Dashboard

What each part of the box list does.

The dashboard lists your boxes and lets you create, connect to, pause, and destroy them. It updates on its own, so you do not need to refresh the page while a box boots.

Creating a box

The create form takes:

• Name. A short identifier such as build-box. Names only need to be unique among your own boxes.
• Image. The base operating system for the box.
• Size. How much CPU, memory and disk the box gets: Small (1 vCPU, 4 GiB, 10 GiB disk; the default), Medium (2 vCPU, 8 GiB, 10 GiB disk) or Large (4 vCPU, 16 GiB, 30 GiB disk). The line under the picker shows the chosen size's CPU, memory and disk. Each row in the box list shows its size.
• Template (optional). A ready-made setup script from the public template catalog, applied on first boot. Templates cover things like installing a Kubernetes distribution or a language toolchain. Once one is picked, Guide under the picker opens its guide below the form: what it installs and what to run on the box afterwards. Every guide is also a page in Templates.

A box booted with a template shows the template's next steps under its row. The next steps link in the row, named after the template, hides or shows them. Each command can be copied, or sent to the box's terminal with To terminal, which types it there without running it, so you can adjust it before pressing Enter.

A template takes a while to apply, a few minutes for the larger ones, and the box is up before it finishes. Until then its row reads applying with the template's name, and Follow the install under it opens the box's terminal on the install's output. What the template installs is not there yet, so wait for the row to read running before following the next steps.

Closing the tab, refreshing, or navigating away while a box reads creating does not cancel it: the box is being created on the server and carries on, and it is in the list the next time you look. If you did not want it, destroy it from its row like any other box.

Box states

Each row shows a state indicator:

Connecting

• Terminal opens an in-browser shell. The browser talks directly to the box over a secure WebSocket using a short-lived ticket, so the session stays fast and private.
• The shell keeps running on the box when the page goes away. Refresh the dashboard and your open terminals come back as you left them, with anything that was running still running. Closing a terminal's tab leaves the shell running too, and Terminal picks it up again; type exit to end it.
• Open in a new window pops the terminal or desktop out. The popped out window picks up the existing session, so nothing is lost.
• Desktop opens a VNC session for images that ship a graphical environment.
• Copy IP address copies the box's address for use with your own tools.

Pause and resume

Pause snapshots the box and stops its process. This is the cheapest way to keep a box around when you are not using it. Resume brings it back with its disk intact.

Public URLs

The Public URLs tab gives a port of a box a public HTTPS link that anyone can open, and lists the ones you have -- up to five per account, on every plan. See Public URLs.

Auto-pause

A running box holds its full memory whether or not anyone is using it, so a box that goes unused for 6 hours is paused automatically. Nothing is lost: it is the same snapshot as the Pause button, and Resume brings the box back exactly where it left off, open programs included.

"Used" means any of these, from the dashboard or the boxctl CLI:

• typing in its terminal or desktop, or output scrolling past in one
• running a command on it with boxctl exec
• opening a terminal or desktop session, or resuming the box

Simply having the dashboard open does not count, and neither does a terminal tab left sitting at an idle prompt.

When a running box is within 30 minutes of being paused, its row says so. Using the box restarts the countdown.

Backups

The Backups section below the box list holds saved copies of your boxes. See Backups for how to create, download, and restore them.

Deleting a box

Delete destroys the box and its disk. This cannot be undone, so take a backup first if you might need the contents again.