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Yandex Compute Cloud
  • Getting started
    • Overview
    • Creating a Linux VM
    • Creating a Windows VM
    • Creating instance groups
  • Step-by-step instructions
    • All instructions
    • Creating VMs
      • Creating a Linux VM
      • Creating a Windows VM
      • Creating a VM from a set of disks
      • Creating a VM with disks from snapshots
      • Creating a VM from a custom image
      • Creating a VM with a GPU
      • Making a VM preemptible
    • DSVM
      • Overview
      • Creating a VM from a public DSVM image
    • Placement groups
      • Creating a placement group
      • Deleting a placement group
      • Creating a VM in a placement group
      • Adding a VM to a placement group
      • Removing a VM from a placement group
    • Images with pre-installed software
      • Creating a VM from a public image
      • Configuring software
      • Running a VM based on a public image
      • Getting a list of public images
    • Getting information about a VM
      • Getting information about a VM
      • Getting serial port's output
    • Managing VMs
      • Stopping and starting a VM
      • Attaching a disk to a VM
      • Detaching a disk from a VM
      • Moving a VM to a different availability zone
      • Moving a VM to another folder
      • Attaching a public IP address to a VM
      • Detaching a public IP address from a VM
      • Making a VM's public IP address static
      • Updating a VM
      • Changing VM computing resources
      • Deleting a VM
    • Working on VMs
      • Connecting to a VM via SSH
      • Connecting to a VM via RDP
      • Connecting to a VM via PowerShell
      • Working with Yandex Cloud from inside a VM
      • Installing NVIDIA drivers
      • Restoring access to a VM
    • Creating new disks
      • Creating an empty disk
      • Creating an empty disk with a large block
      • Creating a non-replicated disk
    • Disk management
      • Creating a disk snapshot
      • Updating a disk
      • Moving a disk to another folder
      • Deleting a disk
      • Deleting a disk snapshot
    • Disk placement groups
      • Creating a disk placement group
      • Removing a disk from a placement group
    • Creating new images
      • Preparing a disk image
      • Uploading your image
      • Creating an image from a disk
      • Creating an image from a snapshot
      • Creating an image from other custom image
    • Managing images
      • Getting a list of images
      • Deleting a disk image
    • File storage
      • Creating file storage
      • Attaching file storage to a VM
      • Detaching file storage from a VM
      • Updating file storage
      • Deleting file storage
    • Managing the serial console
      • Getting started
      • Connecting to a serial console via SSH
      • Connecting to a serial console via CLI
      • Starting your terminal in the Windows serial console (SAC)
      • Disabling access to the serial console
    • Creating instance groups
      • Creating a fixed-size instance group
      • Creating a fixed-size instance group with a network load balancer
      • Creating a fixed-size instance group with an L7 load balancer
      • Creating an automatically scaled instance group
      • Creating an instance group from a Container Optimized Image
      • Creating an instance group based on the YAML specification
    • Getting information about instance groups
      • Getting a list of instance groups
      • Getting information about an instance group
      • Getting a list of instances in a group
    • Managing instance groups
      • Editing an instance group
      • Edit an instance group based on the YAML specification
      • Configuring application health check on the VM
      • Updating a group
        • Incremental update
        • Uninterrupted updates
      • Pausing an instance group
      • Resuming an instance group
      • Stopping an instance group
      • Starting an instance group
      • Deleting an instance group
    • Dedicated hosts
      • Creating a VM in a group of dedicated hosts
      • Creating a VM on a dedicated host
  • Yandex Container Solution
  • Practical guidelines
    • Configuring NTP time synchronization
    • Running instance groups with auto scaling
    • Automatically scaling an instance group for handling messages from a queue
    • Updating an instance group under load
    • Deploying Remote Desktop Gateway
    • Transferring logs from a VM instance to Yandex Cloud Logging
  • Concepts
    • Relationship between resources
    • Virtual machines
      • Overview
      • Platforms
      • vCPU performance levels
      • Preemptible VMs
      • Network on a VM
      • Software-accelerated network
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      • Statuses
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    • Disks and file storage
      • Overview
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        • Overview
        • Allocating instances across zones
        • Deployment algorithm
        • Rules for updating virtual machines
        • Changing secondary disks in an instance template
      • Stopping and pausing an instance group
      • Statuses
    • Dedicated host
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  • Access management
  • Pricing policy
    • Current pricing policy
    • Archive
      • Before January 1, 2019
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  • API reference
    • Authentication in the API
    • gRPC
      • Overview
      • DiskPlacementGroupService
      • DiskService
      • DiskTypeService
      • FilesystemService
      • HostGroupService
      • HostTypeService
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      • InstanceService
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      • SnapshotService
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    • REST
      • Overview
      • DiskPlacementGroup
        • Overview
        • create
        • delete
        • get
        • list
        • listDisks
        • listOperations
        • update
      • Disk
        • Overview
        • create
        • delete
        • get
        • list
        • listOperations
        • move
        • update
      • DiskType
        • Overview
        • get
        • list
      • Filesystem
        • Overview
        • create
        • delete
        • get
        • list
        • listOperations
        • update
      • HostGroup
        • Overview
        • create
        • delete
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        • list
        • listHosts
        • listInstances
        • listOperations
        • update
      • HostType
        • Overview
        • get
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      • Image
        • Overview
        • create
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        • get
        • getLatestByFamily
        • list
        • listOperations
        • update
      • Instance
        • Overview
        • addOneToOneNat
        • attachDisk
        • attachFilesystem
        • create
        • delete
        • detachDisk
        • detachFilesystem
        • get
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        • list
        • listOperations
        • move
        • removeOneToOneNat
        • restart
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        • stop
        • update
        • updateMetadata
        • updateNetworkInterface
      • PlacementGroup
        • Overview
        • create
        • delete
        • get
        • list
        • listInstances
        • listOperations
        • update
      • Snapshot
        • Overview
        • create
        • delete
        • get
        • list
        • listOperations
        • update
      • Zone
        • Overview
        • get
        • list
      • Operation
        • Overview
        • get
      • InstanceGroup
        • Overview
        • list
        • get
        • listLogRecords
        • updateFromYaml
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        • pauseProcesses
        • stop
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        • delete
        • listInstances
        • createFromYaml
        • update
        • setAccessBindings
        • listOperations
        • create
        • listAccessBindings
        • resumeProcesses
  • Questions and answers
    • General questions
    • Virtual machines
    • Connection
    • Disks, snapshots, and images
    • Disaster recovery
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    • All questions on the same page
  1. Concepts
  2. Virtual machines
  3. Overview

