Making a VM preemptible

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Yandex Cloud

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Updated at May 5, 2025

Creating a preemptible VM
Changing the VM type

You can create a preemptible VM or change the type of a VM that already exists.

Creating a preemptible VM

To create a preemptible VM:

Management console

CLI

Terraform

API

In the management console, select the folder where you want to create your preemptible VM.
In the list of services, select Compute Cloud.
In the left-hand panel, select Virtual machines.
Click Create virtual machine.
Under Boot disk image, select an image and OS version.

To create a VM from an existing boot disk, go to the Custom tab and select the boot disk you need. To update disk settings, click next to the disk name.
Under Location, select the availability zone to host your preemptible VM.
Optionally, configure the boot disk under Disks and file storages:
- Select the disk type.
- Specify the required disk size.
- Optionally, to encrypt a boot disk or a secondary disk, under Disks and file storages, click to the right of the disk name and configure encryption parameters for the disk:
  - Select Encrypted disk.
  - In the KMS key field, select the key you want to use to encrypt the disk. To create a new key, click Create.
  To create an encrypted disk, you need the kms.keys.user role or higher.
  
  Warning
  
  You can specify encryption settings only when creating a disk. You cannot disable or change disk encryption. You also cannot enable encryption for an existing disk.
  
  If you deactivate the key used to encrypt a disk, image, or snapshot, access to the data will be suspended until you reactivate the key.
  
  Alert
  
  If you destroy the key or its version used to encrypt a disk, image, or snapshot, access to the data will be irrevocably lost. For details, see Destroying key versions.
If you are creating a VM instance from an existing boot disk, update the settings of that disk in the Custom tab under Boot disk image at the top of the form.
Optionally, add a secondary disk:
- Under Disks and file storages, click Add.
- In the window that opens, select Disk. You can select an existing disk or create a new one, either empty or from a snapshot or image.
  
  For example, to create a new empty disk:
  - Select Create new disk.
  - In the Contents field, select Empty.
  - Enter a name for the disk.
  - Select the disk type.
  - Specify the required disk and block size.
  - Optionally, enable Additional in the Delete along with the virtual machine field if you need this disk automatically deleted when deleting the VM.
  - Click Add disk.
Optionally, connect a file storage:
- Under Disks and file storages, click Add.
  - In the window that opens, select File storage and choose the storage you want to connect from the list.
  - Click Add file storage.
Under Computing resources:
- Navigate to the Custom tab.
- Select a platform.
- Specify the guaranteed performance and required number of vCPUs, as well as RAM size.
- In the Additional field, enable Preemptible.
- Optionally, enable a software-accelerated network.
Under Network settings:
- In the Subnet field, enter the ID of a subnet in the new VM’s availability zone. Alternatively, select a cloud network from the list.
  - Each network must have at least one subnet. If your network has no subnets, create one by selecting Create subnet.
  - If you do not have a network, click Create network to create one:
    - In the window that opens, specify the network name and select the folder to host the network.
    - Optionally, enable the Create subnets setting to automatically create subnets in all availability zones.
    - Click Create network.
- In the Public IP address field, select an IP address assignment method:
  - Auto: To assign a random IP address from the Yandex Cloud IP address pool. In this case, you can enable DDoS protection using the option below.
  - List: To select a public IP address from the list of previously reserved static addresses. For more information, see Converting a dynamic public IP address to static.
  - No address: Not to assign a public IP address.
- Select the relevant security groups. If you leave this field empty, the default security group will be assigned to the VM.
- Expand Additional and select a method for assigning internal addresses in the Internal IPv4 address field:
  - Auto: To assign a random IP address from the pool of IP addresses available in the selected subnet.
  - Manual: To manually assign a private IP address to the VM.
  - Enable DDoS protection, if required. The option is available if you previously selected the automatic IP assignment method in the public address settings.
- Optionally, create records for your VM in the DNS zone:
  - Expand DNS settings for internal addresses and click Add record.
  - Specify a zone, FQDN, and TTL for the record. When setting the FQDN, you can enable Detect automatically for the zone.
    You can add multiple records to internal DNS zones. For more information, see Cloud DNS integration with Compute Cloud.
  - To create another record, click Add record.
If you want to add another network interface to your VM, click Add network interface and repeat the settings from this step for the new interface. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.
Under Access:
- Select Access by OS Login to connect and manage access to the new VM using OS Login in Yandex Cloud Organization.
  
