How to Interrupt a Virtual Machine (VM) Boot Process
Coming from another cloud?
▸AWS·EC2 Instances
EC2 Instances
- Uses EC2 RunInstances API instead of Nova servers.create.
- Requires predefined instance type selection.
- Supports per-second On-Demand billing and Spot/Reserved options.
- Includes hibernation state not standard in OpenStack.
▸Azure·Virtual Machines
Virtual Machines
- Uses Azure Resource Manager (ARM) REST API at /providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines instead of OpenStack Nova API at /v2.1/servers.
- Tightly integrated with Azure services like Azure Active Directory for authentication, unlike OpenStack's Keystone.
- VM creation requires specifying size from predefined series with hardware-specific features (e.g., AMD/Intel/ARM), not custom flavor configs.
- Billed per second with complex pricing tiers based on series/reservation options, vs OpenStack's typically hourly or usage-based.
▸DigitalOcean·Droplets
Droplets
- API surface is DigitalOcean’s proprietary REST/CLI/Terraform tooling rather than OpenStack Nova/Neutron/Glance APIs (Droplets are managed via DigitalOcean UI/CLI/API/Terraform).
- Billing is usage-based with per-second billing (60-second minimum and monthly cap) rather than the typical per-hour, quota-based charge model users often see in OpenStack-based clouds.
- Droplets include a bundled outbound transfer allowance with each plan (starting at 500 GiB/month) rather than a separate bandwidth quota/metering model users often encounter in OpenStack deployments.
- Droplets are described as Linux-based VMs on virtualized hardware with local SSD storage, whereas OpenStack deployments commonly expose distinct block storage (Cinder) and image services (Glance) and may not bundle bandwidth/monitoring/firewalls into the instance offering.
▸Google Cloud·VM instances
VM instances
- Uses REST API 'instances.insert' instead of Nova 'servers.create' with different auth via service accounts vs Keystone.
- Supports bare metal instances (no hypervisor), not in standard OpenStack Nova.
- Network interfaces tied to VPC subnets; differs from Neutron ports/floating IPs.
▸Hetzner·Cloud Servers
Cloud Servers
- Servers provisioned individually via Hetzner API (hcloud), not OpenStack Nova flavors; fixed instance types like CX11 (1 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 20GB NVMe).
- No flavor customization; choose from predefined shared/dedicated vCPU series.
- Billing hourly with monthly cap per server (e.g., €3.29/mo cap for CX11), charged even when powered off until deleted, unlike typical OpenStack stop-to-pause billing.
- Custom REST API at api.hetzner.cloud/v1/servers instead of OpenStack Nova /v2.1/servers (different auth, payloads, response formats).
How to interrupt a virtual machine (VM) boot process
Issue#
You may need to interrupt a Virtual Machine (VM) boot process for technical or administrative reasons. For example, there may be configuration errors, required testing, security concerns, or critical maintenance and updates that require a boot interrupt. Once interrupted, you can access the operating system in recovery mode to act.
Interrupting the boot process will typically allow you to access the operating system recovery process. Depending on your VM's operating system, recovery may be presented in the command line as a simple menu, such as the Ubuntu operating system recovery menu.
Solution#
This example shows how to interrupt the boot process on a VM running the Ubuntu 22.04 operating system.
- Login to your Quake AI project.
- Go to Compute > Instances to view the VM dashboard.
- Find the target VM for the boot interrupt. In the Action column, click the console icon and select Open Console from the dropdown menu.
- Click the Send CtrlAltDel button to restart the machine.
- Click into the console window and press and hold the Esc key. The process may take a few seconds to interrupt.
- Once interrupted, the VM console window typically displays an operating system menu that allows you to act on the VM. For Ubuntu operating systems, select Advanced options for Ubuntu.
- Select the appropriate image version and kernel version with the recovery mode.
- After the system reboots, the system displays a recovery menu.
- Select
rootto access the VM as root user.
These instructions for interacting with operating system menus and options may vary depending on the operating system installed on your VM.
Usage Guidelines
The sample code, software libraries, command line tools, proofs of concept, templates, and other related technology on this page (including any of the foregoing that is provided by Quake AI personnel) is provided to you as Quake AI Content under the Quake AI Customer Agreement, or the relevant written agreement between you and Quake AI (whichever applies). Do not use this Quake AI Content in your production accounts, or on production or other critical data. You are responsible for testing, securing, and optimizing the Quake AI Content (such as sample code) as appropriate for production grade use based on your specific quality control practices and standards. Deploying Quake AI Content may incur Quake AI charges for creating or using Quake AI chargeable resources, such as running Compute instances or storing data in Object Storage. Your use is also subject to the Acceptable Use Policy.
For the full policy, see Usage Guidelines.
Last validated: 04.06.2026
Quick answers
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