Virtual machines

Written by
Yandex Cloud
  • VM as a Yandex Cloud resource
  • Availability zone
  • Computing resources
  • Disks
  • Statuses
  • Metadata
  • Network

A VM is similar to a server in the cloud infrastructure.

VM as a Yandex Cloud resource

A VM is created in one of the folders in your cloud and inherits access rights from them. More information about the Yandex Cloud resource model.

You cannot currently move a created VM to a different folder.

Each VM has a unique ID and name. The name is unique within the folder. The ID is generated automatically when the VM is being created and is unique within Yandex Cloud.

Availability zone

When creating a VM, you can choose the Yandex Cloud availability zone where it will be located.

You can't move a VM to a different availability zone, but you can create a copy of it in a different availability zone.

Computing resources

When creating a VM, you specify the amount of computing resources to be allocated to it: the number and performance of processor cores (vCPUs) and the amount of RAM. You can choose the computing resources that are appropriate for the expected load. For more information, see vCPU performance levels.

Disks

At least one disk must be attached to a VM, that is, a boot disk. Currently, you can only attach a boot disk when creating a VM.

You can also attach additional disks to the VM. You can either attach a previously created disk or create a disk along with the VM. The new disk can be empty, or you can restore it from a snapshot or image.

Note

Empty disks do not have a file system. If you attach an empty disk, partition and mount it manually. Alternatively, instead of attaching an empty disk, you can create a snapshot of the boot disk and create a VM based on the snapshot.

You can attach and detach additional disks even after you created the VM.

Read more about disks in Disks.

Statuses

The status of a VM affects which operations you can currently perform on it.

For example, the STOPPED status means that the VM is stopped and you can't connect to it. To connect to the VM, you must start it first. After the status changes to RUNNING and the OS loads, you'll be able to connect to the VM.

For more information about statuses, see VM statuses.

Metadata

You can set your own metadata when creating or updating VMs. For example, to connect to a Linux VM, you need to pass an SSH key to it. This is done using the metadata service. For more information, see VM instance metadata.

Network

When creating a VM, you need to set the settings of the network interface connected to it: select the subnet to connect the VM to, configure internal and public IP addresses, and add the necessary security groups. This allows the VM to interact with other services on the intranet and internet.

Note

Security groups are at the Preview stage. If they aren't available in your network, all incoming and outgoing traffic will be allowed for the VM and no additional setup is required.

For more information, see Network on a VM.

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© 2022 Yandex.Cloud LLC
In this article:
  • VM as a Yandex Cloud resource
  • Availability zone
  • Computing resources
  • Disks
  • Statuses
  • Metadata
  • Network