  With OS Login, you can connect to VMs using SSH keys and SSH certificates via a standard SSH client or the Yandex Cloud CLI. OS Login enables rotating the SSH keys used to access VMs, providing the most secure access option.
- If you prefer not to use OS Login, select SSH key and specify the following VM access data:
  - Under Login, enter a username.
    
    Alert
    
    Do not use root or other reserved usernames. To perform operations requiring root privileges, use the sudo command.
  - In the SSH key field, select the SSH key saved in your organization user profile.
    
    If there are no saved SSH keys in your profile, or you want to add a new key:
    - Click Add key.
    - Enter a name for the SSH key.
    - Upload or paste the contents of the public key file. You need to create a key pair for the SSH connection to a VM yourself.
    - Click Add.
    The SSH key will be added to your organization user profile.
    
    If users cannot add SSH keys to their profiles in the organization, the added public SSH key will only be saved to the user profile of the VM being created.
If you want to add multiple users with SSH keys to the VM at the same time, specify these users' data under Metadata. You can also use metadata to install additional software on a VM when creating it.

In public Linux images provided by Yandex Cloud, the functionality of connecting over SSH using login and password is disabled by default.
Under General information, specify a name for the preemptible VM:
- It must be from 2 to 63 characters long.
- It may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
- It must start with a letter and cannot end with a hyphen.
Note

The VM name is used to generate an internal FQDN, which is set only once, when you create the VM. If the internal FQDN is important to you, make sure to choose an appropriate name for your VM.
Under Additional:
- Optionally, select or create a service account. With a service account, you can flexibly configure access permissions for your resources.
- Optionally, enable access to the serial console.
- Optionally, under Backup, enable Connect and select or create a backup policy to make automatic backups of your VMs using Cloud Backup.
  
  For more information, see Connecting Compute Cloud VMs and Yandex BareMetal servers to Cloud Backup.
- Optionally, to configure delivering Linux metrics and any additional metrics from your apps, enable Monitoring under Agent for delivering metrics and select:
  - Yandex Monitoring: Install an agent to collect additional metrics from VM instances and apps.
  - Yandex Managed Service for Prometheus®: Install and configure an agent to collect additional metrics from VM instances and apps in Prometheus format:
    - Select or create a workspace to store your metrics.
    - Optionally, describe the delivery parameters for your custom metrics, in JSON format.
- Optionally, under Placement, select a VM placement group.
Click Create VM.

The preemptible VM will appear in the list.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI yet, install and initialize it.

The folder specified when creating the CLI profile is used by default. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID> command. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

See the description of the CLI command for creating a preemptible VM:
```
yc compute instance create --help
```
Prepare a key pair (public and private keys) for SSH access to the preemptible VM.

Select a public Linux-based image from Yandex Cloud Marketplace, e.g., CentOS 7.

To get a list of available images using the CLI, run this command:

yc compute image list --folder-id standard-images

Result:

+----------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+--------+
|          ID          |                NAME                 |          FAMILY          |     PRODUCT IDS      | STATUS |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+--------+
...
| fdvk34al8k5n******** | centos-7-1549279494                 | centos-7                 | dqni65lfhvv2******** | READY  |
| fdv7ooobjfl3******** | windows-2016-gvlk-1548913814        | windows-2016-gvlk        | dqnnc72gj2is******** | READY  |
| fdv4f5kv5cvf******** | ubuntu-1604-lts-1549457823          | ubuntu-1604-lts          | dqnnb6dc7640******** | READY  |
...
+----------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+--------+

Where:

ID: Image ID.
NAME: Image name.
FAMILY: ID of the image family the image belongs to.
PRODUCT IDS: IDs of Yandex Cloud Marketplace products associated with the image.
STATUS: Current status of the image. It may take one of the following values:
- STATUS_UNSPECIFIED: Image status is not defined.
- CREATING: Image is being created.
- READY: Image is ready to use.
- ERROR: You cannot use the image due to an issue.
- DELETING: Image is being deleted.

Create a preemptible VM in the default folder:
```
yc compute instance create \
  --name first-preemptible-instance \
  --zone ru-central1-a \
  --network-interface subnet-name=default-a,nat-ip-version=ipv4 \
  --preemptible \
  --create-boot-disk image-folder-id=standard-images,image-family=centos-7,kms-key-id=<key_ID> \
  --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
```
Note

If you are using CLI 0.92.0 or lower, you also need to specify the VM platform in the command: --platform standard-v3. You can find out your CLI version using the yc version command. To install the latest version, run yc components update.

