About instances
What Akasha instances are, the difference between containers and virtual machines, instance statuses, and how instances behave in the console.
An instance is a workload you run on Akasha. It can be a system container or a virtual machine, and it always lives inside a project — the unit of isolation that groups your instances, storage, and networks and controls who can access them.
Instance types
| Type | Shown as | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Container | Container | A system container that shares the host kernel. Fast to start, low overhead, and the terminal works out of the box. |
| Virtual machine | VM | A full virtual machine with its own kernel. Use a VM when you need a different kernel, a full OS installer from a custom ISO, or hardware-level features such as secure boot. |
| Application container | Container (App) | A container created from an OCI registry image (for example, an image you would otherwise run with a container runtime). Created by choosing an OCI image source at creation time. |
Some capabilities differ by type: VMs get a graphical (SPICE) console and can boot custom ISOs, while containers get container-specific settings such as process limits and nesting. See Configure instances and Access instances for the details.
Instance statuses
The instance list and the instance header show the current status:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
Running | The instance is up. |
Stopped | The instance is shut down. Some actions, such as delete and rename, require this status. |
Frozen | The instance's processes are paused. Start it to resume. |
Error | The instance is in a failed state. It can be deleted in this status. |
Starting, Stopping, Restarting, Freezing | Transitional states while an action is in progress. |
Migrating | The instance is being moved to another location. |
The instance detail page
Click an instance name in Instances to open its detail page. It has these tabs:
- Overview — status, base image, addresses, usage gauges, devices, profiles, and (for VMs) a live screenshot preview.
- Configuration — all instance settings, organized in sections, with a YAML editor. See Configure instances.
- Snapshots — create, restore, and schedule snapshots. See Instance snapshots.
- Terminal — an interactive shell inside the instance.
- Console — the text console, or the graphical console for VMs. See Access instances.
- Logs — instance log files, viewable inline and downloadable.
Clicking a row in the instance list (outside the name) opens a side panel with a summary of the same information.
Asynchronous operations
Most instance actions — create, start, stop, delete, export — do not block the console. Each action returns an operation that runs in the background; toast notifications report progress, success, or failure. An instance that is still being created appears in the list as a Setting up row with a cancel button. You can review and cancel recent operations on the Operations page. See Troubleshoot instances.