Node Management¶

Eight.ly OS provides full server administration from the dashboard — no SSH required for most tasks. The node management panel covers system services, certificates, DNS, disk management, packages, and more.

Where to find it: Infrastructure > click your server node > use the inner tab navigation

System summary¶

The node summary shows real-time sparkline charts and system info:

• Hostname, OS, kernel version
• CPU model and core count
• Memory usage with allocation breakdown
• System uptime and load average
• Network interface status

Inner tabs¶

Each node has a full set of management tabs:

ZFS pool creation and management lives on the main Storage page in the sidebar, not as a Node inner tab.

Service management¶

The System tab lets you manage systemd services directly:

• View service status (running, stopped, failed)
• Start, stop, restart, enable, disable services
• View service logs

No SSH needed — manage Docker, Samba, NFS, and other services from the browser.

Disk management¶

The Disks tab shows all block devices via lsblk with SMART health data:

• Drive model, serial, capacity, temperature
• SMART status badges (healthy, warning, failing)
• Partition layout
• Pool membership (SnapRAID data/parity, MergerFS pool, cache, ZFS vdev)

Package management¶

The Updates tab manages system packages via apt:

• View available updates
• Install individual packages or update all
• View installed package list

The Repositories tab manages APT sources — add, edit, or remove repositories without editing files manually.

Network interfaces¶

The Network tab provides:

• View all network interfaces (physical, bridges, bonds, VLANs)
• Edit interface configuration (IP, gateway, DNS, MTU)
• Create bridges for VM networking
• Create bonds for link aggregation
• Create VLANs

LVM management¶

The LVM and LVM-Thin tabs manage logical volumes:

• Create and manage volume groups
• Create logical volumes (standard and thin-provisioned)
• Resize volumes
• View usage and allocation

Power actions¶

Reboot, Shut Down, and Stop Array are always available from the power icon in the dashboard's top header — not buried in a tab, so you can act on the whole box from any screen. The same actions are also available here on the node.

• Restart / Shut Down are graceful: virtual machines are asked to stop first, then containers and apps (and the Docker service itself), then the Shelver, then the storage array is stopped cleanly — and only then does the machine restart or power off. A VM or container that ignores the request is powered off once its configured wait elapses, and the step reports it by name rather than hanging.
• Whatever was running before a restart comes back on its own once the box boots.
• Stop Array stops the storage array without touching the rest of the machine. If shares, containers, or VMs are still using it, you're told what and nothing is stopped.
• If an action can't proceed, the dialog stays open and names exactly what's in the way, instead of failing silently.

Firewall¶

The Firewall tab manages the host firewall. See Firewall for the full picture — it's built on nftables, not UFW, with built-in protection against locking yourself out.

Updating the OS itself¶

The Updates tab here covers ordinary Debian package updates via apt. Updating Eight.ly OS itself — the binary and dashboard — is a separate, one-click flow (look for an update notice in the dashboard header) called Featherfall: it downloads and verifies the new version, swaps it in, checks that the box is healthy, and automatically rolls back if it isn't. Kernel and driver updates still require a new installer image, not an in-place update.

See also: Security Model for broader security guidance.