Where:
- --name: Name of the preemptible VM. The naming requirements are as follows:
  - It must be from 2 to 63 characters long.
  - It may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
  - It must start with a letter and cannot end with a hyphen.
  Note
  
  The VM name is used to generate an internal FQDN, which is set only once, when you create the VM. If the internal FQDN is important to you, make sure to choose an appropriate name for your VM.
- --zone: Availability zone matching the selected subnet.
- --network-interface: VM network interface settings:
  - subnet-name: Name of the selected subnet.
  - nat-ip-version=ipv4: Public IP address. To create a VM without a public IP address, omit this parameter.
  If you want to add multiple network interfaces to your VM, specify the --network-interface parameter as many times as you need. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.
- --preemptible: Select to create a preemptible VM.
- --create-boot-disk: VM boot disk settings:
  - image-family: Image family, e.g., centos-7. This option allows you to install the latest version of the OS from the specified family.
  - kms-key-id: ID of the KMS symmetric key to create en encrypted boot disk. This is an optional parameter.
    
    To create an encrypted disk, you need the kms.keys.user role or higher.
    
    Warning
    
    You can specify encryption settings only when creating a disk. You cannot disable or change disk encryption. You also cannot enable encryption for an existing disk.
    
    If you deactivate the key used to encrypt a disk, image, or snapshot, access to the data will be suspended until you reactivate the key.
    
    Alert
    
    If you destroy the key or its version used to encrypt a disk, image, or snapshot, access to the data will be irrevocably lost. For details, see Destroying key versions.
- --ssh-key: Path to the file with the public SSH key. The preemptible VM will automatically create a user named yc-user for this key.
  
  When creating a VM from a Yandex Cloud Marketplace public image, make sure to provide an SSH key, as SSH access with a username and password is disabled by default for such images.

If you do not have Terraform yet, install it and configure its Yandex Cloud provider.

In the configuration file, define the parameters of the resources you want to create:
```
resource "yandex_compute_disk" "boot-disk" {
  name     = "<disk_name>"
  type     = "<disk_type>"
  zone     = "<availability_zone>"
  size     = "<disk_size>"
  image_id = "<image_ID>"
}

resource "yandex_compute_instance" "vm-1" {
  name                      = "preemptible-vm"
  allow_stopping_for_update = true
  platform_id               = "standard-v3"
  zone                      = "<availability_zone>"

  resources {
    cores  = <number_of_vCPUs>
    memory = <RAM_in_GB>
  }

  boot_disk {
    disk_id = yandex_compute_disk.boot-disk.id
  }

  network_interface {
    subnet_id = "${yandex_vpc_subnet.subnet-1.id}"
    nat       = true
  }

  metadata = {
    ssh-keys = "<username>:<SSH_key_contents>"
  }

  scheduling_policy {
    preemptible = true
  }
}

resource "yandex_vpc_network" "network-1" {
  name = "network1"
}

resource "yandex_vpc_subnet" "subnet-1" {
  name       = "subnet1"
  zone       = "<availability_zone>"
  network_id = "${yandex_vpc_network.network-1.id}"
}
```
Where:
- yandex_compute_disk: Boot disk description:
  - name: Disk name.
  - type: Disk type.
  - zone: Availability zone the disk will reside in.
  - size: Disk size in GB.
  - image_id: ID of the image to create the preemptible VM from. You can get the image ID from the list of public images.
    
    You can also view image IDs in the management console when creating a VM or in Cloud Marketplace on the image page under Product IDs.
- yandex_compute_instance: Description of the preemptible VM:
  - name: Name of the preemptible VM.
  - allow_stopping_for_update: Permission to stop the VM for updates. Set to true if you plan to change your VM's network settings or computing resources using Terraform. The default value is false.
  - platform_id: Platform.
  - zone: Availability zone to host the preemptible VM.
  - resources: Number of vCPUs and amount of RAM available to the preemptible VM. The values must match the selected platform.
  - boot_disk: Boot disk settings. Specify the disk ID.
  - network_interface: VM network interface settings. Specify the ID of the selected subnet. To automatically assign a public IP address to the VM, set nat = true.
    
