This article is for anyone who wants InfraNest to manage their cloud servers automatically — for example, powering a server back on, rebooting it, or turning on backups without doing it by hand.
Overview
- Automations can act on your servers so rules can respond to events without manual steps.
- A rule can power on, reboot, or shut down a server, and turn backups or delete protection on or off.
- Every action is reversible — there's no rebuild, restore or delete, so a rule can never wipe a server.
NoteServer actions are part of a paid plan. On a free plan they appear in the builder but are greyed out until you upgrade.
What a rule can do to a server
- Power on server
- Reboot server (a graceful restart)
- Shut down server (graceful — power it back on whenever you like)
- Enable or disable backups (the provider's automatic backups)
- Enable delete protection / Disable delete protection
Add a server action
- Open Automations, then New automation (or edit an existing rule).
- Pick a Trigger — what should set this off (for example a Monitor alert, or Server added).
- Under Do this, choose a server action — they're grouped under Servers.
- Choose which server to act on:
- Leave it set to Use the one from the trigger when the trigger already involves a server (like Server added) — the action uses that server automatically.
- Otherwise, use Choose a server… to search and pick a specific server.
- Click Save automation.
Start from a template
The Template library has two ready-made recipes:
- New server → enable backups & protection — every server you add is automatically backed up and protected.
- Monitor down → reboot the server — self-healing: if a monitor fails, reboot the server and tell the team.
Click Use, adjust anything you like (for the reboot recipe, pick which server under Choose a server…), then click Save automation.
TipFor a "reboot when down" rule, keep the built-in Cooldown so a flapping monitor can't reboot the server over and over. Add conditions under Add condition (like a tag) to keep the rule pointed at the right servers.
Troubleshooting
- If a server action looks greyed out, check whether your plan includes server actions — you may need to upgrade.
- Every server action is written to your Audit Log and shows up in the automation's Run history, so you can always see what ran and when.
- If a rule keeps misfiring, check Conditions and Only if… filters to narrow down which servers or events it should react to.
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