--- name: vpc-host-failure-recovery title: Host failure recovery policies description: If a host fails unexpectedly and cannot be recovered, virtual server instances on the failed host are automatically restarted on a healthy host. The restart policy can be configured to not restart the virtual server instance when you create an instance or on an existing instance. last-updated: 2026-06-26 --- > ## Documentation Index > The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?format=markdown > The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt > Use these files to discover more information as needed. # Host failure recovery policies {: #host-failure-recovery-policies} If a host fails unexpectedly and cannot be recovered, virtual server instances on the failed host are automatically restarted on a healthy host. The restart policy can be configured to not restart the virtual server instance when you create an instance or on an existing instance. {: shortdesc} IBM Cloud® uses continual monitoring procedures and operations that help prevent disruption to your workloads during unplanned host failures. IBM Cloud® continuously monitors your infrastructure to make sure that all hosts are healthy and responsive. Detection of a host issue occurs within 30 seconds of occurrence. When a host failure is detected and the host cannot be immediately recovered, IBM Cloud® initiates the selected failure recovery policy within 5 minutes for all virtual servers on the affected host. ## Available recovery policies {: #available-policies} The default setting for the host failure policy of an instance is 'restart'. The policy can be changed at any time without disrupting the instance and is only used when during recovery from a host failure event. | Host failure policy | Policy description | |---------|---------| | restart | The instance is automatically restarted on another compute host | | stop | The instance is not to be restarted on another compute host | {: caption="Host failure recovery policies" caption-side="bottom"} ### Restart {: #restart} When the host failure policy is set to restart and the host fails, the instance is relocated to another available host and restarted. The restarted instance uses the same boot volume and the same data volumes as the original instance. The restarted instance is assigned the same floating IP, static and dynamic IP addresses on the new host. ### Stop {: #stop} When the host failure policy is set to stop when the host fails, the instance is not restarted. The status of the instance is changed to stopped. The user can choose to restart the stopped instance by issuing an instance start action. When restarted, the instance is placed on an available host. ## Setting the recovery policy in the console {: #set-policy-ui} {: ui} - To set the failure recovery policy in the console during instance provisioning, find the Advanced options on the provisioning page. 1. In the Advanced options, find 'Host failure auto restart'. This option can be toggled or off. - To set the failure recovery policy for an existing instance, complete the following steps. 1. In [IBM Cloud console](https://console.cloud.ibm.com){: external}, click the **Navigation Menu** icon ![menu icon](../icons/icon_hamburger.svg) **> Infrastructure** ![VPC icon](../../icons/vpc.svg) **> Compute > Virtual server instances**. 2. On the **Virtual server instances** page, click the Actions icon ![More Actions icon](../icons/action-menu-icon.svg) for the instance that you want to manage. 3. From the instance details page, locate 'Host failure auto restart'. Click the pencil icon and choose Enabled or Disabled to toggle the status of the host recovery policy on or off. For more information, see [Creating virtual server instances by using the UI](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-creating-virtual-servers&format=markdown) and [Managing virtual server instances](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-managing-virtual-server-instances&interface=ui&format=markdown). ## Setting the recovery policy from the CLI {: #set-policy-cli} {: cli} During instance create or patch, the following attributes can be used to set the host failure policy. For more information, see [Creating virtual server instances by using the CLI](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-creating-virtual-servers&interface=cli&format=markdown) and [Managing virtual server