    If you want to add multiple network interfaces to your VM, specify the network_interface section as many times as you need. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.
  - metadata: In metadata, provide the public key for SSH access to the preemptible VM. For more information, see VM metadata.
  - scheduling_policy: Scheduling policy. To create a preemptible VM, select preemptible = true.
- yandex_vpc_network: Cloud network description.
- yandex_vpc_subnet: Description of the subnet to connect your preemptible VM to.
Note

If you already have suitable resources, such as a cloud network and subnet, you do not need to redefine them. Specify their names and IDs in the appropriate parameters.

For more information about the resources you can create with Terraform, see the relevant provider documentation.
Create the resources:
1. In the terminal, change to the folder where you edited the configuration file.
2. Make sure the configuration file is correct using the command:
```
terraform validate
```
  If the configuration is correct, the following message is returned:
```
Success! The configuration is valid.
```
3. Run the command:
```
terraform plan
```
  The terminal will display a list of resources with parameters. No changes are made at this step. If the configuration contains errors, Terraform will point them out.
4. Apply the configuration changes:
```
terraform apply
```
5. Confirm the changes: type yes in the terminal and press Enter.
This will create all the resources you need in the specified folder. You can check the new resources and their settings using the management console.

Use the create REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Create gRPC API call.

When a VM is created, it is assigned an IP address and hostname (FQDN). This data can be used for SSH access.

You can make a public IP address static. For more information, see Making a VM public IP address static.

Changing the VM type

To change the type of a VM, such as making it non-preemptible:

Management console

CLI

Terraform

API

In the management console, select the folder where the preemptible VM is located.
In the list of services, select Compute Cloud.
In the left-hand panel, select Virtual machines.
Click in the row with the VM you need and select Stop.
In the window that opens, click Stop. The VM status will change to Stopped.
Click next to the VM you need and select Edit.
Under Computing resources, disable Preemptible.
Click Save changes.
At the top right, click Start.
In the window that opens, click Start.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI yet, install and initialize it.

See the description of the CLI command for stopping a VM:
```
yc compute instance stop --help
```

Get a list of all VMs in the default folder:

yc compute instance list

Result:

+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
|          ID          |       NAME      |    ZONE ID    | STATUS  |     DESCRIPTION      |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
| fhm0b28lgfp4******** | first-instance  | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my first vm via CLI  |
| fhm9gk85nj7g******** | second-instance | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my second vm via CLI |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+

Select ID or NAME of the VM, e.g., first-instance.

Stop the VM:

yc compute instance stop <VM_name_or_ID>

Result:

done (15s)

Edit the VM parameters:

yc compute instance update <VM_name_or_ID> \
  --preemptible=false

Result:

done (1s)
id: fhm0b28lgfp4********
folder_id: b1ghgf288nvg********
...
network_settings:
  type: STANDARD
placement_policy: {}

Restart the VM:

yc compute instance start <VM_name_or_ID>

Result:

done (11s)
id: fhm0b28lgfp4********
folder_id: b1ghgf288nvg********
...
network_settings:
  type: STANDARD
placement_policy: {}

If you do not have Terraform yet, install it and configure its Yandex Cloud provider.

In the configuration file, find the section specifying the scheduling policy of the VM you want to make non-preemptible:
```
scheduling_policy {
  preemptible = true
}
```
Delete the scheduling_policy field with the preemptible = true value.

For more information about the resources you can create with Terraform, see the relevant provider documentation.
Make sure the configuration files are correct.
1. In the command line, go to the directory where you created the configuration file.
2. Run a check using this command:
```
terraform plan
```
If you described the configuration correctly, the terminal will display a list of the resources being created and their parameters. If the configuration contains any errors, Terraform will point them out.
Deploy the cloud resources.
1. If the configuration does not contain any errors, run this command:
```
terraform apply
```
2. Confirm creating the resources.
This will create all the resources you need in the specified folder. You can check the new resources and their settings using the management console.

Use the update REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Update gRPC API call. Under schedulingPolicy in the request body, specify "preemptible": false.

This will affect the cost of running this VM. Learn more about VM pricing here.

Making a VM preemptible

Creating a preemptible VM

Changing the VM type

See also

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Making a VM preemptible

Creating a preemptible VMCreating a preemptible VM

Changing the VM typeChanging the VM type

See alsoSee also

Was the article helpful?

Creating a preemptible VM

Changing the VM type

See also