How to work with VMs

A virtual machine (VM) in the BILLmanager control panel is called a virtual server. In this article, these concepts will be used interchangeably.

In BILLmanager you can work with virtual machines both on the provider's side (the panel administrator) and on the client's side.

Managing a VM from BILLmanager
Operations with VMs	Provider	Client
Creating a new VM
Editing the VM resources within the specified quotas *
Deleting a VM
Enabling a VM **
Disabling a VM **
Rebooting a VM
Going to the VMmanager 6 platform
VM snapshot management ***

* — the quota is determined by the tariff parameters set by the provider and the client's balance.

** — enabling/disabling VM is available to clients only if the provider has added clients to a client group, for which these features are enabled in the group settings.

*** — VM snapshot management is available only if the function is provided by the tariff and if the limit on the number of snapshots is not exceeded.

On the provider’s side

Provider can manage virtual machines ordered by users in the BILLmanager control panel. The panel administrator has access to all management features except for creating new virtual machines.

Editing the VM resources

To edit the resources of a virtual machine:

1. Enter Products/Services → Virtual private servers → select the service → Edit button.
2. Increase or decrease the amount of resources within the limits established in the tariff settings for each resource type. If the amount of resources increases, the client's personal account or linked card will be charged for these changes. If the amount of resources decreases, the money will be returned to the client to the personal account or linked card. Ordering and refusal of additional resources is determined by the relevant tariff policies. Read more in How to create and configure a tariff plan.
3. To edit resources without performing financial transactions, enable the Do not perform financial operations option.
4. Press Ok to save changes.

Deleting a VM

To delete a virtual machine:

1. Enter Products/Services → Virtual private servers → select the service → Delete button.
2. Confirm the deletion. BILLmanager will delete the service and send a request to VMmanager 6 to delete the VM.

Enabling a VM

To power a virtual machine on from the BILLmanager control panel:

1. Enter Products/Services → Virtual private servers → select the service → Enable button.
2. Confirm powering the VM on.

Disabling a VM

To power a virtual machine off from the BILLmanager control panel:

1. Enter Products/Services → Virtual private servers → select the service → Disable button.
2. Confirm powering the VM off.

Rebooting a VM

To reboot a virtual machine from the BILLmanager control panel:

1. Enter Products/Services → Virtual private servers → select the service → Reboot button.
2. Confirm rebooting the VM.

Navigating to VMmanager 6

To go from the BILLmanager control panel to the VMmanager6 platform:

1. Enter Products/Services → Virtual private servers → select the service → To platform button.
2. VMmanager will open in a new browser tab.

Managing VM snapshots

You can manage VM snapshots without going to the VMmanager 6 interface. To do this, go to Virtual private servers and select the desired virtual machine.

To create a snapshot of the virtual machine:

1. Click Snapshots.
2. Click Order and enter the snapshot name.

To delete a snapshot of the virtual machine:

1. Click Snapshots and select the desired snapshot.
2. Click Delete and confirm the deletion.

To restore the state of the virtual machine from a snapshot:

1. Click Snapshots and select the desired snapshot.
2. Click Restore and confirm the restore.

On the client's side

A client can work with a virtual machine in the BILLmanager client area, and can also navigate from the billing platform interface to the VMmanager 6 platform.

Creating an VM

To create a virtual machine, the client orders it in the client area. To do this, the client goes to the Virtual private servers menu → Create a virtual server.

The client chooses a virtual server with the required amount of resources or sets this amount, if the provider has enabled this feature. Then he clicks the Order now button and specifies the rest of the settings for the virtual machine. For example:

• Control panel license;
• Operating system;
• Number of cores;
• RAM;
• Disk space;
• Public IPv4 addresses;
• Domain name;
• etc. Parameters may differ depending on how the provider has configured the tariff plan and its contents.

After configuring all the parameters of the virtual machine, the client presses the Pay button and pays for the order.

Editing the VM resources within the specified quotas

To manage virtual machine resources, the client goes to Virtual private servers and selects the virtual machine. The information about the selected virtual machine is displayed.

To edit the resources, the client goes to Configuration. Within the limits set by the provider in the tariff for this service and depending on the balance on the personal account, the customer can increase or decrease the amount of resources. For example, he can increase the size of disk space or the amount of RAM. 

When increasing the resources, the customer makes an additional payment, when reducing, depending on the settings of the tariff, the money is returned to the client's personal account. Ordering and refusal of additional resources is determined by the relevant tariff policies. Read more in How to create and configure a tariff plan.

For resource changes to take effect, you must reboot the virtual machine. It can be done:

• at the stage of editing — before paying, enable the Reboot server option;
• manually in the VMmanager 6 platform. Read more in the relevant article of VMmanager's documentation: Operations with virtual machines.

Deleting a VM

To delete a virtual machine, the client enters Virtual private servers → selects the virtual machine → menu → Delete server and confirms the deletion.

BILLmanager deletes the service and sends a request to VMmanager 6 to delete the VM.

Rebooting a VM

From BILLmanager, the client can reboot a virtual machine without switching to VMmanager. To do this, the client enters Virtual private servers → selects the virtual machine → menu → Reboot and confirms the reboot.

Navigating to VMmanager 6

From the BILLmanager client area, the client can navigate to VMmanager 6. To do this, the client enters Virtual private servers → selects the virtual machine → menu → Navigate to platform.

VM snapshot management

The client can manage snapshots without going into the VMmanager 6 platform.

To create a snapshot of the virtual machine, the client:

1. Clicks Snapshots.
2. Clicks Order and enters a name for the snapshot.

To delete a virtual machine snapshot, the client:

1. Clicks Snapshots and selects the desired VM snapshot.
2. Clicks Delete and confirms the deletion.

To restore the state of the virtual machine from a snapshot, the client:

1. Clicks Snapshot and selects the desired VM snapshot.
2. Clicks Restore and confirms the restore.