Instances

VeloxaHost instances are your primary compute unit. They can be system containers (ultra-fast, shared kernel) or virtual machines (full hardware emulation). Both are managed identically from the console and API.

Containers vs Virtual Machines

Property	Container	Virtual Machine
Start time	~1–2 seconds	~15–30 seconds
Kernel	Shared with host	Own kernel
Disk footprint	10–50 MB base	1–5 GB base
Density	Very high	Medium
Isolation	Namespace isolation	Full hardware emulation
Use case	Web apps, microservices, CI	Databases, legacy apps, kernel modules

💡

Rule of thumb: Start with containers. If you need to load a kernel module, run a Windows workload, or need complete network namespace control, use a VM.

Instance Sizing

Instance resources (CPU, RAM, disk) are set at creation time but can be resized at any time from the instance detail page. Changes take effect after a restart.

Size	vCPU	RAM	Disk	Best For
micro	1	512 MB	10 GB	Dev/test
small	1	1 GB	25 GB	Light web apps
standard	2	4 GB	50 GB	Most workloads
large	4	8 GB	100 GB	Production apps
xlarge	8	16 GB	200 GB	High-traffic services
custom	—	—	—	Any resource spec

Instance Lifecycle

Instances move through the following states:

Stopped — Created but not running. Resources are allocated but no compute happens.
Starting — Transitioning to running. Takes 1–30 seconds depending on type.
Running — Active and accepting connections.
Stopping — Graceful shutdown in progress.
Frozen — Suspended. Memory state preserved. Resume instantly.
Error — An operation failed. Check the console logs.

Exec & Web Console

You can run commands inside an instance without SSH using the console tab in the instance detail page. This uses a secure WebSocket tunnel directly to the Incus API.

# From the VeloxaHost API
curl -X POST /api/v1/instances/{name}/exec \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ghc_..." \
  -d '{"command": ["bash"], "interactive": true}'

📌

The web console is available even if your firewall blocks SSH. It's particularly useful for recovering access to a misconfigured instance.

Plan Limits

Each organization plan has instance, CPU, and memory limits. Attempting to create an instance that exceeds plan limits will fail with a clear error message. Upgrade your plan from Settings → Billing to increase limits.