

The VM’s virtual disks and CD/DVD drives. Disks can be added, removed, and expanded while the VM runs. Mount ISO attaches an ISO image to a virtual CD/DVD drive.

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Network

The VM’s network interfaces, with their network, VLAN, MAC address, IP address, and state. Use Add NIC to attach another interface, and Shaping to limit an interface’s bandwidth. The tab also lists the firewall policies applied to the VM and a Connectivity Test that checks whether a given flow from this VM is allowed, and which rule decides it. See Security.

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Metrics

CPU, memory, disk, and network metrics for the VM.

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Firewall Activity

Watch the firewall’s verdicts on the VM’s traffic in real time. Choose a duration, a direction, and which drop reasons to include, then select Start live capture. Captures stop on their own when the duration runs out.

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Config

Scheduling quality of service, CPU reservations and limits, NUMA topology, and disk I/O limits. The tab also shows the VM’s full hypervisor configuration and its history, and flags it when the running VM differs from the stored definition.

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Alerts, Events, and Logs

Alerts lists alerts raised for the VM. Events is its history: power changes, guest agent connections, disk errors, and the create and migrate operations that touched it. Logs shows hypervisor, guest agent, and crash diagnostic logs, with a live-follow mode.

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Snapshots

Capture the VM’s disk state at a point in time. Snapshots layer on top of each other, and reverting to one discards every change made after it.

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Backups

The VM’s backup jobs. Select Create backup to set one up, or View all to open the full list of backup jobs.

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CPU

The CPU profile the VM uses, the CPU model it presents to the guest, and how many hosts in the cluster can run it. A VM can only live-migrate to a host whose CPU supports that profile.

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Customization

Guest customization applied to the VM. Select Apply customization… to set the hostname, network, SSH keys, and similar settings through cloud-init or cloudbase-init.

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Import from VMware

Compute > Virtual Machines > Import brings existing VMs over from VMware vCenter and converts them to run on Talos Director. See Migrate from VMware.