How-To Guide

NetActuate virtual machines deploy in seconds across 40+ global edge locations with dedicated (non-shared) compute resources, 10 Gbps networking, and full API access. This guide covers everything you need to deploy, manage, and automate your VM infrastructure.

Deploy a Virtual Machine

The portal build wizard walks you through selecting a hardware pool, location, server size, operating system, and authentication in a single flow. VMs are typically running within 15 seconds of clicking Submit.

• Deploying a Virtual Machine — step-by-step walkthrough of the build wizard, from CPU type selection through deployment

Note: For VPU-accelerated workloads, the build wizard includes an accelerator attachment option. See Accelerators for details.

Manage Your VMs

Once deployed, the VM management sidebar gives you full control over your server's lifecycle, networking, and configuration.

• Managing a Virtual Machine — power controls, console access, live scaling, networking, reports, logs, and tools
• Redeploying a VM — reinstall the OS while keeping your IP addresses and location
• Canceling a VM — cancel immediately or at end of billing term

Accelerators and Scaling

Attach hardware accelerators for specialized workloads or scale your VMs vertically and horizontally to match demand.

• Accelerators — attach VPUs (NETINT Quadra), GPUs (NVIDIA), and DPUs for hardware-accelerated video, AI/ML, and network workloads
• Vertical Scaling — resize CPU and RAM on a running instance via the API
• VM Worker Redundancy — deploy redundant worker nodes with BGP for high availability

Secrets and Initialization

Inject configuration and credentials into VMs at boot time using cloud-init and the Secrets Manager.

• Working with Secrets — store and inject key-value pairs during VM provisioning
• Secrets Manager API — manage secrets programmatically

Automate Your Workflow

Every portal action is available via the API. Use your preferred automation tooling to provision and manage VMs at scale.

• Terraform Provider — provision VMs as infrastructure-as-code
• Ansible Playbooks — automate deployment and configuration
• GoNA SDK — Go SDK for the NetActuate API
• API v3 Reference — full API documentation

Additional Resources

• Other Resources — API references, automation links, and related guides
• VPU Encoding with NETINT Quadra — deploy a VM with a Quadra VPU and run FFmpeg-based video encoding
• VM Scaling Guide — vertical and horizontal autoscaling patterns

Advanced Build Options

NetActuate supports additional configuration passed at build time. These options are available via the API and Ansible — they do not require post-boot configuration.

• Cloud-Init and startup scripts — install packages, write files, and run commands at first boot. See Building VMs with Cloud-Init.
• Firewall sets — apply firewall rules before the VM is reachable. See Building VMs with Firewall Sets.
• Multiple NICs and VLANs — attach secondary network interfaces to Cloud VLANs at build time. See Building VMs with Multiple NICs and VLANs.
• Secrets injection — pass credentials and API keys into cloud-init without storing them in plaintext. See Using Secrets Manager with Cloud-Init.

Need Help?

Contact support@netactuate.com or open a support ticket from the portal.