instances](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-managing-virtual-server-instances&interface=cli&format=markdown). | Host failure policy | Policy attribute | |---------|---------| | restart | `--host-failure-policy restart` | | stop | `--host-failure-policy stop` | {: caption="Recovery policy attributes" caption-side="bottom"} ### Creating an instance with host failure policy {: #create-instance-policy} You can create an instance in your IBM Cloud VPC and change the availability policy on host failure by using the command-line interface (CLI). Run the ibmcloud is instance-create command and set the `--host-failure-policy` property to `restart` or `stop`. The host failure policy service is set to `restart` by default. ```sh ibmcloud is inc test r006-a0162c41-6a75-4a04-aabb-da1c78539531 us-south-2 bx2-2x8 7284-47efd8c6-0efc-462e-89c0-e0457119f90b --image r006-63363662-a4ee-4ba4-a6c4-92e6c78c6b58 --host-failure-policy stop Creating instance test under account VPC1 as user myuser@mycompany.com... ID 7284_683902df-85ce-4546-808c-3675247074d8 Name test CRN crn:v1:bluemix:public:is:us-south-2:a/a1234567::instance:7284_683902df-85ce-4546-808c-3675247074d8 Status pending Availability policy on host failure stop Startable true Profile bx2-2x8 Architecture amd64 vCPU Manufacturer Intel vCPUs 2 Memory(GiB) 8 Bandwidth(Mbps) 4000 Image ID Name r006-63363662-a4ee-4ba4-a6c4-92e6c78c6b58 ibm-centos-7-9-minimal-amd64-3 VPC ID Name r006-a0162c41-6a75-4a04-aabb-da1c78539531 cli-vpc-1 Zone us-south-2 Resource group ID Name 11caaa983d9c4beb82690daab08717e9 Default Created 2021-10-25T16:39:30+05:30 Boot volume ID Name Attachment ID Attachment name - PROVISIONING 7284-69923add-65e2-4b93-bee4-a4bca3836696 collector-reverb-exiting-swinging ``` {: screen} ### Updating an instance with host failure policy {: #update-instance-policy} You can update an instance in your IBM Cloud VPC with and change the availability policy on host failure by using the command-line interface (CLI). Run the ibmcloud is instance-update command and set the `--host-failure-policy` property to `start` or `stop`. The host failure policy service is set to `restart` by default. ```sh ibmcloud is inu 7284_683902df-85ce-4546-808c-3675247074d8 --host-failure-policy restart Updating instance 7284_683902df-85ce-4546-808c-3675247074d8 under account VPC1 as user myuser@mycompany.com... ID 7284_683902df-85ce-4546-808c-3675247074d8 Name test CRN crn:v1:bluemix:public:is:us-south-2:a/a1234567::instance:7284_683902df-85ce-4546-808c-3675247074d8 Status running Availability policy on host failure restart Startable true Profile bx2-2x8 Architecture amd64 vCPU Manufacturer Intel vCPUs 2 Memory(GiB) 8 Bandwidth(Mbps) 4000 Image ID Name r006-63363662-a4ee-4ba4-a6c4-92e6c78c6b58 ibm-centos-7-9-minimal-amd64-3 VPC ID Name r006-a0162c41-6a75-4a04-aabb-da1c78539531 cli-vpc-1 Zone us-south-2 Resource group ID Name 11caaa983d9c4beb82690daab08717e9 Default Created 2021-10-25T16:39:30+05:30 Boot volume ID Name Attachment ID Attachment name r006-780e6d41-b8c0-4023-b81f-2dcabf0b834f aardvark-matrix-tidy-fragment 7284-69923add-65e2-4b93-bee4-a4bca3836696 collector-reverb-exiting-swinging ``` {: screen} ## Setting the recovery policy with the API {: #set-recovery-policy-api} {: api} During the instance [create](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/apis/vpc/latest#create-instance) or [update](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/apis/vpc/latest#update-instance) operations, the `host_failure` subproperty can be used to set the host failure `availability_policy` of the virtual server instance. If the compute host experiences a failure, specify `restart` or `stop` to set the policy. | Host failure policy | Attribute | |---------|---------| | restart | 'restart' | | stop | 'stop' | {: caption="Recovery policy API " caption-side="bottom"} For more information, see [Create an instance](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/apis/vpc/latest#create-instance) and [Managing virtual server instances](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-managing-virtual-server-instances&interface=api&format=markdown). ## Next steps {: #host-fail-next-steps} For more information about planned and unplanned host outages, see the FAQ [In what cases is my virtual server migrated to a different host?](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-faqs-for-vsis&format=markdown#faq-vsi-13)